What Makes A Champion Team?

 The following is my analysis and observation on what makes a league-winning team regardless of league:

1.       A team that identifies, fully believes in the manager’s style of play and strategy and is successful in its implementation. Not every champion team plays attacking football with lots of possession or high pressing. There are teams that prefer to play on the counter-attack or are hard to break down. Some teams are tactical chameleons, able to switch from one formation to another seamlessly to nullify the opponents. Whatever the style, the team knows what to do on the football pitch and gets the results they need. A team that is in complete control on the pitch.

2.       A consistent team. There might be the odd defeat or draw or two but the winless run normally doesn’t stretch more than one or two matches. For most parts of the season, the team wins matches.

3.       A resilient team. No matter what the odds are in front of them, injuries, suspension, bad luck, poor form, poor performance, the team finds its way to win matches. They win by hook or crook. They don’t need to always play well and it's in fact, easier to win when playing well, but the team wins when not playing well.

4.    On the note of a team’s resilience, they always find a way to eke out a result when things are not going right in a game. They can transform a defeat into a draw and a draw into a win even if they are not playing well.

5.       They display amazing powers of recovery. The game is never over until it is really over. The team believes in getting the best result, a win or at least a draw until the end. Because of that belief, they always have the ability to score late on in games to win or draw.

6.       The most obvious trait, the quality of the players available in the squad.

7.       The squad might not have quality players in every department or not enough quality cover but the manager is able to get the less talented players to perform at a high level, a level higher than it is expected of them.

8.       The manager’s ability to improve the quality of the players available to him.

9.       The manager finds the best formation to get the best players in the squad to express themselves fully.

10.   It’s a squad game now compared to the early 1990s and before. The manager that can make the best use of the squad available, rotating the squad well between matches and during matches successfully.

11.   The manager’s reading of the game. Making the right substitutions and tactical changes during the game to help the team win or get them across the line.

12.   Making the right signings because it fits with the way the manager wants to play and not signing players for the sake of it.

13.   Integrating these signings into the team like fitting in pieces of a jigsaw.

14.   Match-winners and leaders in the team. When one player is not performing well, because he has been marked out or just not performing, there is someone else to step up to the mark and perform. There are leaders in the team to drag the team to victory and to get them to perform consistently regardless of opponent or adversity during the match.

I know many Manchester United fans are ecstatic and super excited at being top of the table after a long time. Some are getting over-confident. Some are getting annoying. As a seasoned fan from just before we won our first league title, I plead for some calm and common sense. Both attributes are tough to find in a sensationalist world that we live in though. Calm down and ask yourself, how many of these traits does United tick at the moment? I genuinely believe making loud proclamations and boasts are not going to get us anywhere. We need to prove on the pitch, week in, week out regardless of opponent that we deserve to be where we are and we need to be there when it reaches match number 38 of the league season not at the halfway stage.