Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE’VE GOT OUR UNITED BACK
Ole gives fans what they’ve craved for two years.. swagger, style.. and
THEY played with a swagger and a flair not seen for months.
There were flickers of the old swashbuckling style of Manchester United as there were goals, every pass went forward and the players did it with smiles on their faces.
In 90 minutes, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lifted the shackles off the Jose Mourinho reign and returned to the traditions of Sir Alex Ferguson.
The fans have got their United back.
The fun was back, passing and moving the ball and you begin to wonder what this team is capable of because world-class players want to play again.
David de Gea is the best keeper in the world, Paul Pogba a World Cup winner and, in Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial, they have three outstanding young forwards.
Suddenly, United have their identity back with homegrown players, a manager who is proud to be managing them rather than someone sulking, arguing and who does not want to be there.
England full-back Luke Shaw admitted the win over Cardiff was exactly how United are supposed to play – and admitted Solskjaer has given them a fresh start.
Shaw said: “Under any circumstances, that’s how Man United are expected to play. At times it didn’t happen.
“But the team were very good, very quick getting the ball forwards and we were more clinical.
“We moved the ball quicker. Before the game we looked at how we could exploit them. We knew what their weaknesses were.
“The goals we scored were magnificent.
Rash’s free-kick helped settle the nerves and we went from there.
“They scored a goal but we didn’t change anything. The third was an amazing team goal. That’s something we need to take from today but the most important thing was the three points and we look forward to the next game.
“We’ve had Carrers (Michael Carrick) and Kieran Mckenna, anyway, who’ve been with us since the start of the season and they carried on with what they’ve been doing.
“They’ve worked really well and that’s helped in the last two or three days. It’s obviously not nice when there’s a big change at the top, the way it was. But it’s sort of a fresh start.
“In games before we’ve had a lot of chances that could’ve maybe ended up with a scoreline like that.
“We didn’t take our chances and thankfully we did. It was nice to get the five goals which we haven’t done for a while and hopefully we can push on from here.”
It was the first time that United have scored five in a game since Sir Alex Ferguson left in May 2013 and, while Cardiff are hardly a European superpower, the belief returned. Rashford scored a stunning free-kick (top), Ander Herrera had one deflected into the top corner, Martial rounded off a great team goal and man-of-thematch Lingard scored twice.
United are still eight points off fourth but now, starting with Huddersfield on Boxing Day, have a run of winnable games and Shaw believes the top four can be reached.
Shaw added: “There’s a very long way to go. We’re not too focused on the other teams. At the moment it’s about us. The next four or five games are very winnable for us.
“We need to focus on each game and if we carry on playing like this we can pick up as many points as possible.
“We’re still in two cup competitions and we want to be in the top four.
“We want to be playing in the Champions League next season and we want to focus on how to catch up.
“I don’t see why we can’t do that if we keep playing like that. We can’t really be dropping points with the situation we’re in. We need to fight for every three points every time we play.”
Solskjaer gave an impressive first audition as United boss but Mauricio Pochettino is still their No.1 choice and Shaw knows him well from Southampton.
But he expertly swerved questions about Pochettino afterwards.
“I’m not too focused on what’s going to happen in the summer,” Shaw said when quizzed on the Spurs boss.
“The most important thing now is to focus mainly on the team and what Ole wants from us as players.
“We’ll do all we can to maximise everything we can get out of us and focus on this season before anything happens in the summer.”