There has been news on three fronts for Manchester United since the transfer window shut on the 1st of September.
The first and the most exciting one of the lot: Manchester United are playing free flowing football. They are scoring goals galore and Old Trafford is once again a place of joy and humdrum. Be it young Marcos Rashford dribbling past two players or Romelu Lukaku unable to stop scoring or Henrikh Mkhitaryan assisting every possible Red Devil on the pitch or the same old news of David De Gea pulling another stunner out of the bag, the Old Trafford faithful are on cloud nine.
The second news got them a little worried: Injury to their midfield superstar Paul Pogba was followed by injuries to Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick. The news kept growing gloomier as more players followed into the medical room. Marcos Rojo and Eric Bailly have been added to the injury list with Marcos Rashford uncertain for the weekend clash. Doubts and scepticism are slowly crawling into the club and United might soon get into panic mode if they were to lose another first-team player in the near future.
The third and the worst news for any man in the red half of Manchester: Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City are playing the best possible football in Europe at the moment. They are dispatching sides with absolute ease and the fluidity in attack looks unstoppable. The Citizens have scored 34 goals in 9 matches since the market shut and with Aguero returning from a freak injury, it is safe to say that City are yet to hit top gear.
Ask any United fan, and the one thing that is worse than not winning the Premier League is losing to their noisy neighbours.
A glorious start to the new season has somewhat calmed down. It does not mean that United are suffering. Mourinho’s men remain firmly in contention for every major trophy this season. What is perhaps notable is that there is a sudden calm around Old Trafford at the moment. The kind of calm you see before a storm comes raging through, a storm before Zlatan Ibrahimovic comes kicking back to the Manchester United pitch.
The 36-year old Swede is close to full fitness and has returned to training. One of the most dynamic characters of football, Zlatan scored 27 goals last season in 45 games before getting injured. His return is surely going to boost the United attacking department and he will take some major scoring responsibility off the shoulders of Romelu Lukaku, or maybe with Zlatan being Zlatan, force the young Belgian superstar back to the bench with an impressive run of games.
How big of an effect will Zlatan’s return to the first team make at Old Trafford?
