In Greenwood, United find the timbre to hit back

LONDON:CALL it bad luck with injuries. Blame it on a blunder in recruitment. Applaud, maybe, the club’s bold new approach to give youth more of a chance. Whatever the reasons, Manchester United — the grandest team in English soccer — finds itself in the alarming position of relying on a 17-year-old academy product for goals at a busy stage of the season. Mason Greenwood is so far delivering, and proving to be one of the few bright sparks amid some dark times for United.

Having offloaded Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez to Inter Milan in Europe’s summer transfer window and not replaced them, United’s already-stretched attacking resources have been further depleted by injuries to Anthony Martial and, at the weekend, Marcus Rashford.

Greenwood is the only fit striker remaining in the squad — quite a burden for a teenager and a major problem for manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, given his team is competing on three fronts (Premier League, Europa League and League Cup) at the moment, necessitating a game every three or four days.

Like he has in every stage of his young career, Greenwood has risen to the occasion by scoring the winner in the Europa League home match against Astana last week — and thereby becoming United’s youngest ever European scorer — and then in the English League Cup third-round match against Rochdale on Wednesday.

A much bigger test for Greenwood comes on Monday, when Arsenal visits Old Trafford. It will be the most high-profile match of his life, should he start again. Not that Solskjaer really has any other choice.

“He has two great feet ... so he must be a nightmare for defenders having him one-on-one in the box,” Solskjaer said after the game against Rochdale, which United ended up winning via a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw. “He can go both ways, which is for me fantastic, and you can just see he has got quality.”

It wasn’t the first time Solskjaer has purred about Greenwood, previously saying he was “one of the best finishers I’ve seen.”

“If you just get Mason in the box, you know something is going to happen,” he said last week of a player who has been at United since the age of 6. Greenwood has also been likened to Robin van Persie — the former United, Arsenal and Netherlands striker — by United great Ryan Giggs, who is currently the Wales coach.

That’s because Greenwood has slick movement and is strong with both feet, making him unpredictable. He is left-footed, but took his penalty in the shootout against Rochdale with his right. “Mason Greenwood’s dynamite, he scores them with his left and he scores them with his right,” United fans were heard singing after a goal with his right foot against Astana.

The goals in open play against Astana and Rochdale were similar, in that he only needed a bit of space to shift the ball to one side and drive home low and precise finishes. He is slight and deceptively quick. Greenwood, who recently was called up to England’s U-21 squad, gets a big billing because he has always scored goals at youth level.