Manchester United’s draw in Saturday’s big derby clash felt like a much-needed positive result after a week to forget for Ole Gunnar Solskajer’s side.
Obviously, the Norwegian boss would have liked to have seen his team secure all three points on the day, yet it felt like a fixture in which the priority was first and foremost to avoid defeat.
This was because United headed into the clash with Manchester City under immense pressure following their painful Champions League exit in Germany a few days earlier.
Their 3-2 defeat against RB Leipzig again brought into question the suitability of Solskjaer as United manager, and it also heaped pressure on a number of his key players such as David De Gea and Harry Maguire who haven’t had the best of starts to the season so far.
Not only is there frustration amongst fans over United’s performances on the continent, but there is also a sense that they’ve been far from their best domestically too. A lot of this thinking stems down from their record of just one league win in six home matches so far.
However, it is worth noting that predominantly as a result of their faultless record on the road, winning all five away league matches, United sit 8th and just five points off joint league leaders Tottenham and Liverpool.
To capture how that compares to the last season, below is a comparison between United's table positioning after the same number of matches.
In 8th this year, United are actually two places higher than what they were after playing 11 league matches last season when they sat 10th.
Not just that, but Solskjaer’s men have actually picked up seven more points in comparison to what they had after 11 matches of the previous season too.
The above makes for much better viewing as a United fan in comparison to being a supporter of rivals City who are both seven places and six points worse off than what they were at the same stage last season.
What the above highlights then is that despite the obvious imperfections throughout the season so far, there’s still some clear evidence of progression within this United side.
On the back of poor results, that’s not always easy to see. Yet, as things stand, a victory in their game in hand would put them just two points behind the league leaders.
Therefore irrespective of the setbacks the team have faced so far, there’s undoubtedly still a solid platform in place in order to help them go on and have a strong domestic campaign this year.
