United battlers show who’s boss
TOTTENHAM 0 MAN UTD 1
HE wants it, the fans want it. And the best manager in the history of the game is in the background somewhere pulling several of the strings.
Oh, and he has just beaten his closest rival in a direct contest.
Why not make Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Manchester United manager now?
Because if this really was the job interview that was being billed, there is no doubt he is hired.
Even Lord Sugar, the full-blooded Tottenham fan, thinks United are looking dangerous again in Solskjaer’s capable hands.
Although if it was capable hands you were looking for at Wembley yesterday look no further than United goalkeeper David De Gea, who in all honesty had far more sway on the final result than any masterstrokes pulled by either manager.
It is another defeat against a ‘big six’ side at Wembley for Mauricio Pochettino – the fifth in nine games at the club’s temporary home.
Yet the match was a showcase for the near irrepressible attacking force he has evolved on a limited budget to play the sort of football to put cautious former United manager Jose Mourinho to shame.
Solskjaer got his tactics right in the first half, playing Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford wide to peg back Tottenham’s flying full-backs and rely on hitting the home side on the break.
But in the second half United were given not just the third degree but the fourth, fifth and sixth degrees – that was how many different angles Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli, Son Heung-Min and Harry Winks seemed to find.
It may not have been through choice, but United had as many players parked behind the ball as Mourinho ever achieved by design, although ultimately it was only one of those players who was to prove Tottenham’s downfall.
The game had swung just before half-time during the brief organisational mayhem caused when Moussa Sissoko limped off with a groin injury.
A superb diagonal pass from Paul Pogba after Kieran Trippier gave away possession enabled Rashford to leave Jan Vertonghen in his wake and drive the ball, via Hugo Lloris’s fingertips, into the far corner of the net.
If only finishing was as easy as the young United striker made it look.
Tottenham began their onslaught in earnest three minutes after the break with Alli’s neat ball into Harry Kane, but his usually unerring shot was deflected away by De Gea’s foot.
The United keeper was at full stretch two minutes later to block Alli’s downward header from Trippier’s cross, then he was in the perfect place to block a diving header from Kane when Eriksen swung in a cross after a short corner in the 62nd minute.
A one-on-one attempt with Alli came four minutes later after the striker had been sent haring in on goal from the halfway line by Kane’s perceptive pass.
Alli waited for De Gea to commit. De Gea waited. Alli waited some more. Alli finally fired and De Gea deflected away a shot that was effectively straight at him. The keeper’s block from
Toby Alderweireld was more instinctive, the Spurs defender denied when his neat flick from a near-post Eriksen corner was met by De Gea’s shin.
Untidy, perhaps, but effective; a minute later the Spaniard clawed the ball out of the air to keep out a Kane free-kick in more photogenic fashion.
Another fine save when Alli cut inside was just a taster of the way he would negate Kane’s fierce drive from Fernando Llorente’s neatly cushioned header as the minutes ticked away.
Llorente himself had an awkward shot snaffled up by the United goalkeeper and in an agonising final opportunity deep in injury time, Kane could not quite get on the end of the Spaniard’s chip into the danger area – although on a day like this one De Gea would probably have kept that out too. In light of all that, it is easy to read too much into this United win.
Their defence was far too easily caught napping by some of the ingenuity of Tottenham’s play and Phil Jones and Victor Lindelof were not comfortable enough on the ball not to be unnerved by the terrier-like snapping of Son and Alli.
But United’s spirit saw them through. Pogba, having created the goal, continued to lead by example, the £90million man giving United what they paid for at last by taking charge wherever possible.
United’s individuals once again seem to be excelling for the benefit of the team.
Ultimately, isn’t getting that out of the players what a manager is for? Either way, this is a big result for Solskjaer to have put on his CV.