Manchester United season expectations

Jose Mourinho looks set to complete his summer spending spree with the impending arrival of Paul Pogba for An astounding 100m. So with a total transfer spending reported 170m not including the crazy wages of a certain 34-year-old Zlatan, What can Manchester United fans hope or expect from their team in the 2016/17 season?

Manchester United are still being linked with potential moves for Dimitri Payet and Gabriel Jesus but the with almost 200m already spent this summer it seems unlikely Ed Woodward and the Glazers will be eager for any more big money signings this summer so it looks like Jose Mourinho now has his army and sets off to battle for the Premier League Like Daenerys Targaryen setting off to take the Iron Throne.

But unlike the popular Game of Thrones character Mourinho’s dragon is nowhere near fully matured! The world record 100m Manchester United are spending on Paul Pogba has raised many eyebrows both home and abroad. The 23-year-old returns after 4 years with Juventus and will carry an enormous weight of expectation on his shoulders for such a young man.

Jurgen Klopp gave his opinion choosing to question whether a team should risk that sort of fee just in case the player were to get injured: https://www.beinsports.com/us/premier-league/news/jurgen-klopp-questions-inflated-price-tags-on/306889

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Others like Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger have called the fee outright “scary” while conceding it quite simply is the environment of the soccer world we live in today.

So what can Manchester United fans expect from the upcoming season after such a headline grabbing summer? I believe a top four finish is as good as it gets in the premier league with Manchester City being the clear favorites to take home the title. This will no doubt be seen as a failure by many and by “The Special One’ himself. Maybe bringing a first UEFA EURO cup championship could provide enough to be seen as a success.

Jose Mourinho was brought to Manchester United to obtain instant success and bring back the bandwagon fans clearly at any cost. Louis Van Gaal was heavily criticized for his lack of attacking football, while if you look at Jose Mourinho’s last title-winning campaign he became known for “parking the bus”; So should he implement a similar style here at Old Trafford and get the required results unlike Van Gaal it will be very interesting to see if he will be condemned for doing so or heralded as the savior of Manchester United.

We haven’t seen too much of what Manchester United will look like this season due to a shortage of pre season matches which is no bad thing in the eyes of many as these world tours seem to serve as a risk of injuring stars for the sake of overseas shirt sales. So we will expect to get our first true look at the new starting eleven when Manchester United travel to Wembley to face the Premier League champions Leicester City in the annual curtain raiser for the new season The Community Shield.

A game seen by many as an overrated exhibition game it always provides a look into what’s to come in the upcoming season. Early signs seem to suggest that despite choosing to give the No.3 shirt to new signing Eric Bailly over the returning Luke Shaw both players will start with Shaw being on the left and Bailly playing as a centre back and partner to the emerging Chris Smalling with Matteo Darmian playing on the right.

The midfield is getting very crowded and will definitely need to be trimmed down before the end of the transfer window. The probables for starting in midfield are a central partnership of Paul Pogba and Morgan Schneiderlin with Anthony Martial, Wayne Rooney and Henrikh Mkhitaryan playing in attacking midfield roles with Zlatan as the lone striker.