Chris Smalling has highlighted the main area he feels Manchester United need to improve for the 2019-20 season, with the Red Devils seeking to become more consistent.
Another change in manager, as Jose Mourinho was ushered through the exits, and a sixth-place finish in the Premier League is not what those at Old Trafford had in mind for the 2018-19 campaign.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is now charged with the task of trying to deliver a reversal in fortune, with a big transfer window for United having swung open.
Smalling concedes that there is much work to be done, with an underperforming squad falling well short of expectations and the standard demanded at one of the world’s biggest sporting giants.
The long-serving defender told United’s official website when quizzed on what needs to be done next term: “I think consistency. Obviously since Ole has come in, our consistency has definitely gone up but I think we know there’s a lot to work on.
“With Ole and the coaching staff, we’ll have a full pre-season working on a lot of things. Hopefully come pre-season, we can show what we’re really made of through the whole course of the season and be a lot more consistent because ultimately if you want to be top of that league you need that consistency in every game. You can’t have two or three games where you let your level drop.”
He added when asked for a message to the club’s fans: “I think my message would be to keep supporting us. It never goes unnoticed. When we’re winning or losing, when we’re doing warm-ups or even when I’m walking down the street, there are United fans talking to me. I think that’s something we all love.
“You can definitely bet on it that we’re going to be giving everything in pre-season and making sure that next season is one to remember for all the right reasons.”
United and their fan base may have had little to shout about in 2018-19, but Smalling says excitement levels are already building heading towards a new campaign.
He said: “Yes, very much so. I think we know we had, sort of, two halves to our season last season, so to be able to hit the ground running from August and to have a whole sustained season – I think that’s what we’re most looking forward to and showing what we can do over the course of all those games.”
Optimism at Old Trafford will continue to rise over the coming weeks, with fixture release day on June 13 a date that football followers everywhere will have marked in their diaries.
Smalling forms part of that group, with the England international saying of the games he looks for first: “Derbies, because quite often I’ll have a lot of mates already asking me for tickets.
“So yes, the [Manchester] derbies, Liverpool [games] as well and also Chelsea because when I was at Fulham, they were a club that I never liked to see winning. So those are the three fixtures that I look out for.”