Why Man Utd have been better than their results

With just two Premier League wins since the start of April, it seems only a fool would say that Manchester United have been improving under Ruben Amorim…and yet that's exactly what the stats suggest.

While only Tottenham have taken fewer points in their last 10 games, United's underlying numbers suggest their performances have deserved more and, if anything, it's the players who have underperformed more than Amorim and his much-maligned formation.

We've excluded penalties to show how good United have been at creating and restricting chances themselves, rather than relying on opposition clumsiness or shirt-pulling like they did to score the winner against Burnley.

As you can see, United have taken the most shots in the Premier League in the last 10 games, while only rivals Manchester City - Sunday's Premier League opponents - have faced fewer among the 17 sides ever-present during the time frame.

The big problem has been scoring and saving them, with United's players scoring seven goals fewer than Premier League players have historically from the chances they've had and conceding four goals more.

While it's worth mentioning that those 10 games include 65 minutes against 10-man Bournemouth and Aston Villa, it's not a given that teams easily dominate games when an opponent has a man sent off, as Liverpool's recent game against Newcastle showed.

Only six sides have been more dominant than United in their last 10 Premier League games and if they'd been as efficient as other teams, United would have around double the points than the paltry eight they have.

What's the cause of this big underperformance in both boxes? It's hard to know for sure. It could be that the players simply aren't good enough – in which case United buying a whole new front line and goalkeeper this summer makes a lot more sense – or a lack of confidence or just plain old bad luck.

One thing that won't have helped the players be efficient under Amorim and that could be blamed on his tactics is that since he took charge, United have taken both the lowest-quality shots up front and given up the highest-quality shots at the back.

Even so, the expected goal numbers already take that added difficulty into account so United's players should be doing better, although both creating the worst chances and being the worst at converting chances is not a good combination.

If we look at their 30 Premier League games under Amorim overall, while obviously starting from a low bar, the team have been steadily improving since the start of March, creating more and better chances than their opponents (the yellow line) even if results currently suggest otherwise (the black line).

Why does it matter how much more United have recently dominated games and been 'expected' to score when at the end of the day, scoring and conceding actual goals is all that matters?

Because history tells us that football is a simple game: the more a team creates lots of good chances up front and allows few, bad ones at the back, the more success they have in the long-term.

While being clinical in both boxes is obviously important and United do need to work on the quality of their shots, not even the most blessed or cursed teams can 'cheat' their expected goal numbers forever.

So although Ruben Amorim hasn't had the impact many United fans would've hoped for when he took over in December, there have been signs recently of things getting better under him.