Match Review : Norwich City VS Manchester United

Embed from Getty Images

Full Time: Norwich City vs Manchester United 1-3

Manchester United rise to 7th from 15th after sweeping aside Norwich city in their second away win in 3 days.

‘VAR’y Good First Half

Manchester United began the game in a way not too dissimilar to other starts this season. However, early on you can see that that there was only one intention, moving the ball forward. Ole set up in what can perhaps be seen as a 4-3-3 with the midfield being set up as with Fred and Mctominay behind a more advanced Andreas Pereira. What excited me about the setup today, is the shades of Ole’s caretaker tenure, pre-full-time appointment. The two sitting would have been Matic and Herrera with Pogba in attacking midfield, influencing play from the final third.

Embed from Getty Images

Chance creation. If you create chances you will score – a basic premise of football. Recently chances have come few and far between for Manchester United, but today from the word go we created. I felt there was something different in terms of style when we had that corner early on and the ball ricocheted off Rashford and Martial’s header was saved by Tim Krul, who would go on to have a brilliant game for Norwich.

Following the Martial chance, a few phases of play later we got another corner, why? we created another chance, what are the chances (pardon the pun) that creation will lead to the corner that resulted in Scott Mctominay’s sublime finish. VAR had it’s say for the second consecutive league game and for me both decisions for both penalties were spot on. James was brought down after attempting to shield the ball and he wasn’t inviting contact and Todd Cantwell’s handball was another correct decision by the letter of the law at the moment. Simple. As for the penalties, I still think it’s a joke we have no set taker but Tim Krul, notorious penalty saver was at it again and sometimes you have to put your hands up. Rashford did well to slot away the second and not to let his head drop.

Excellent Game Management

Embed from Getty Images

In midweek, I criticised Manchester United for being a team that blows all the steam in the first half and coming out for the second worse. Today we managed the game extremely well and credit goes down to the coaching staff and Ole for that. Complete control and didn’t look like conceding even though we did…

Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial? More like prime Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke. The third goal was reminiscent of the legendary duo in 1999 against Barcelona. Martial deserves great credit for today, his performance today lifted Marcus Rashford who was brilliant again today. This is the sort of form we need from Rashford, hopefully, he can keep it up.

All in all a positive performance and something we can build on. Rashford scoring his 50th goal for United at aged 21, Martial back into form and Mctominay controlling midfield’s are all positives. But and it’s a big ‘but’ it was a bad Norwich side so we take the 3 points and the performance however we don’t let it get to our heads. We now sit in 7th so onwards and upwards.

***Norwich City vs Manchester United Player Ratings***