Man United vs Everton
Saturday’s early Premier League clash played out a short time ago.
Said game would pit Manchester United against Everton at Old Trafford. Man United headed into the game looking to bounce back from their 1-0 loss to Aston Villa last weekend.
Everton, meanwhile, were facing, on paper, their toughest test of the Rafa Benitez era so far.
But, when all was said and done on Saturday, Everton likely came away the much happier of the two sides.
The first 45 was fairly uneventful, with Man United eventually opening the scoring thanks to a curling effort from Anthony Martial:
However, despite bringing on all of Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho in the second 45, the hosts were unable to add to their goal tally for the day.
And they would eventually be punished for this when the Toffees broke and eventually equalised via Andros Townsend:
Man United nearing unwanted record
Following that goal, a rather concerning stat has come to light.
As per Opta, Man United have conceded at least once in each of their last nine league matches at Old Trafford, their longest run of games without a clean sheet at home in the top-flight since February, 1971:
The big teams who win the title, 99.9 per cent of the time have a superb defensive record both home and away, but especially at their own ground.
However, Man United are, as shown by the above stat, quite clearly far away from having a solid backline and, in turn, far away from realistically being able to challenge for the Premier League.