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#1 Manchester United finally make the most of their possession
Over the past few months, Manchester United have been guilty of not optimally utilizing possession, meaning that they’ve squandered several chances to put teams away. To put things into further perspective, before the game against Newcastle, they’d won only one of their previous 17 games in which they had enjoyed the majority of the ball.
Fortunately for them though, nothing of that sort materialised on Thursday as they breached a rather brittle Newcastle defence on four occasions. Though the Red Devils were massively aided in their endeavours by the visitors, there were plenty of positives for the hosts.
Firstly, they moved the ball a lot quicker and weren’t guilty of slowing down movements in the middle third. In the process, the above enabled them to find spaces in the offensive third and ultimately, carve out opportunities.
Secondly, the inclusion of Andres Pereira formed the perfect link between the midfield and attack as the Brazilian was at the heart of everything the hosts did throughout the encounter.
He popped up in between midfielders, laid the ball off for his teammates and also took up wide positions at times, thereby creating space for the forwards to maraud in-field.
Furthermore, Luke Shaw and Wan-Bissaka forayed forward regularly to pin the Magpies’ wing-backs in their own half. Consequently, that permitted them to impose their identity and dominate the visitors.
Ever since Solskjaer’s tenure at the helm began, the Norwegian has preached an attacking brand of football that would be in sync with the traditions of the ball. Yet, that particular aspect hasn’t really panned out as expected, especially against sides in the bottom half of the table.
And, though they bucked the trend against Newcastle on Thursday, it is now up to the Red Devils to prove that that performance represented the norm rather than acting as an anomaly.
