Lack of creativity costs United again.

To say that Manchester United under performed against Crystal Palace would be an understatement at best. Despite Manchester United dominating the ball

Despite this, the game would give a good indication of whether or not Manchester United had improved from last leason.

It had been these types of games, where Man Utd were expected to dominate the ball, that they had struggled to win. It was an inability to move the ball quickly in midfield and a lack creativity in the attack that cost United so often last season. With Man Utd's midfield weakened by the sale of Ander Herrera to PSG there seemed no reason to expect any improvement.

United opened the season with a 4-0 win against Chelsea, scoring three on the counter after Chelsea had opened up trying to respond to the first one.

With Crystal Palace this was not going to be the case, especially when a mistake from Lindelof had put Jordan Ayew through to put the visitors 1-0 up. they would sit back and try to hold on to the lead. It was up to United to open them up.

From first minute to last the Red Devils passed the ball around in midfield, but were unable to open up the Crystal Palace for the majority of the game. A penalty miss from Marcus Rashford compounded a very frustrating day for the Reds. With two seemingly clear cut penalties ruled out, it seemed that today was just not going to be their day.

Salvation seemed to come through when Daniel James finding space, curled one into the top corner, only for van Aanholt to put the visitors back into the lead, blasting in a shot at the near post.

A 2-1 victory was Crystal Palace's first of the season, compounding a very poor day for the home team. Once again they had failed to create any clear cut chances against a smaller team. With the race for top four getting tougher all the time, questions have to be asked as to whether this team can compete.