Logo

United's hard earned 1-0 victory over newly promoted Birmingham on Sunday, and their surprising 1-0 loss to newly promoted Burnley today, have cast serious doubts on their chances of defending the title.

As always, there is more to the scorelines than meets the eye, and "newly promoted" does not tell the entire story.

Birmingham may be a newly promoted team, but they did possess the stingiest defence in the Championship, conceding a measly 37 goals in 46 matches. To put things in perspective, the average goals conceded in the Championship was just over 56. Burnley are a newly promoted team as well, and their Goals Against column reads 60.

But, that was against Championship opposition. This is supposed to be Manchester United, the team that scored 68 goals in 38 matches.

What is pleasantly surprising is United's toothless attack and inability to score. Owen seems to have taken off his shooting boots right after preseason. Berbatov has shown glimpses of his undoubted talent, but not more than that. Rooney seems to be the only real creative as well as their attacking threat—although Giggs does provide some creativity as well.

Last season, Ferguson had Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored goals and had a ton of assists. And due to his constant threat, he was able to draw defenders with or without the ball, allowing his teammates some additional space.

Ferguson also had Carlos Tevez, who contributed his fair share of goals and assists and provided the kind of energy that could rally an entire team.

One can only wonder what the scoreline would have been with either member of the duo on the team.

Historically slow starters, the Red Devils don't usually show up until the third or fourth match into the season. With an extremely favorable bunch of fixtures to kick off their campaign, they had as good a chance as any to start strong and show their intent of defending the title.

Fortunately, they have done none of the above.

Valencia and Owen do not even come close to replacing Tevez and Ronaldo, and unless the likes of Nani, Carrick, Fletcher, and Anderson really step up, we might see another Manchester at the Champions League next year.