United hit four again as Mourinho warns of surge in confidence
Pogba and Lukaku lead charge in rout of Swansea Manager urges attack and ‘lets the horses run freely’
Jose Mourinho said he “let the horses run freely” but that he wants to see his Manchester United team challenged before he makes judgments about their title prospects, after they hit four goals in their second Premier League game of the season, beating Swansea City 4-0. United scored three goals in the space of four minutes at the end of the game to make it eight without reply for the season so far, following their 4-0 win over West Ham on the opening day.
There were goals from Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba and substitute Anthony Martial after Eric Bailly scored in the first half, this being the first time since 1907 a United team have scored four goals in their first two games.
Mourinho said: “The word that better describes the team now is confident. It happened to me so much with my teams – you’re winning 1-0 and you can concede. There was no need to close the door. Just let the horses run freely.
“The team starts the game confident, the team starts the second half confident. The thing that I want to see – but I don’t really want to see, only if it happened – is the team losing and the way we emotionally react to it. It’s another change, losing and trying to change the result. In this moment everything is going in our favour. But it’s not always motorway, you always find difficult roads and roadworks, and we have to be ready.”
He added: “I prefer to say we started last season with two matches, six points and we finished sixth. It’s not a lesson, it’s a reality of football – two matches are not the end of the world for people that lose and it’s not paradise for people that win. I am happy, of course, and the quality of the performance gives me even more confidence.”
Pogba was booked early on for a foul on Tom Carroll and tested referee Jon Moss’s patience later in the first half with a late tackle on Martin Olsson. “The yellow card is a little bit out of context because I thought that [referee] Jonathan had a certain kind of criteria that didn’t bring easy yellow cards because there were actions, especially one on [Nemanja] Matic, that is a yellow card, and he decided to speak with the players and go in that direction. I thought with Paul he would do the same, so when the yellow card came I was a bit surprised. But then Paul, what he wants is to enjoy, to play football, is to do good things. Sometimes he tries more difficult things than he should because he enjoys to show his quality. He enjoys to play. So no, I didn’t fear a second yellow card.”
Paul Clement said Swansea “needed to do some good business” before the end of the month, having finally sold Gylfi Sigurdsson to Everton this week. “We have a good squad but we need more quality players to come in so we have a chance to be competitive,” he said. “The situation is very fluid. There are texts, emails and telephone calls going backwards and forwards. The sooner we do it, the better.
“There were some encouraging signs, but we got ourselves into a right mess for their second goal. Then we were punished. We became more open defensively. They are so strong in those positions and we played right into their hands and it became very harsh on us. The first step is we don’t let the result affect our confidence. We have to make sure we regroup quickly.”
The painful reality for Swansea City is that with ten minutes left on the clock, they were still in this game – and then Jose Mourinho’s team went in for the kill in a way that Manchester United sides once did as a matter of course once they detected weakness.
It was, all told, a ransacking led by the big players in three raids: Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba scoring in a four-minute blitz of Swansea’s retreat- ing defence. Possession was turned over, knock-downs were won and even when the game was decided and Swansea had all but offered their surrender, so United came back for more. By the end Anthony Martial, an effective substitute, had swept in the fourth and the afternoon felt very different.
Not since 1907 have United begun a season scoring four goals in their first two games and while they have faced West Ham and Swansea, clubs who seem to have emerged from the summer without a clear idea of the kind of teams that they want to be, it does at least seem that Mourinho’s players know. Pogba was the game’s standout player, surviving a challenge on Martin Olsson that might well have been a yellow card had Jon Moss not given him one earlier for a foul on Tom Carroll.
Pogba looms over every aspect of the game, the kind of player whose considerable presence must appear in the peripheral vision of just about every opponent when in possession of the ball. He seemed to be there at every critical moment, winning a corner late in the first half, winning the subsequent header that led to Eric Bailly’s first goal and then, in the second half, the Frenchman led the way again.
Pogba’s form is a continuation of that devastating performance he turned in for France against England in Paris at the end of last season, a combination of the physicality and the delicate touch that he showed in scoring United’s third of the afternoon. Between them, Pogba and Lukaku now have five goals in two games and it is Pogba whose personality seems to be key to this team – when he is confident and diligent, then so are United.
Mourinho did not feel that the decision of referee Moss, an official with whom he has history, to award the first yellow card was justified, let alone the second that never came. Paul Clement could not bring himself to claim a missed dismissal either, and he has more pressing concerns on his mind.
Swansea have barely had an effort on goal in their first two games, and the closest they came this time was Jordan Ayew’s clever shot with the outside of his right foot in the first half, which grazed David De Gea’s crossbar from an unexpected angle. Tammy Abraham, on loan from Chelsea, showed some nice touches on his first-team home debut with Fernando Llorente still out, it
looks like a tall order to ask the teenager to shoulder all the burden.
Mourinho expressed the hope on Clement’s behalf that he would get the £45million from Gylfi Sigurdsson’s sale to spend on the team, the kind of remark Clement would probably rather someone else had made. Clement lamented the absence of the injured Ki Sung-yueng and could make no guarantees about new arrivals before Swansea play Crystal Palace next Saturday.
Clement was also angry about his team’s concentration wavering at the end of the first half, when they conceded what he considered a rare goal direct from a set-piece. Bailly had already put one clearance on the roof of the main stand before he was the one who reacted the quickest to score when Lukasz Fabianski made a good save from Pogba’s header.
In defence alongside Bailly, Phil Jones kept his place and was impressive again, heading against the bar from a corner. It might have been different for Marcus Rashford – who faded in the second half before eventually being substituted – if he had finished on 36 minutes. Booed for his dive in the fixture at Old Trafford last season, he had torn through the Swansea defence only to poke a lame shot at Fabianski.
Rashford has an urgency about him that suggests he knows that patience is limited, and he started strongly only to lose his way. The challenge this season will be maintaining the freedom to his game that made him a success in the first place. He came off when Mourinho made his changes with 15 minutes to go, at a point when United had at times been on the back foot. Clement had earlier switched from a three-man defence to a 4-3-3 formation and tried to put some pressure on Daley Blind at left-back, United’s weakest link in the back four. Mourinho responded by bringing on Martial and then Marouane Fellaini into the midfield at the expense of Juan Mata.
“I don’t want to be the kind of manager who is happy to lose 1-0 at home,” Clement said, and once his five-man defence had been dismantled, United’s response was impressive. Henrikh Mkhitaryan claimed two of the assists as the space opened up, redirecting the ball from Martial’s driving run into the path of Lukaku. Then the Armenian did the same for Pogba, who lifted the ball over Fabianski, having intercepted Carroll’s ball to begin the move.
Swansea had coped badly with the tactical switch and the fourth transformed the scoreline into something much more painful for the home crowd, Pogba again involved before Martial cut on to his right foot and picked a spot in the corner. Mourinho reminded everyone that United had won the first two games last season and he did not have to add that they were nothing like title challengers come May. A certain confidence has returned to United that has not always been detectable over the last four years. Swansea (3-1-4-2): Fabianski 5; Fernandez 5, Bartley 6 (Routledge, 67), Mawson 5; Mesa 5 (Narsingh, 67); Naughton 5, Fer 5, Carroll 6, Olsson 5; Ayew 6, Abraham 6 (McBurnie, 83). Subs not used Nordfeldt (g), Van der Horn, Rangel, Fulton. Manchester United (4-3-3): De Gea 6; Valencia 6, Bailly 7, Jones 7, Blind 5; Pogba 8, Matic 7, Mkhitaryan 7 (Herrera, 85); Mata 6 (Fellaini, 75), Lukaku 6, Rashford 6 (Martial, 75). Subs not used Romero (g), Lindelof, Smalling, Lingard. Booked Pogba, Fer. Referee Jon Moss.