Manchester United have become the Premier League's greatest entertainers this season, but that spectacle comes with a worrying caveat. Across their 10 league games so far there have been 33 goals in their matches — United themselves have scored 17 and conceded 16. Only once have they kept a clean sheet, and on just three occasions has a game involving them finished with one side failing to score.
Ruben Amorim's side clearly look a lot more dangerous going forward than in recent seasons: only four clubs have scored more than their 17 league goals. But that attacking progress is matched by defensive fragility. Of the teams in the top half of the table, United have conceded the most; only the five lowest-ranked clubs in the division have let in more than their 16 goals. They have now conceded at least twice in half of their league fixtures and have seven points from ten matches — a return blunted by those defensive lapses.
Amorim admits the number of goals conceded is a problem. Speaking before the trip to Tottenham, he highlighted Nottingham Forest's 17 shots at the City Ground as symptomatic of the issue. "If you look at the league table, the team that is winning is not suffering
