Man Utd 4-0 Everton (Rashford 34′, 46′, Zirkzee 41′, 64′)
OLD TRAFFORD — To give you some sense of the desperation at Old Trafford for Manchester United to claw after a new age free from miserable mediocrity, it took until the Bodo/Glimt post-match press conference for someone to ask Ruben Amorim how long he thought that this ship would take to turn around. Wait a few days and Amorim could have prepared a decent answer: it depends how often we get to face Everton.
For 30 minutes, Sunday was unpleasant and uncomfortable. On the touchline, Amorim put his hand over his chin more than once and shook his head as if to suggest “Are these guys listening to a thing I am telling them?” He would then look to the bench for emotional support, where colleagues nodded their heads: “It’s not you, mate”.
Manchester United’s midfield was open and the defence was stretched. Kobbie Mainoo, back in the team, was left doing the job of two and thus spliced into unhelpful pieces. Diogo Dalot seemed an unsuitable wing-back and Noussair Mazraoui a make-do central defender.
Everton created chances and had breaks. Play like this against Arsenal, home supporters worried, and we will be humbled.
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That is a problem for another day. Everton defended appallingly, collectively and individually, for a period of at least 30 minutes and their manager is supposed to be an organiser of defences. The first-half goals came via a deflection and Jarrad Branthwaite being caught on the ball.
If you can imagine it, Everton got worse from then on. United were rampant.
We are still in the fact-finding stages, and thus there is much to learn beyond Everton’s incompetence. Whatever the method, if United fans could have chosen the identity of goalscorers and providers for the first two goals, Bruno Fernandes setting up Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee would surely have topped the list. One striker needs goals to start his United career; the other needs them to re-energise it.
They would both add one more each before the end, with Rashford in particular making runs as the central striker that bode well. For all the impatience, the doubt and the worry about a young man’s frame of mind, we all know that a firing Rashford would be an effective bellwether of the club’s health as a whole. Early signs are promising.
If there is one player who stands above all others in these nascent days of Amorim, the clearest beneficiary of all the ingredients that exist outside of a long transfer market to-do list, it is Amad Diallo. Amad was the game’s best player, a constant threat when taking on an opponent and finding space outside Vitalii Mykolenko and between the Ukrainian and Branthwaite.
It’s more than that, though. There has been a lot of tactics chat since Amorim’s appointment, fevered discussion of preferred shapes and the point at which philosophy meets dogma. United have indeed set up as a 3-4-2-1, with advanced midfielders having licence to drop deeper and allow wing-backs to overlap. But these shapes are fluid in-game because games are fluid too.
Amad has embraced the wing-back role because he can make it his own. With Mainoo drifting wider to help him, Amad never abandons his defensive duties. But thoughts never fully shift from the intention to counter and dash forward. The manner in which he combined with Rashford in the final third was a joy.
Ten minutes before the end, with the game played at half-pace due to an absence of all jeopardy, Amad tried to trick an Everton opponent with a dummy and won only a throw-in. There were “ooohs” at the impudence; Amad stuck out his tongue and giggled. United players actually having fun?! That’ll do for now.