United Squeezes Past The Hornets

Manchester United squeezed into the 4th Round of the FA Cup with a 1-0 win over Watford at Old Trafford. The scoreline and the match should have been more comfortable but we made it nervy for ourselves.

Strong Start

As expected, we made a lot of changes to the starting line-up. We would have expected a disjointed start for a starting line-up that hasn’t played together. But I was surprised to see a sharp, smooth and dominant start. We played with a lot of verve and some pleasant interplay. We took a deserved lead through the captain of the day, Scott McTominay, heading in a corner. We were peppering the Watford goal with shots and kept them consigned in their half for the first 15-20 minutes. In the first half, we should have gone into the half-time break with a 3-0 lead such was our dominance. Eric Bailly missed with a free header from a corner but the pick of the misses was Juan Mata’s at the end of a flowing move. There was the hunger and drive in the players that have played sparingly to prove a point, Jesse Lingard, Daniel James, Juan Mata, Donny van de Beek, Brandon Williams and Alex Telles.

Sloppy Seconds

However, it was not total dominance. After a certain stage, our play became sloppy. We started giving the ball away cheaply and were getting caught out by our opponents. Watford’s greatest threat came from set-pieces, we were at sixes and sevens dealing with whatever that was thrown into our box. In the second half, our play was less fluid and coherent. Watford had the better of the half but couldn’t fashion much in terms of chances. Ole Gunnar Solksjaer threw on Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial to close out the game but neither could make a positive difference.

Summary

Overall, we started strongly but fizzled out very soon. Eric Bailly was brought off with a suspected concussion after getting flattened by Dean Henderson. It turned out to be a neck injury and here’s to hoping that he recovers to play against Burnley in midweek or at least against Liverpool on Sunday. With the start we made to the game, I was thinking these players were playing themselves into contention but as the game wore on, the lack of match fitness and their frailties told. Mason Greenwood’s performance was the biggest disappointment. I was hoping for a big performance from him but it was another below-par one. I really hope he can re-discover his form because he is the most natural, talented striker we have. Instead of Rashford, I had wanted to see Odion Ighalo get some game time against his former club. It would probably be the last opportunity we had to play him before his loan spell came to an end so it was disappointing not to see him play. 



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