Manchester United's record at the halfway stage of the Premier League encapsulates both their improvement under Erik ten Hag and the sense there is obvious areas for development between now and May.
United will be delighted to be sitting third at this stage of the campaign. They already have a six-point cushion - and a game in hand - to Tottenham in fifth and if the title talk was fanciful, the main objective of this season was always a return to the Champions League.
But Ten Hag's team have navigated to that position despite scoring the fewest goals in the top nine and having the worst defensive record in the top four. They've used the strengths they do have to reach 39 points.
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Some of those anomalies can be explained. United conceded 10 of the 22 goals they've let in against Brentford and Manchester City. While it shows they can still occasionally fall apart, they've looked a lot more secure of late and have conceded just three times in eight games in all competitions since the season resumed.
The attack certainly remains a work in progress. There is a reliance on the in-form Marcus Rashford and not enough of a contribution from whoever plays through the middle and from the inconsistent and sometimes infuriating Antony.
It should be remembered this is a team in its infancy under Ten Hag, however. The regular starting XI features five players who only signed in the summer and progress is being made. The four days after the derby win last weekend building up to Crystal Palace on Wednesday were heady days, but the title was always likely to be beyond United this season.
A win at the Emirates on Sunday will catapult them back into the conversation but there are more realistic aims for the second half of the season. A trophy will be a triumph after six years without silverware, but winning a cup isn't always a reliable barometer of long-term progress.
Instead, Ten Hag should be challenging his side to win more points in the second half of the season than they did in the first. A return of 39 points is good, but it's also come in 17 games rather than 19, given the season started with those back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Brentford.
By the time the Premier League season wraps up in May, United should have more than doubled their points tally and more than doubled their current goal difference of eight. That will show that progress has continued to come throughout the season and anyone plotting United's points on a graph will see the line is heading in the right direction.
United would need 42 points from their final 19 games to match the tally of 81, in 2017/18, which remains their best in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. That looks entirely achievable but they will need to find those improvements.
It certainly looks like the defence has sharpened up since those early thrashings. The 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa before the World Cup seems to be more of an aberration than a trend now.
But finding more goals will be key to the improvement. If they continue to score at this rate then a return of 60 for the Premier League season will have been better six times in the last 10 seasons. They managed 57 goals last season.
The trend under Ten Hag has clearly been one of improvement, however. The Dutchman has elicited a rapid upturn in fortunes now and the way the defence has gone more from mistake-ridden to miserly very quickly. If a similar improvement can be found at the other end of the pitch then United should be able to find the 42 points (or 14 wins) they need to hit that benchmark of 81.
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