It’s been a long time coming, but Manchester United made a stunning start to the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer era by beating Cardiff 5-1. Here are three things we learnt from the victory…
England stars finally flourish
Who knew? Jesse Lingard has been pivotal for England in recent months, and he got the chance to prove he can do the same for his club; Marcus Rashford, a young man with so much hype surrounding him, led from the front, scoring the first goal in under four minutes; and the combination helped United fire themselves to their first five-goal performance since Sir Alex Ferguson’s last spell.
Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford played like they were on England duty.
— Greg Johnson (@gregianjohnson) December 22, 2018
…but their free-flowing style was built on one key ingredient
Paul Pogba’s return to the starting eleven had much to do with this. With Jose Mourinho gone and their bizarre feud over, the Frenchman was free to do as he pleased, essentially. And that meant setting up three of the goals.
You lot that wanted Pogba sold. You will see. You will all see. This is just like Hazard post Jose…
— Carl Anka (@Ankaman616) December 22, 2018
More than that, they put together some beautiful moves as a team, working hard to win back possession and running wisely, with Solskjaer saying afterwards: “One of the things I talked about today was that a Man United team should never be outworked. If you run more than them, then your skills will give you a chance to win the game.”
United’s fans aren’t really miserable… they were just bored
Football fans are by their nature a fairly gloomy bunch; the curse of the supporter is to spend much of one’s life watching a team who fails to win trophies. Manchester United’s recent trophy hauls might have set expectations a little high for some, contributing to some of the griping over the past few seasons, but at heart the fanbase are not too hard to make happy. Their pleasure at watching their side finally unshackled was almost adorable.