Better make that 12-10 as I have miscounted and didn’t include Fletcher.

If there is any inaccuracies I apologise but:

This time last season in the league we had had 11 different scorers, this season its 9 according to my statistics and calculations based on league only of course.

Three of our 26 goals this season have been own goals whereas in the 25 last season none were own goals.

The main reason why our total of goals is remotely acceptable is the combination of 3 own goals and Rooney who has scored 7 goals this season but only had 3 this time last season.

Berbatov has scored 4 goals, 2 more than this time last season.

Giggs, Anderson and O’Shea have 1 more as they didn’t score by this time last year.

Last season Rafael, Brown, Park, Vidic and Welbeck had pitched in with a goal but not this time round. Whose goals this season have made up for these?

Carrick has scored 2 times last season, only once this.

We have lost 8 goals from Ronaldo and 1 from Tevez and replaced them with Valencia and Owen scoring 2 a piece so far.

Last season Ronaldo scored 18 goals in 31 games league and that is superman stuff my standards. 6 assists is also reasonable, the way some people talk you would think it would be none. Let’s compare to Rooney 12 goals in 25 games and 7 assists.123 shots, 10% ratio of goals to shots- 6% less than Ronaldo.

Rooney, Berbatov, Fletcher, O’Shea, Giggs, Anderson and Nani are the players who have scored more goals this season compared with this same point last season, plus we have an extra 4 league goals from Valencia and Owen. Carrick has scored the same so far as he had at this point last season.

So, I’m not entirely sure what you mean when asking should we be “discouraged” by those that have scored less. Care to explain…?

I think you’re also being a tad misleading by claiming that whenever the ball was passed to Ronaldo, he provided us with goals and assists. He scored 16% of the shots he took last season and assisted 6 goals. I’m not knocking the lad but don’t make out he was superman last year, because he wasn’t.

You have left out important contextual points for example that this is a higher scoring premiership season overall across the league.

Surely last seasons low goals total isn’t the standard for comparison. Compare our goalscoring to Arsenal so far this season- how could you be positive then? I’m not saying be negative but let us wait and see.

Arsenal and Chelsea have scored more goals than us in the premier league whilst teams probably not challenging us such as Liverpool and belatedly Spurs have also scored more. Our total

Before the Everton match Valencia had 1 goal, Fletcher 2 (derby), Carrick had 0.

The players you list have played 9-12 games so far this season. Ronaldo didn’t start the first 4 matches last season (sub against chelsea). I make it that he played 8/9 games in the same time period in the premier league some of which he was only back from injury.

Berbatov is not a reliable goal scorer with 3 in 23 from the end of last season and into the beginning of this so why bother?

Rooney is a goalscorer but he has been on a slightly concerning run after a fine start. The jury is out.

I’m sorry if I was rude, I wouldn’t be reading your blog if I didn’t enjoy it overall but statistics are very deceptive and therefore unless there is a chasm of difference lots of nuance and reason can come into play in interpreting them.

I just prefer a very simple explanations that don’t reply on statistics but common sense.

My point from earlier:

“I will probably never understand how people come to the conclusion that Ronaldo in any way impeded the performance of others and the notion that now all the players are liberated! I’ve never heard the like of it. Whenever players passed to Ronaldo last season, he rewarded them with goals giving them assists. Now players are giving good passes only for less accurate players to miss. Whenever he got into good positions he set up others with excellent passes, now those passes are less frequent in his absence. His runs freed the space for others to capitalise upon. One so called replacement isn’t a player who makes runs while his direct replacement on the wing runs into a dark alley all day long.

This season without him, less accomplished finishers are missing chances where he would have scored. Inferior wingers such as Nani and Valencia are wasting crosses which he put on a plate for others. I’m actually someone who stands up for Nani but if you were expecting to make up for Ronaldos departure with young players improving then the answer hasn’t been Nani, Anderson or Tosic. I think they are great, but their improvement is going to be gradual not immediate.”

The statistics show 1. we’ve scored more goals this season than we had at the same point last season, 2. several players are scoring more goals this season than they were last season.

You’re totally right in saying what Ronaldo gave us was unique but can long term success be built upon that? If Ronaldo was still a United player and missed months of this season, we’d be fucked, because mentally as much as physically (the ‘replacements’ in Valencia, Obertan and Owen) we would feel his absence. Instead, he’s a Real Madrid player, our players have been written off all summer, and are now raising their game.

Berbatov does need to be more consistent, agreed, but a couple of months in to his second season I’m happy enough that he is just scoring more.

All that shit about this being self-indulgent is nonsense. I’m interested by statistics and what they show – I’m sure I wasn’t alone in being interested in how we compare this season, despite no paper tipping us to win the league at the start of this season.

Scott has opportunistically posted this article, using threadbare statistics in an attempt to prove his point. It is a very poor article motivated by Scott’s need to be proven right and I knew as soon as three midfielders scored that this is the sort of article that we would be dealing with. Why is this blog becoming so predictable?

This article is self indulgent at the expense of others opinions.

Phrased as it is I have no choice but to stick up for Ronaldo and what he uniquely gave to the team despite the fact that we should be moving on from Ronaldo. I want to come on and enjoy a 3-0 win based on its own merit, no more- no less. I do not appreciate it being appropriated to points score (even though it fails in that regard too).

We’ve got the same thing with Berbatov as well where anytime he does anything good doubters are ‘rooted out’. People aren’t willing to address actual complaints as well e.g. I’ve complained about Berbatovs consistency in the past and people have responded that he scored against Blackburn- is that consistency?

People need to stop getting desperate and trying to prove points at every juncture with minimal evidence, a small sample size and unconvincing, manipulated statistics.

cheers, i should have looked into the african nations cup groups to see senegal didn’t qualify so diouf will be available if SAF wants to use him

I’d like to draw your attention to an article Scot wrote in the summer –

http://therepublikofmancunia.com/what-is-martin-samuel-talking-about/

which I feel spoke about these concerns and how they would be resolved.

For the record, I’m not holding my breath for an article from the megatit Martin Samuels to talk about how Ronaldo’s goals are now being replaced.

No Berba and Evans on Wednesday. It’s not a problem if they will be fit to play against Pompey. : ( Life is sucks without Berba in the line-up.