There were big signs of improvement today, which wasn't hard as things couldn't exactly get any worse, but it was an encouraging display. However, still some key problems to worry about.
Compared with Arsenal, City or Chelsea, United don't have anywhere near as much creative flair in the centre of the pitch, so starting Dembele, Paulinho and Sandro all together in central midfield, with Chadli drifting inwards, meant they'd struggle to create chances through the middle and would be restricted to trying to whip crosses in from out wide. This suits our defence (normally) and we should have been fine if it weren't for a howler from Walker and Lloris being too slow to get to that ball.
The problems for me are about the attack. Yes, this was our best attacking performance in a while and we should have scored some additional chances. But I think you should always expect to have a few chances that you miss. It's a numbers game, you can never take all of them. Last season, we had 23 shots with 18 of them on target against Man Utd, with De Gea pulling off some top saves, then when Dempsey finally scored in the last minute it felt like we'd got a well deserved victory even though we'd only drawn the game. This time around, 10 shots with 4 on target, and it felt like we'd drawn the game because neither side had been good enough to win it.
We still have huge problems with players standing around ball watching when we're in possession, not busting a gut to find some space and create an option for a pass. Nor are they playing quick one touch football when a pass is received (bar Soldado in the first half that created the chance he missed). It's something that really needs to be worked on because you can't rely on Sandro scoring a 30 yard screamer every week, it just doesn't happen. This for me comes down to coaching.
Subs were poor today. I don't get what AVB sees in Chadli. He is a winger who can't cross and can't beat a man. Yes I know he put in a "defensive shift" and all, but that's not what he's there for. Lennon is a Leeds fan and hates Man Utd, therefore he always plays well against them and was doing so again until he was bizarrely substituted and the decision was rightfully booed. Lennon was doing very well now that he's back on the right hand side, if we'd had Townsend on the left we could have pegged them back, stretched the play, got more crosses into Soldado and stretched the play to create space for Paulinho to run into in the middle. Valencia's defensive work has been called into question this season too. Oh well.
Things were better today. But as this was the worst Man Utd team we've faced in a while and the worst performance we've put in against them for a while, it still wasn't good enough.