Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United must be more troublesome travellers – EPL talking points

Graham Caygill analyses how the difference between home and away was the difference between top-four and title-challenging for Manchester United.

Juan Mata celebrates scoring his penalty kick against Crystal Palace on Saturday for Manchester United. Glyn Kirk / AFP / May 9, 2015

Van Gaal’s United were poor travellers

Barring some freak results in the final two weekends of the Premier League season Manchester United are assured of a top-four spot and a return to Uefa Champions League action next season after one year away.

So, on paper it is job done for Louis van Gaal. That was the aim of the Dutchman back in August when he took charge following David Moyes’s disappointing year in the job that had ended with seventh spot in 2013/14.

Van Gaal will know he has a lot of work to do this summer to try to build United towards being back in the title hunt next year.

They may be back in the elite but they have never looked like challenging Chelsea this season, and the 16 points by which they trail is a fair reflection of their inconsistency.

But it is not too hard to see where the main problem area has been. Games away from Old Trafford.

United have won 14 times on home turf this season, the same as Chelsea, but points have proven rather harder to come by on the road.

United’s 25 points from 18 away games is the worst total of any of the top six sides. It is 13 behind Chelsea, eight less than Arsenal and six below Manchester City’s tally.

So that explains, in a very basic manner, why United are fourth and not second and pushing Chelsea hard.

That is why Saturday’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace was so encouraging for United fans.

They were far from convincing, not helped admittedly by injuries to Wayne Rooney and Luke Shaw, relied heavily again on the excellence of David De Gea in goal, and were the beneficiaries of a questionable penalty been given in their favour in the first half.

After Palace had equalised on Saturday there was a 15-minute period when a Palace second goal appeared inevitable. But United dug deep, held on, and found a winning goal through Marouane Fellaini’s header.

There is sometimes a rose-tinted glasses element to looking back at United’s success under Alex Ferguson that brought 13 titles between 1993 and 2013.

Yes, some of his sides played great attacking football, but his teams also knew how to win on their off-days, picking up three points when they had not been at their best, but still found a way to prevail.

It is what successful sides do, and if Van Gaal can develop this trait with United over the coming months then they just might be more troublesome to Chelsea and Jose Mourinho next season.

Man City over-reliant on Sergio Aguero

Sergio Aguero’s hat-trick against Queens Park Rangers on Sunday took him to 25 league goals and has almost certainly assured him of his first golden boot in English football.

It is eight more than he scored in City’s title-winning campaign in last year, so it is seems surprising that his efforts have not seen his side closer to Chelsea at the top.

Unfortunately while he has stepped up more in front of goal this season, his teammates have not. Aguero’s haul made up 16.6 per cent of City’s 102 goals last year, but this year he has scored 32.4 per cent of City’s 77 goals.

In 2013/14 City had three players in double figures, with Yaya Toure top-scoring with 20. This year, only David Silva, on 12, has made it into double digit figures, with Toure only scoring eight to highlight just how much City have relied on Aguero this term.

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