MANCHESTER, England — Manchester United cleared an awkward hurdle against Luton Town on Saturday, winning 1-0 in the Premier League, but there’s a mountain to climb after the international break. Erik ten Hag’s team scraped past Luton thanks to Victor Lindelöf‘s second-half goal but — again — it was not a display to instil confidence ahead of tough run of away games against Everton, Galatasaray and Newcastle United following the November internationals.
United aren’t playing well enough to do things the easy way and it’s telling that they’re still waiting for a Premier League win this season by more than one goal. At least they found a way to win, though, and just like last weekend at Fulham, Ten Hag gratefully accepted a narrow 1-0 victory.
“Even after all the setbacks we dealt with, we are still in a position near the top four, and when we start to play well and when we get it done, a team is set for a couple of weeks and months, then other teams will get their setbacks and drop points,” Ten Hag said afterward with slightly more optimism than the performance deserved. “Now we have won four of our last five games in the Premier League. If you see all the trouble we had, we are in a very good position. That is a reason to be optimistic. Then we will move forward and get better performances and get even more points.”
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Ten Hag is dealing with a lot of different issues, including an injury list that has been lengthened after Christian Eriksen and Rasmus Højlund were both forced off against Luton. Nevertheless, his team are not helping themselves.
Højlund and Alejandro Garnacho both had good chances to score before half-time, but instead, another first half went by with United failing to find the net. In 12 Premier League games so far this season, they’ve scored four first-half goals and led at the break just once, against Burnley in September.
If early goals take the pressure off, then United are stuck in the habit of letting it pile on. They haven’t scored in the first 15 minutes of a league game this season and here Luton were happy to allow the frustration to creep in.
