Bournemouth wall of defiance ends the

Defensive pairing show unyielding qualities King’s neat goal always enough to earn 1-0 win

With a whipping wind and torrential rain, the weather was dire on the South Coast. Throughout this game, rubbish was strewn across the Vitality Stadium pitch.

But enough about Manchester United’s midfield.

Insipid as his own team’s performance might have been, the real reason Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s mini-revival ground to a halt with a 1-0 defeat in Bournemouth was the nature of the opposition.

United ran into a brick wall of a defence, the Bournemouth backline giving a masterclass in the stubborn refusal to yield.

Eddie Howe’s problems this season have stemmed from his side’s failure to score:

Bournemouth did not net once in October. But why they were not in the kind of freefall that might generally be associated with such return is that for three matches on the trot they have not conceded a goal.

How Solskjaer must look on with envy. He spent more than £100million trying to shore up his defence this summer – yet this was the 11th successive away league game in which his expensivelyassembled back-five has failed to register a clean sheet.

At the heart of the Bournemouth resistance was a centreback pairing as effective as any in the Premier League.

Steve Cook and Nathan Ake were towering against United, nullifying a forward line that in their last couple of outings had looked as if they might spark.

Very different players from very different footballing backgrounds – one the no-nonsense strongman who made his way up from the lower leagues; the other the smooth, intelligent sweeper schooled at Chelsea (who still retain a close interest in him) – the two complement each other perfectly.

“Cookie is very aggressive aerially, loves to defend, is very good on crosses,” Howe explained after the pair’s demonstration of their value. “Nathan reads the game very well, he’s got that composure you notice immediately.

“They’re playing very well together and long may it continue.”

What was particularly impressive about the pair’s understanding was the speed with which they adapted their tactics.

More than once in the first 20 minutes, United’s fleet-footed front-three threatened to take advantage of gaps behind the Bournemouth midfield.

But Cook and Ake quickly worked out how to stop it happening. And once they did, United had no answer. “They picked the second ball up quite a few times and broke and had space,” explained Cook, who was making his 150th Premier League appearance.

“So we had a quiet word, came up to condense the pitch and I think that nullified [Daniel] James quite well. [Marcus] Rashford and [Anthony] Marital are top, top players and inreally good form.

“So we felt that if we dealt with those two, we’d go a long way to winning the game.

“We showed them wide, kept them on their weaker foot and fortunately I think we limited them to not many shots.”

It is the kind of clear-headed reasoning that has enabled Cook smoothly to advance from League One to becoming a Premier League stalwart.

“It shouldn’t be underestimated how difficult that transition is,” his manager insisted.

And Cook’s ability to cope with upward mobility so effectively suggests he is ready to make another step. Given the manner in which he effectively shackled a current England Points won by Manchester United from their 11 Premier League games this season – their lowest tally at this stage of a league campaign since 1986-87 (11 points) Defeats for United in the six Premier League away games in which they have fallen behind under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Clean sheets for United in their last 11 Premier League away games, their joint-longest run without one in the competition (last time was Aug 2002Jan 2003) starter, several times sliding in at the last to stop Rashford having a sniff of goal, an international callup is not inconceivable.

After all, at 28 he is in his prime and Howe, when asked if England