It might not always be pretty, but Manchester United are still heading in the right direction.
Losing 6-3 rather than 6-1 may have spared some blushes, but there were potential downsides, too. The margin of defeat went from one which better represented the obvious chasm between the two teams, while offering a potential sliver of opportunity for complacency following a poor performance to sneak in. And while United ended up coming away from their Europa League trip to Nicosia with an important win,.
Ten Hag may have been wishing that he’d extended that acclimatisation spell by another week after just five minutes. With the ball at his feet and his back to goal, Casemiro had the ball nicked from him by Amadeu Onana, leaving the Brazilian on his backside and United’s defence in sudden and quite unexpected trouble. The ball found its way to Alex Iwobi, who bent the ball into the corner to give Everton the lead.
A touch of misfortune nearly checked that forward momentum. Anthony Martial was understood to be hurt before kick-off, with his place in the starting eleven said to be in doubt, and he only lasted 28 minutes before being replaced by Cristiano Ronaldo. We saw the worst and best of Ronaldo in those last seventeen minutes of this half.
And with ten minutes to play, Everton received a bit of a let off when Marcus Rashford, who’d already had a perky evening, had a goal disallowed. For all of football’s modern pretentions of tactical sophistication, sometimes route one is the quickest route.
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