Manchester United have always been an easy target for criticism and clicks, but Burnley boss Scott Parker didn’t want anything to do with it as he gave due credit.
The 3-2 win against Burnley didn’t tell the full picture of the match, as is becoming a worrying regularity for Man Utd these days.
The team created enough in a breathless first half as they manufactured chances at will, but couldn’t score to save their lives.
Burnley were extremely clinical and gave United a headache, which Parker acknowledged, but he didn’t get carried away based on just the final scoreline.
Four Manchester United players celebrate goal at Old Trafford
Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images
Scott Parker raves about Man Utd
It says a lot about Ruben Amorim and Man Utd that they have been praised by the opposition in three of the four games they’ve played so far.
Marco Silva was brutal, but the eye test didn’t lie, as Fulham could have been down by three goals by half-time.
United needed to come up with a response after the Grimsby disaster, and just a “good performance” wasn’t going to cut it.
It threatened to turn out the same way as the previous games as United blew Burnley away without taking their chances, but Parker had the honesty to accept how good Amorim’s men were.
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A journalist asked him if he was surprised at Man Utd’s lack of “control and stability”, but Parker hit back with a clear response, signalling disagreement with that assertion.
He said: “I thought they had a lot of control and stability in the first half! They looked like a very, very good team. I get the narrative around United at the moment.
“People want to spin whatever narrative they want. That first-half performance from Man Utd was of every bit a top team.
“It was maybe partly down to us at the time, but they’ve got some exceptional players. We ground ourselves and dug in deep. That’s what I see as a reflection on United today.”
Ruben Amorim’s team is building something
Four points from three games and elimination from the Carabao Cup at the hands of Grimsby Town are hardly a marker of a good start to the season.
However, in the long term, the results always match the performances, either good or bad, and for United, the performances have been extremely good.
Looking at the players after the win against Burnley, it was obvious that it was a deeply scarred team that just needed to have that winning feeling again.
There was a severe lack of confidence flowing through the team, trapping them in a vicious cycle of low confidence, causing poor finishing, leading to low confidence, and so on.
Now that the first win is in the bag, United need to keep building on these displays and start converting them into results.
All of their losses and dropped points this season have been self-inflicted. Once they stop shooting themselves in the foot, the sky is the limit.
It’s not just hyperbole based on one performance. It’s a microcosm of their season so far.