Entering the business end of the 2019/20 Premier League campaign, it is now very much make or break for United to secure Champions League football for next season, something that was, for many years, a minimum expectation for a club constantly battling amongst the vertex of world football.
To make the task that much harder, the Old Trafford side will have to complete the majority of the run-in without their shining light, and top goalscorer this season, Marcus Rashford. Before suffering injury in mid-January, the 22-year-old forward had been in scintillating form, with 14 goals from 22 appearances in the league, and his link-up play with striker Anthony Martial unquestionably beginning to flourish.
Having scored two goals in the 4-0 demolition of Norwich, Rashford was given a place amongst the substitutes in the FA Cup tie against Wolves. Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must have been praying that United’s passage through in the competition would turn out to be plain sailing, without the need to bring on the young Englishman, who had played a lot of football already this season, and who, it was widely thought, was struggling with a few niggling injuries. With the score still at 0-0 past the hour mark however, Solskjaer gambled, replacing Dan James with Rashford in the hopes of breaking the deadlock. United did exactly that,with a cool Juan Mata finish proving to be the difference between the two sides. In the 80th minute though, and just 16 minutes after entering the fray, Rashford went down clutching his back, and would play no further part in the game. It was subsequently revealed that Rashford had suffered a double stress fracture, and would miss a huge portion of the rest of this campaign. The question, therefore, now becomes: Can Manchester United still succeed without their influential talisman?
Much will be dependant of course on Martial finally hitting a rich vein of form. His 8 goals in 19 appearances in the league campaign in all honesty belies his overall performance level, which most would agree simply hasn’t been good enough, and certainly not sufficient to help United realise their top four ambitions. On his day, Martial can be one of the most feared strikers in Europe, his combination of pace and power enough to unsettle even the most competent of defences. Too often however, he seems to drift in and out of games, his frustration regularly overriding his effort levels if he deems he is not being given the required service. United are desperate for the Frenchman to put them on his back at times, and carry them over the finish line. It’s time, once and for all, for him to justify the huge fee that United forked out for him as a largely unknown teenager.
As part of a desperate need to bring in more firepower up front due to Rashford’s injury, Solskjaer and the board opted to sign 30-year-old former Watford striker Odion Ighalo with minutes to spare in the January transfer window. With fairly undesirable names like former Leicester man Islam Slimani as well as Bournemouth’s Josh King being bandied about, the capture of Ighalo was seen as a sad indictment of where United are as a club right now, as well as how simply inadequate their recruitment system has become. Romelu Lukaku was sold back in August, with the club apparently knowing that he wanted out last March, so why were other targets not identified and acted upon, without the need to bring in an aging player on a six-month loan deal, who last played in the Premier League in the 2016/17 season, and has since been plying his trade in China? The same player, who in his last season in England’s top flight, scored just a solitary goal in 18 appearances.
The acquisition of Portuguese playmaker Bruno Fernandes will certainly be a massive boost to United’s chances of success this year. A player that many fans had been crying out for since last summer, when the club were originally thought to be interested in him, the former Sporting man brings with him a plethora of goals and assists at club level. His quality, along with his unwavering determination to win, and refusal to accept anything less than one-hundred-percent from his fellow teammates, should feasibly see an upturn in results for United, providing he can strike up a relationship with the aforementioned Martial & Ighalo.
Whether United reach the summit, or falter just a few steps in, remains to be seen. But they should still have enough without Rashford to turn this season around.