Premier League: 3 reasons why Manchester United lost 4-0 to Everton

Earlier in the week, Manchester United had been humiliated at Camp Nou by Barcelona. Today, they faced Everton in a match which would go a long way in deciding if United will play next season. It was never going to be an easy match for the Red Devils as the Toffees had done well against the 'big 6' recently.

They had held Liverpool to a draw, while they had won against both Chelsea and Everton. Everton started the match brilliantly as they were in no mood to give any advantage to the men from Manchester. Richarlison gave the lead to the hosts with a brilliant overhead kick. Gylfi Sigurdsson doubled the lead with a wonder strike from almost 35 yards.

The visitors must be hoping to make a comeback in the second but all the hopes were dashed by Lucas Digne who scored a brilliant volley to make it 3-0. Theo Walcott piled on the humiliation by making it 4-0 as United looked helpless.

Everton won the match 4-0 to rise to 7th in the standings. This is Everton's best win against Everton since 1981. On the other hand, United must beat both Manchester City and Chelsea in the next week to have any chance of qualifying for the Champions League next season. Let us look at a few of the reasons for the loss.

#1 Failure to deal with the set pieces

Long throws from Lucas Digne has been a great threat for the opposition. Solskjaer and his staff must have discussed this threat with the team. But all that effort didn't bear any fruit as Everton got their first goal from a long throw.

This was not the only time when United defence looked cluless on the set pieces. To make it worse, the defenders were not even to stop Everton from getting set piece opportunities. When United got a set piece oppurtunity of their own they messed that up too.

Everton was alert as Sigurdsson scored with a wonder strike on the counter. Even the third Everton goal came from a set piece as United failed to clear a corner properly.

#2 Shambolic defence

Luke Shaw was serving the last match of his two-match suspension. United seemed to miss their first choice left-back badly as Solskjaer had to go with a makeshift back four. Phil Jones and Chris Smalling were picked as the centre-back pair.

Victor Lindelof, who has arguably been United's best defender this season, was forced to play out of position as a right-back. Even Diogo Dalot was played out of position as he was forced to play as a left-back instead of his preferred right-back role.

This was the time when you expect some seniors to take the responsibility but sadly for United, no one was up for the job. The defence was shambolic tonight as none of the players seemed to know their role. They simply had no answer to the questions posed by ruthless Everton, and Manchester United paid for this by suffering humiliation.

#3 Lack of Chemistry

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had made several changes to the starting line up. A lot of players were forced to play out of position and it showed as the team seemed to lack any kind of chemistry. As mentioned on previous page, it was a makeshift defence.

The forward line of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, and Romelu Lukaku was also not in any kind of sync, as both Rashford and Martial like to play in the same role. Nemanja Matic was culpable for the second goal scored by Siggurdson as he afforded too much space to the Iceland international.

Fred was so poor that he had to be subbed off at the half-time. Then there is curious case of Paul Pogba who keeps blowing hot and cold. There were too many poor performances which meant that United lost five matches in a row away from home in all competitions for the first time since 1981.