By Brian Sears
13 January 2012
In 20 years of Premier League football and having played 754 games in the revamped division, Manchester United have only faced their present indignity of consecutive defeats on 13 previous occasions.
By comparison, their strongest long-term rivals in the PL era, Arsenal, have had back-to-back defeats 32 times.
Two league defeats on the trot is what United have suffered after losing to Blackburn and then Newcastle.
Three defeats is rare, in fact it’s happened to them only three times. (The same as Arsenal).
Four Premier League defeats on the bounce is not something United have ever experienced. (Arsenal have experienced that twice).
We have listed all the times that United have had two straight losses (see graphic below) and you can see what happened next on each occasion.
Every single time that United have emerged from a losing run of two or more games (i.e, all 13 times in the past), they have done so at Old Trafford.
Ten times they have emerged from that losing run with a win, and three times with a draw.
Bolton are the sacrificial lambs who will try to prevent United emerging from their losing run on Saturday.
They’ve tried to do it twice before and come close on both occasions. In 1997-98 Colin Todd’s side managed a 1-1 Old Trafford draw and only last March it needed Berbatov after 88 minutes to scored the only goal of the game and give United the win.
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