Manchester United’s Limp Win at Norwich Shows No Real Signs of Progress

Manchester United beat Norwich City at Carrow Road on Saturday thanks to a 72nd-minute Juan Mata goal. It was a performance that typified the limp, lacklustre displays they have managed away from home against the Premier League’s stragglers all season.

Indeed, of the bottom seven teams in the standings, Norwich are just the second team United have beaten on the road. The other was Aston Villa—back in August 2015, an Adnan Januzaj goal was the difference in another 1-0 win.

It is this dismal record against bad teams away from home that has meant the end of United’s league season is being spent attempting to scrape into the top four. Their home record is the second-best in the division, behind only the champions Leicester City. Their away record is the eighth-best.

If they had picked up even six more points from trips to Bournemouth, Sunderland, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion, then a UEFA Champions League place would comfortably have been theirs. Instead, manager Louis van Gaal is left hoping Manuel Pellegrini’s season with Manchester City’s is even more disastrous than his campaign with United.

Against Norwich, the kind of game that was in store was all too obvious once Anthony Martial got injured in the warm-up. Given Marcus Rashford’s absence from the squad, it meant a No. 9 role for Wayne Rooney. It is abundantly clear that should only ever be a position he plays in an emergency.

Even his assist for Mata—his best contribution all game by some distance—came after he had blown …

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