Do We Need To Worry About Goals Against Newcastle?

Last season we scored a total of 11 goals against Newcastle, beating them 6-0 at home and 5-1 away. In these games, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 5 goals, Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney bagged 2 each, with Rio Ferdinand and Louis Saha also getting on to the scoresheet.

United will certainly be without Ronaldo for the opening game of the season against Newcastle at the weekend, with Rooney’s appearance still being hit-and-miss.

Is this going to be a problem for United?

On the opening day of the season last year, United finished with a very dull 0-0 against Reading. Despite dominating the game, our only striker, Wayne Rooney, hobbled off at half time and didn’t reappear for the second half.

As we all know, this didn’t have a terrible effect on our season, despite going on to drop points in the next two matches we played in as well.

Michael Carrick has today insisted that even with players missing on Sunday, United will be able to create and finish chances against Newcastle.

“It’s not really a concern,” said Carrick. “It’s still early days, the performances are there and we’re creating the chances. We’ve got the lads to stick them away. In an ideal world you’d be winning every match comfortably. Last season we didn’t start all that well, but hopefully we’ll start next week by banging the goals in and getting ourselves off the mark. Since the first game back against Aberdeen, we’ve all progressed and got better with every game. Sunday’s was a good performance. But we want to improve and get better. This is one step further in our preparations so I’m sure we’ll be ready.”

After creating plenty of chances on Sunday in the Community Shield, yet not finding the back of the net, there is a concern that United will struggle to score once the Premiership season starts. Carlos Tevez, whilst having a superb pre-season, is not an out-and-out striker, but will feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders as our only forward.

Even without the likes of Rooney, Ronaldo, Nani and Anderson, do you think we will have too much for Newcastle at the weekend?