The glass is still half full

Manchester Utd… 1

Crystal Palace… 1

If you’d told Erik ten Hag or anybody connected to or interested in Manchester United they’d take four points from their two games this week, chances are they’d have taken your hand off for it.

Albeit expectation most likely would’ve been that they would have taken three points tonight against Crystal Palace and been overjoyed to get a point in the Manchester derby.

As things panned out, in the opinion of this writer, they were lucky to get something out of either match. Therefore, if adjudicating on the progress being made (or not) under ten Hag, the glass must still be considered to be half full rather than half empty.

Now, when leading 1-0 against a team of the ilk of Palace after 91 minutes, one would expect United to close out the deal. That said, in fairness to David De Gea, it was an absolute torpedo of a shot from Michael Olise that beat him and, were it not for several sensational saves from the Spaniard, they could and most likely would have been well behind before that.

Take the above circumstances in conjuction with the fact that, in all honesty, there’s no way their first goal against Man City should have stood and they have every right to be chuffed enough with their week’s work.

Granted, the booking received by Casemiro late on – which rules him out of Sunday’s showdown with Arsenal, could’ve been avoided by either not playing the Brazilian at all in Selhurst Park.

Still, the pragmatic Dutchman will no doubt shuffle the decks, most likely dropping the rejuvenated Fernandes into a central midfield role and bring in Garnacho to fill the left wing berth vacated by Bruno.

All of which would still leave them well placed for what should be a cracking encounter against Mikel Arteta’s team.