Greenwood arrives in time to rescue United from calamity
On the day Manchester United reached 4,000 consecutive games with a youth-team graduate in their match-day squad, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was indebted to the latest rising star from the club’s academy for rescuing his side from calamity.
United were staring at yet another defeat against a bottom-half club when Mason Greenwood was summoned from the substitutes’ bench. Within 12 minutes, the teenage striker had demonstrated the sort of nose for goal his team had been sorely lacking to spare Solskjaer a more severe inquest.
And so United are back to square one. Too good for Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City last week, but not nearly good enough to dispatch an Everton side with one Premier League away win. Stifling this United team is not rocket science – give them the ball and let them tie themselves in knots.
A win here would have moved United to within two points of fourth-placed Chelsea. Instead, they have now dropped 12 points against the bottom seven this term. “We’ve taken a few steps forward but today is not a big step backwards, it’s more of a standstill, not improving,” Solskjaer said.
If this was a bad day for the Norwegian, it was another good one for Duncan Ferguson, Everton’s interim manager. A supporters’ favourite former striker restoring some cheer after a melancholy end to a Portuguese manager’s troubled reign? United know all about that particular script, but before the Merseysiders get drunk on the Ferguson feelgood factor and rush into any decisions, they should at least be mindful of United’s Solskjaer experiment post Jose Mourinho.
You would have thought Everton had won, judging by the way Ferguson played to the television cameras at the final whistle. The Everton fans had loved it when he ripped off his suit jacket to spend the majority of the game stalking the touchline in a rain-sodden white shirt, and the manager was lapping up the applause and chants by the end. Marco Silva was never treated like this.
Not that everyone of an Everton persuasion would have been all misty-eyed about the Scot. Substitute Moise Kean had been on the pitch for only 19 minutes before he was hauled off as Everton sought to fend off United in the closing stages.
United could have done with Greenwood on the pitch from the start. There were 16 seconds on the clock when Jesse Lingard spun and shot wide. If that had gone in, it would have been a different game. As it was, United squandered two more chances in quick succession, through Marcus Rashford and then Daniel James, before the whole piece became a familiar slog against emboldened opponents. They need an awful lot more, this United, but they absolutely require someone who can be trusted to put the ball in the net with ruthless frequency. Greenwood deserves an extended run, particularly when Anthony Martial remains so mercurial.
United were unfortunate to trail at the interval, and aggrieved that Craig Pawson, the video assistant referee, had resolved, upon reviewing Everton’s goal, that there was no infringement by Dominic Calvert-lewin on David de Gea before Victor Lindelof turned the ball into
his own net. The Everton forward’s left arm was all over De Gea’s shoulder yet, still, it really was the meekest attempt from the goalkeeper to punch the ball clear from Leighton Baines’s inswinging corner, and another reminder of the weakest part of the Spaniard’s game. Lindelof, in turn, could not react quickly enough after De Gea’s misjudgement and watched forlornly as the ball hit his legs and trickled in.
“It’s a foul but there’s no point me complaining,” Solskjaer said. “It [VAR] will be better next year. We’ll have to look at it.” The reality, though, is Everton were merely punishing United’s wastefulness and the hosts resumed for the second half with it all to do.
Everton’s doggedness was typified by Mason Holgate, impressing in a makeshift midfield role, but United again looked short of ideas against a side defending deep. Thank goodness, then, for Greenwood, who, after good work by James, controlled the ball on the edge of the penalty area and drilled a left-foot finish through the legs of Yerry Mina into the corner. “It’s just so natural for him. He knows what to do,” Solskjaer said. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many of his team-mates.