If We Don't Win The League, We Know The Reason

Something has to be done about our injury record. It's not a one off.

weve had a high injury list for years now and nothing has ever been done about it behind the scenes to my knowledge...and its an even more of a worry considering we do rotate our starting 11 more than anyone else

And Scouse twats complaining about their injuries this season...

they need to take up Yoga classes like Giggs does

You dont have this kind of problem season after season if you arent doing something wrong

I'm thinking the problem lies at Carrington, must be something in the regime, or maybe even the pitches there. A lot of our injuries seem to be pulled muscles and strains.

...they´ve beaten us in both league games, thats why. I find it a poor excuse when some blame our injury problems for it. Cause we´ve a big squad, bigger than many other clubs. We should be able to deal with it, like all the years before when that didnt stop us from winning titles. And our only long term absentee was Vidic, the rest of our starting 11 was available for most of the games.

just shows that its taken by far the worst season in terms of the amount of injuries/illness in the career of sir alex, and the least amount of injuries for city of the 20 teams, plus pretty much an unlimited budget, for city to likely win the title - and even then only on goal difference

if the injuries of city and united were switched, its pretty clear and obvious to me united would have won the title

there are various reasons but the biggest one is the injuries

i wasnt expecting any trophies the moment vidic and fletcher were ruled out for the season plus all the other players out for extended periods, some who came back only to be injured again, so im nowhere near as dissapointed as most here...both city and united gaining then losing the title lead has made it alot more exciting second half of the season...and if it was not for scholes return city may have won it by april...but the bottom line is you cant expect to win trophies(particularly the league) with the amount of injuries they have had this season, its just not realistic...its not just the games missed, its not being able to rotate the squad properly, not giving enough rest to fit players putting them at greater risk of getting injured, having to play players out of position, and the squad getting pretty physically and mentally burnt out by the end of the campaign...united coming back so well in the second half of the season to make it a really good title race amazed me...united shouldnt have had an 8 point lead in the first place...the 3 teams to cause united to lose the lead: one goal at wigan who are in outrageous white hot form, two late goals to a good everton team(the last team to beat city away in the league), and one goal at city where all but one team in the league this season has lost(sunderland got a 3-3 draw)...i am not surprised by those results because in the prem any team can get a result against any team...and as rio and giggs pointed out and quoted in my run-in thread in the lead up to those games it only takes one bad result and performance to start a bad stretch and momentum if it is against you can have a snowball effect

the table above is based on one point per week per player out...but there are often 3 games in the space of 7 days and 5 in 2 weeks etc and i can say from having done the injury lists in the injury thread all season that over the first 40 league and cup games of the season there were at least 400 games missed collectively by united players with an average of 10 per match, sometimes only 7 or 8, but often up to 13 or 14 missing...the final game of the season next week will be the 54th match of the campaign including the charity shield...so it will end up being at least 500 games missed collectively this season by united players...and based on the table above united have had around six times the amount of players out than city have had out

and yes there have been some bad performances in games this season but im not going to be super critical of the squad, because of all the injuries and also because it has been a season of transition, which makes it more difficult to gauge exactly where united stand...the picture will be alot clearer next season and i am going to be very interested to see who is brought into the squad in the summer and hopefully the luck and intangibles can be in uniteds favour alot more particularly with injuries/illness...seeing how united perform and come back from this bizarre twilight zone of a season will be fascinating

thats a very good point and alot of injuries seem to be training injuries/setbacks/knocks etc

also almost half of uniteds games in this 54 game season are at old trafford so it would be interesting to see the percentage of injuries for united players in games at old trafford compared to other grounds

I am just happy Vidic will be back soon. No more sad days because of poor defense.

Maybe Hargravers had point after all if the problem lies at Carrington

we lost twice to city.
one point against them would have been enough

Hopefully he's the same player when he returns too.

I know one thing for sure I missed watching him play for us love it when he takes no prisiner taking man and ball.
At least the game time Evans got will help us if the future

this indeed.

why not admit that they´re just that bit better than us. That game last Monday said it all for me....we didnt create any chances, cant remember any scences when we were close to score.

For those saying we would've sewn the league up ten games ago had vidic played, how many points could city have gotten had Tevez not done his whole AWOL routine? I reckon they balance each other out.

as for our injury record alot of it is self inflicted. We have alot of players with extensive injury records and we keep them season it season out. I.e twinjuries, Cleverley, Ando, and Rio. I can tell you now that they'll miss playing time due to injuries next season.

no matter where you gain and drop points its a 38 game league, not a 2 legged playoff...whoever is top after 38 deserve to be champs

city were better than united in the 2 head to head games, but united have 6 more points than city do against the other 18 teams...and who knows, if vidic (or his injured understudy evans) had played last monday it may have been 0-0, and if that had happened united fans would not have liked the poor display but would have been super happy to stay 3 points ahead

the teams are tied on points despite all the setbacks united have had

people are free to be as critical as they want but for me uniteds overall performance in the league is being underrated - they have exceeded my expectations from where they were in the new year and have currently 6 more points than last season when they won the league(should end up being 9 more than last season with a win sunday) - also i find it strange that some majorly downplay the injury factor as being a critical impact on the season like it was nothing...take kompany and toure out of the city team for most of the season and 500 games missed collectively to their squad and see what that would do to them

united fans will no doubt be disappointed if they dont win the league, but they will come back strong in all the comps next season

For the most part I agree with you treble. Except at the end. Tevez return made an unbelievable difference to City. Where might they be had he been around for an extra five months?

I think our performance in the league has been very poor in terms of the football played and performances generally - but that is a result of our mistakes in the market over the last number of years. Depsite that we have actually managed to gather more points which is a testament to our manager.

go back to september october anderson and cleverly were purring together in the middle of the park,then injury struck

Goalkeeping dilemma at start.

Over reliance on rooney goals

Nani loss of form