Missed chances costing United
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With Liverpool losing at home to Swansea and Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur playing out a draw, it was the perfect time for Manchester United to take advantage and make a move on the teams above them. Stoke City away is rarely an easy game but with the talent at Jose Mourinho’s disposal, it should be a game the Red Devils are winning.
Manchester United dominated possession of the ball and although that’s a statistic which does not mean a great deal on its own, they turned that possession into chances. During the 90 minutes at the Bet365 Stadium, Manchester United had 25 shots but had to wait for a moment of brilliance from a Wayne Rooney free-kick in additional time, to find the back of the net and rescue a point.
If the 25 shots had all been speculative efforts, from 20 yards out from goal, perhaps you could say they did not create many good chances. The problem is, many of the chances were very good and should have resulted in a goal. Juan Mata should have scored from close range but missed the target, Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba should have given the goalkeeper no chance to make a save but failed to convert, Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave up several opportunities to shoot at goal by passing the ball and Jesse Lingard struck the top of the crossbar.
You cannot afford to miss this many chances in a Premier League game and expect to come away with the win. Towards the end of November, statistics revealed Manchester United had the lowest conversion rate of big chances in the Premier League. Following the home match against West Ham, Manchester United had created 164 chances in the league, scoring 18 goals, which meant they needed 9 good chances, to score a single goal.
Following the match against Liverpool at Old Trafford, the statistics had not changed. Manchester United were bottom of the Premier League table when it came to converting big chances, with a 32.43% conversion rate, compared to 62% for West Ham and 60% for rivals, Liverpool.
Jose Mourinho spoke after the Stoke game about the number of chances missed by Manchester United and the Portuguese must be feeling very frustrated at the number of points dropped this season due to missed chances. It would be more of a concern if chances were not being created but what is the point of dominating teams and making good chances, if they are never converted?
There is no doubt Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been a good signing for the club and has done very well in his first season in the Premier League. The Swede has 14 league goals to his name, the next best are Juan Mata and Paul Pogba, with 4 goals each. Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marcus Rashford have 9 goals between them, just over half of that scored by Ibrahimovic. It’s clear, if Manchester United are to break into the top four this season, their forward players need to start scoring goals and take the weight off Ibrahimovic.
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