United taste late success but still lack the key ingredients for next level
WHATEVER you might think about Manchester United, their hunger for success has not disappeared or altered during their recent travails, although beating Newcastle inside an empty stadium was more like a microwave meal than fine dining.
Microwave meals always look good at first glance, but they are never as impressive when you start chewing on them. So, yes, this was a good result and, by the end, a comprehensive victory. Manchester United played well and got the win they deserved, yet it was not quite as good as it seemed. There was something in the aftertaste, a feeling the recipe still lacks some ingredients.
Manchester United should be beating this Newcastle team with the players they have and the money they have spent. It would, ultimately, have been a shock if they had not. Given their form, maybe less of a shock than usual, but a shock nonetheless.
What they did on Saturday night was settle things down. Emotions have cooled, the criticism has been subdued and confidence has been repaired.
Job done, on to the next one. But Manchester United’s problems have not come against mid-table Premier League teams this year, they have come against bigger and better rivals, such as Manchester City and Seville, who knocked them out of two cup semi-finals in 2020.
Confidence
They are, probably, still a team good enough to finish in the top four in the Premier League, but are they going to be good enough to get out of a tough Champions League group containing last season’s beaten finalists Paris Saint-Germain and semi-finalists RB Leipzig? These are the tests Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his players must pass to retain confidence in their ability to do the jobs expected of them.
This is not being mean-spirited; it is just always good to have a shot of reality after the comedown from the euphoria of winning 4-1 away at a stadium they lost 1-0 at last year. There is no question it is a step in the right direction. Solskjaer needed this result after the 6-1 home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur reignited the debate over his managerial credentials.
Manchester United’s players needed this win after that humiliating capitulation shamed them all.
Harry Maguire needed a performance like this at centre-back, as well as the goal that hauled his team level before the break after Luke Shaw’s own goal.
So did goalkeeper David De Gea, who pulled off two stunning saves either side of half-time.
And even the Glazer family, across the Atlantic Ocean, needed this victory a week after their plan to seize control of English football was exposed.
‘Project Big Picture’ took three years to plan and barely lasted three days once it became public, so they should focus on what needs to be done to improve their own club, rather than try to tell the rest how to make English football better in the middle of a global pandemic.
However, it is, relatively speaking, easy to win a football match, particularly with the attacking players
Solskjaer has and their ability to counter-attack. Far harder to put a run of good results together.
It is surely, also, only a matter of time until Donny van de Beek starts a Premier League fixture.
Better
Manchester United were far better when he slotted into the midfield and he played a key role in the build-up to Bruno Fernandes’s goal, which gave United the lead for the first time with four minutes remaining.
Yet, until that point, Newcastle were holding their own.
Under the cosh, yes, but they did not look like conceding, with goalkeeper
Karl Darlow making good saves when needed, while most efforts came from long range as his defence packed the area in front of him.
Darlow was playing on one leg, following a nasty collision with Marcus Rashford, by the time the visitors scored their three late goals and, without fans inside to demand some resolve, Newcastle threw in the towel at 2-1.
Take a moment to view the highlights, though, and you will see Newcastle also created plenty of chances. Better teams will take them. Manchester United have much still to work on. (© Daily Telegraph, London)