Reds recover to blunt Blades
IN hindsight, David McGoldrick must wonder whether he ought to have put the ball past the post of that open goal.
Whenever United concede first away from home in the Premier League they end up going on to prevail and the script was as predictable as a James Bond film.
For the sixth away league meeting running, United tallied at least three goals and the third, though blemished by a goalkeeping mistake by Aaron Ramsdale, captured the essence of the mythical ‘United Way’ Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is striving to restore.
That it was started by Paul Pogba’s pirouette will be bittersweet but Bruno Fernandes, Mason Greenwood, Anthony
Martial and Marcus Rashford - the other stars of the sequence - are destined to be at United beyond next summer.
Rashford cannot envisage pulling on another club’s shirt and United cannot do without him; the inclusions of Rashford and Fernandes reinforced that after their talismanic impacts from the bench at West Ham a fortnight ago.
Pogba is United’s present but not their future and that may still be a source of regret when he is paraded in Turin or Madrid next year. Solskjaer implored him to mimic a playmaker and he did just that with a virtuoso deception of
Ethan Ampadu, sparking the breakaway for a terrific team goal.
Of all the comebacks this season, this was United’s easiest, a deficit overturned 12 minutes before half-time and so effortless that Anthony Martial scored his first league goal since July. A United domestic away comeback is becoming as certain in life as death and taxes and it is now an imperfect 10 successive league away triumphs.
Dean Henderson can put his howler behind him in the comfort it was not costly and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can joke it was deliberate in keeping with United’s starts on previous trips. Almost every other week he is quoting his mentor that United don’t make it easy for themselves and, true to form, United made it needlessly difficult by conceding softly to McGoldrick again late on.
At Old Trafford, United have mustered one domestic win from six and Solskjaer risks emulating Frank O’Farrell’s unwanted record of four home league defeats before Christmas with Leeds back in M16 on Sunday. That disparity is Solskjaer’s United in a microcosm.
If United beat Burnley in their game in hand they could be two points off the summit, though that postponed meeting could end up being staged as early as January or as late as March or April, depending on United’s progress in the
domestic cups and the Europa League.
There is only so much longer United can rely on their penchant for recoveries. They fell short when they were breached first against Champions League semifinalists RB Leipzig and there are trips to Anfield, Stamford Bridge, Tottenham and the Etihad in the second half of the season.
Leicester await on Boxing Day, though their top four status belies their home form of four league losses.
After Rashford levelled in the 26th minute United were reminiscent of their halcyon restart days of June and July, with the same front six spearheading another comprehensive triumph and Solskjaer only resisted a substitution before Juan Mata’s 74th minute entrance out of respect to winless Sheffield United. Just two goals separated the sides but the contest ceased for almost an hour after Martial’s prod.
Scott McTominay was
If United beat Burnley in their game in hand they could be two points off the summit
still cajoling
Rashford at 3-1 with a quarter of the game still to go, Solskjaer barked orders at Pogba and the coaching staff went spare at Martial’s defensive doziness at a setpiece.
Yet this was a night where rotation prevailed and United removed Fernandes with 10 minutes to go and Daniel James was due to receive a rare cameo but instead McTominay was summoned to shield the back four.
Martial, recalled with Edinson Cavani still not fully fit, could not have faced a more obliging opponent to break his domestic duck and Nemanja Matic was polished back in midfield.
Henderson shares several parallels with his hero Joe Hart and overconfidence is another.
He erred similarly against Leeds in front of a crammed and caustic away end at Bramall Lane and will be grateful there was no crowd when he was carelessly dispossessed and McGoldrick pounced in the fifth minute. Solskjaer looked like he had just been told Mino Raiola had tweeted about him again.
David de Gea, though blameworthy for goals over the last month, has not blundered so egregiously and his unflappable demeanour once legislated for his status as the game’s peerless goalkeeper.
If Henderson is ever to borrow a trait from De Gea it has to be that equanimity but his extroverted character was apparent almost immediately; he was the loudest of the United players and saved pivotally in added time.
De Gea is proof United should not be dismissive of a rookie ‘keeper at such a premature stage and a familiar tone had already been set by their lethargic outfield players. Pogba, last on for the warm-up and the last to arrive for the pre-match anthem, ambled like a child trudging through snow, Martial was a statuesque striker and Alex Telles felt a culture shock from the land of the Greasy Chip Butty Song.
Enda Stevens’ full-blooded reducer on Aaron Wan-Bissaka brought the home bench to their feet and, in the absence of fans, some staff doubled for cheerleaders and derided Pogba. Solskjaer was on Pogba’s case, urging him to ‘move up’ and ‘play at 10’ amid Sheffield United’s reticence.
Pogba stayed deep to clip an imaginative pass for Martial to put United ahead.
Just as it was scripted.