Perfect Day In The Sun In Manchester

 It was a perfect day in every sense; a bright, sunny day in Manchester, a full stadium, a serial winner unveiled before kick-off, a new signing that made his debut and a big win over our old rivals, Leeds United. It reminded me of the opening day 5-1 thrashing over Fulham in 2006-07 and you know how that season ended. I am not saying things will end the same way this season but the signs are ominous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuiYpgcBznc&t=50s

When the starting line-ups were released, I dreaded seeing the names of Scott McTominay and Fred because it’s not a combination that would stir up feelings of excitement and thoughts of free-flowing football. Out of the two, I prefer McTominay and he played very well; he was full of energy and running like a good old-fashioned box-to-box midfielder. Fred didn’t play too badly and scored a rare goal, not too bad but I still prefer to see Donny van de Beek play more often in his place.

I thought Paul Pogba had opened the scoring but he tried a skill and inexplicably put his shot wide. He made up for it with four assists which surpassed the total of last season in the Premier League. He might have been at fault too for Leeds’ equalizer as he was one of the players that were slow in closing down Luke Ayling. The other two that were caught on their heels and punished for their indecision were Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw. It was unstoppable once the ball left Ayling’s boot, credit to the scorer. I felt if there was a criticism, it would be that after we led 1-0 the intensity and fluidity of our play decreased which led to Leeds’ equalizer three minutes after the resumption of the second half.



Pogba and hat-trick hero, Bruno Fernandes will get all the plaudits but I will reserve some for Mason Greenwood. He was full of running, tracking back, getting involved with the play outside the box and getting into the box to get on to crosses. The goal he scored and his performance bodes well for the future. I feel the goal he scored came at a crucial time, 5 minutes after we conceded the equalizer. The longer we had gone on at 1-1, the nervier it would have got. We were coasting at 4-1 in the 60th minute and I would have thought Jadon Sancho should have been brought on very soon after. He eventually came on in the 74th minute and hardly had much to do to show us his quality and that was a minor setback on a perfect day.

It’s a bright start to the season, everything looks promising at the moment but there will be different challenges the team would face as the season unfolds. There will be stronger teams to face as well. Too early to say that we are going to be league champions now. Take it one game at a time. 

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