Things have gone from bad to worse at Manchester United. With a draw against Sevilla on Tuesday in the Champions League, Jose Mourinho has now failed to win in four consecutive home games, in all competitions, for the first time in his career. The midweek loss comes after yet another week of drama and yet another Premier League loss, this time to West Ham.
Manchester United have started the season with 10 points from their first seven matches, their worst start since 1989-90 when they had captured just seven points at this stage.
As such, this will obviously not be the only article about Manchester United you'll see this week, but rather than focusing on all the antics surrounding the club, let's look at the statistics to see what's really going on at United and what it means for fantasy.
For starters, people are not overreacting to the Red Devils' struggles, they're just ... reacting. Of the 14 outfield scoring categories in the ESPN game, this season is Mourinho's worst start in 10 of them. Six of those statistics come via the attack, which likely explains why they're sat 10th in goals scored at the moment.
Some may not be very surprised that a Mourinho team lacks impetus, but this is a fairly recent development for the Portuguese manager. Before he moved to Manchester he had never managed a Premier League side that finished outside the top three in attack. Since his swap to Old Trafford, however, his club have finished eighth and fifth in goal scoring. Those struggles have obviously bled into the 2018-19 campaign and we're left wondering if they'll be able to turn it around under Mourinho.
The talent seems to be there with Alexis Sanchez, Anthony Martial, Jesse Lingard, and Marcus Rashford all contending for starting spots. Unfortunately for Mourinho's job security, and fan's sanity, that quartet have managed to score just one goal between them this season, leaving the entire burden of goal scoring on the broad shoulders of one Romelu Lukaku.
The good news for the Belgian striker is that even in 2016-17, when United scored a meager 54 goals, Zlatan Ibrahimovic still managed to score 17 of them. Add in the fact that Lukaku has failed to hit 15 goals just once in his Premier League career, and it looks like he'll be able to score plenty, regardless of how much help or service he gets. While that's encouraging for the club, his fantasy prospects are not nearly as good in the ESPN game. In any given week you'd have to pick Lukaku over the likes of Sergio Aguero, Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah, and how often will he look a better play than not one, but all three of those players?
Fortunately, Paul Pogba does not have the same log-jam of talent at his position. In fact, he's projected to score the most points among Tier 1 midfielders this week (13.4). That may seem odd considering the narratives swirling around him, but it represents an important truth: Pogba is actually having a decent season. Obviously, he has not quite lived up to his billing since returning to England, but if you compare most players to how good they "could have been," you'll often be left disappointed.
Pogba came into week seven leading the league in shot accuracy, he's top three in shots on target, and leads his club in completed passes with 386. In fact, no player with as many shots on target has even half as many passes as the Frenchman, with Sadio Mane being the closest (160). It's not just passing that Pogba leads United in, by the way. None of his teammates can boast more shots, shots on target, take-ons, or duels won. Yes, the end product has left something to be desired, but in the ESPN game he is still averaging an impressive 14 points per game, which makes him a top-3 player in his tier and a top-15 player overall.
At the back, the United defense has certainly regressed in the opening stages of the season, but was it really ever that good in the first place? Last season's edition predominantly featured two converted wingbacks on the wrong side of 30, and two injury- and mistake-prone center backs, yet they earned the most clean sheets in the league with 19. The fact that they performed as well as they did was largely down to two men who aren't defenders: Mourinho and De Gea.
The latter has been considered the best keeper in the world by United fans for years, but they will surely be wondering where that player has gone this season. At this point last year, De Gea had already kept a league-high six clean sheets ... this year he's kept just one. This reflects United's comprehensive struggles at the back, having allowed six times as many goals (12) as they had at this time last season (2). Most damning is the fact that they have given up three or more goals three times already this season. Each time this has happened, De Gea has ended the week with negative points in ESPN scoring, where his points per game average now sits fifth-worst at 3.3. At the moment, De Gea's name far outshines his value.
That doesn't make the Spaniard useless, however. For example, this week's match against Newcastle should offer him the chance to repay the managers that continue to select him. The Magpies have yet to score more than one goal in a match this season which all but guarantees De Gea will either pick up the clean sheet or at least the three-point bonus for only conceding once.
Lukaku, on the other hand, could be in for a long day, as Rafa Benitez' sides very rarely suffer a bad loss as evidenced by the 2-1 scorelines they managed against Manchester City, Chelsea, and Arsenal, all of whom are playing far better than the Red Devils at the moment. The Belgian does have a decent record against Newcastle but, considering how uninvolved he is in play, he could score a goal and still finish third or fourth in his tier
The United player with both the highest floor and upside this week is Paul Pogba. No side has had less possession this season than Newcastle (39.1 percent) which should give the midfielder plenty of time to dictate play, rack up solid distribution numbers and, just maybe, find an assist to pair with them.
Admittedly this is would be a far punchier ending if I'd said all three of these players were either awful, or "must-haves," but the truth is De Gea, Pogba, and Lukaku are largely in the middle, stuck between being better than people think, but worse than they should be. This week, and most weeks, these Manchester United players should perform well but, like Mourinho, any time you put them in your side, there's a chance you'll wake up on Monday morning wondering how things went so wrong.