United Aim To Maintain Fortress Old Trafford

Manchester United are turning Old Trafford into a fortress this season, with the club's best defensive home record in domestic football at this time of the year since 1994/95.

The art of defending starts from the front, as Louis van Gaal is often at pains to point out, and United’s excellent work in this area is ensuring domestic rivals are having little joy when trying to breach the Reds’ ranks at the Theatre of Dreams.

In 10 domestic games this term, only one opposition player - Liverpool’s Christian Benteke - has found the net and while his strike may have been spectacularly unstoppable, it proved a mere footnote in a game won 3-1 by the hosts. Considering the Capital One Cup tie against Middlesbrough went to extra time, the Belgian’s belter is the only blemish on some 840 minutes of football on United's home turf. David De Gea and Sergio Romero have both played their part in the clean sheets with six and three apiece but the whole team unit should be congratulated, thus far, on their efforts in this area.

A look back through the record books shows this is the club’s best league start defensively to a home campaign since 1994/95 when United’s defence was not breached domestically until 17 December, Stan Collymore beating Gary Walsh from long range in a surprise 2-1 triumph for Nottingham Forest.

Sir Alex Ferguson's team had, by then, kept 10 consecutive home sheets since August, with nine of those coming before the start of December, although IFK Gothenborg and Barcelona both netted twice in Champions League ties. Shut-outs were also recorded in the three final games of the season prior to that (1993/94) with Walsh registering two of these and no.1 Peter Schmeichel posting the other one.

Incredibly, Schmeichel kept 16 home clean sheets in the league in 1994/95 before Simon Charlton’s goal in the final outing of the season at Old Trafford. United bounced back to win that game against Southampton 2-1 but still ended up empty handed in May after being held 1-1 at West Ham, in the climax to the Premier League, and losing 1-0 to Everton in the FA Cup final at Wembley.

When assessing all goals conceded, obviously this year is even more impressive than that opening due to the Champions League statistics. Hence, you have to go all the way back to 1985/86 and the Ron Atkinson era to discover a time when United had let in less than this term’s three goals come the start of December in any season.

Atkinson’s men had gone seven-and-a-half home games without being breached until Craig Johnston opened the scoring for Liverpool and Colin West’s 89th-minute equaliser for Watford on 30 November was only the second strike past Gary Bailey at Old Trafford following the start of the campaign. The defence was breached for a third time on 21 December when Charlie Nicholas grabbed a winner for Arsenal.

Hence, shutting out the opposition is nothing new for Manchester United but that does not make this season’s statistics any less impressive as we await the final two Old Trafford tests of 2015 - Norwich City this Saturday and Chelsea on Monday 28 December.