The 3 things Manchester United need to get back to the top

If you think things can’t get much worse for Manchester United, think again.

Another terrible result means they are now 12th in the Premier League, just two points ahead of the relegation zone.

If you can’t score goals you can’t win games. And right now United can’t score goals.

So far this season they have scored 9 goals from 8 games in the league – and that includes two penalties.

So where is the next win coming from?

Not the next game. Liverpool are the visitors with a perfect 8 wins from 8 games.

Then it’s Norwich away and Bournemouth away with Partizan in the Europa League and Chelsea in the League Cup in between.

You can’t see them realistically picking up many points from the next three League games,  which could see them in the bottom three by the end of the month.

Last time they were relegated in 1973/4, nobody thought that could or would happen. They were too big a club. They had won the European Cup six years earlier. But it did happen. And that team couldn’t score goals either.

The challenge this season won’t be to get in the top four. It will be to avoid relegation. So what do they need to get back to the top?

New players

United need new players – a new midfield and new strikers. Too many players in the current squad aren’t good enough. This is what happens when players are sold and not replaced to generate income and cut the wage bill.

The older players are past their sell by dates. The younger players aren’t good enough. It’s all very well playing kids but what if they’re not good enough?

When it come to developing young players, United have been overtaken by Chelsea and Man City. The last time United won the FA Youth Cup was 2011. Chelsea have won it in 6 of the last 8 years. In one of the years they didn’t win it, they were runners-up. City have been runners-up in 4 of the last 5 years.

New manager

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a lovely bloke and a club legend but looks like he is out of his depth. Let’s face it, if he wasn’t a club legend he wouldn’t have got the job. But don’t blame him for the mess the club is in right now.

New owners

The blame for the mess the club is in lies higher up, with the men who run the club first and foremost in order to make themselves even richer than they are already. The club needs new owners – owners who want success on the pitch, not just money in their personal bank accounts.

It also needs a chief executive who knows how to run a football club – not a chief executive who signs big name players to sell merchandise then decides to promote young players to save money.

The Glazers got away with their business model while Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge of the football side and David Gill ran the commercial side.

But with the current manager out of his depth and a banker running the football club, they have been found out. They are ultimately responsible for the crumbling team and the crumbling stadium. And the sooner they are gone the better.