How terrible were Manchester United on Saturday? Try not to all shout out at once, that is not quite a rhetorical question but not meant as a negative one either. I was at the game against Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend, with a brief to evaluate the new-look United and detail where all Louis van Gaal’s signings would fit in, and I filed a report along the lines that they made a solid but unspectacular start.

I ventured to suggest United would be happy with the win and could work on the entertainment factor later in the season. As it was an early kick-off I did not know at the time of filing that Chelsea and Everton would be held at home later in the afternoon, or that Arsenal would make one of their comical false starts a day later, but I reckoned three points against a decent Spurs side was not the worst way to begin a season. I concluded United would have to do better but were not too terrible considering the number of changes made to the team.

Surveying the response on social media over the next 24 hours I was told in no uncertain terms that United were in fact terrible. They were “worryingly bad”, apparently, and after spending all that money it could hardly be regarded as progress when they only managed their first shot on target in the 66th minute. Context is important here, I feel. United getting off to a winning start against Spurs could definitely be regarded as progress after losing at home to Swansea in the opening game of last season.

And while the statistics do not lie and Van Gaal’s forwards were not exactly peppering Michel Vorm’s goal with scoring attempts, the fact is that they were ahead from the mid-point of the first half onwards and under no obligation to try to extend their lead, just keep their opponents at bay. Harry Redknapp said more or less the same thing in a newspaper column two days later. He said it was a good, solid United performance, nothing flamboyant but 1-0 and a clean sheet. So there you are, my case rests.

Except some of the Twitter stuff was not just taking exception to my giving United the benefit of the doubt – you are bound to get partisan attitudes in any sort of Premier League forum, not least because you can never be sure that the people piling into United are not Manchester City or Liverpool fans with their own agendas – some of it was moaning, and I quote, about the dishonest and corrupt British press.

Now there are one or two areas in which the British press could be taken to task about the honesty and fairness of its reporting – the migrant issue, the European Union and the divisions in the Labour party all spring to mind – but surely a football match is just a toy-box diversion? Evidently not. Apparently, and this is news to me, we habitually give Manchester United an easy time because we are chasing the Asian market.

The allegation is that this website, and others like it, is more concerned with attracting global web traffic than giving an impartial opinion on a football match. Only the BBC, it was claimed, did not mince their words when discussing the direness of United’s opening display. All the newspaper-related outlets bent over backwards to make excuses for Van Gaal and his underperformers.

In point of fact they did not, but facts are fairly tangential inconveniences when it comes to Twitter arguments. Nor does it seem immediately obvious why the Asian market should only be interested in puff pieces that praise Manchester United. If you want to get noticed and pick up readers anywhere in the world then the way to go about it is not to write balanced, temperate articles about why a team still has room for improvement, but to go for the jugular instead. Call United hopeless or timid. Suggest Van Gaal doesn’t know what he is doing or is wasting the club’s money. Predict United will get marmalised as soon as they run into a decent team such as Chelsea or City. That’s the way to attract attention.

All the writer has to do after being so provocative is be careful that the team in question does not go on a 10-match winning run or actually beat Chelsea or City, because that would leave them looking a bit silly.

But to return to the original point, the first game of the season is always a little damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you don’t. You only have 90 minutes of evidence to go on, it is much too early to say whether a team has everything sorted or still has more questions than answers. Look at the difference in tone between the glowing reports Arsenal received after beating Chelsea in the Community Shield and the shoeing they got after losing to West Ham in the league.

Same team, one week later. Petr Cech, hero to zero in the same timeframe. There would not have been much sense, in other words, in going overboard with the criticism just because United were not particularly stylish against Spurs, when the possibility exists that by the time this Saturday comes around they might have beaten Aston Villa by a comfortable margin and be sitting on top of the league with a 100% record. That said, if United are to beat Villa by a comfortable margin on Friday evening they will clearly need to create more goal opportunities.

Specifically, they will need to bring Wayne Rooney into the game more. It was quite bold of Van Gaal to reinstate Rooney as the main striker and play him as the front man in a 4-2-3-1 in the opening game, though it was not a system Spurs had any great problem in dealing with. United look rather lightweight at the business end compared to most of their top four rivals, which is why the ongoing speculation over Pedro makes a lot of sense, for even if the Barcelona player is not an out-and-out goalscorer he would inject pace, creativity and much needed unpredictability. So would Gareth Bale or Harry Kane, though Pedro is probably more attainable.

Rooney is not as quick as he used to be, and on the evidence of the time he required to summon a finish on Saturday not quite as lethal or as decisive in front of goal either. He could still make a telling contribution this season but he is going to need better, quicker service from the three players behind him, and if Memphis Depay has been brought in to add pace to a somewhat ponderous attack, he might get more opportunity to express himself on the flanks than in the congested middle of the field.

If Van Gaal insists on playing Depay through the middle, there could even be an argument for pulling Rooney back to the No10 role to allow the Dutch signing a freer role ahead of him. That’s just an opinion, note, and a football opinion at that. Not an attempt to conquer Asia.