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Manchester United faced Tranmere Rovers at Preston Park in the FA Cup and all eyes were on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his team. The visitors were coming into this game on the back of a home loss against Burnley while the away side ousted Watford from the FA Cup in their previous match.
In the first half of the game, Manchester United blew Tranmere away thanks to some brilliant football. Harry Maguire opened the scoring with a great strike, before Diogo Dalot and Jesse Lingard tripled the away side's lead.
Then, the Red Devils closed out the first half with two more goals; first from a corner that was headed in by Phil Jones and the other was a deflected strike into the top corner by Anthony Martial.
In the second half, Martial and Nemanja Matic were brought off for Tahith Chong and Fred. Those changes didn't change the flow of the game as Chong won a penalty for the Red Devils, which was buried in the back of the net by Mason Greenwood. After that, it was all about keeping a clean sheet for the visitors and they did exactly that to progress through to the next round.
Here, we are going to take a look at the three talking points from the game.
#3 Tranmere were defensively all over the place
Tranmere were hosting a low-in-confidence Manchester United side and they knew they had a chance to beat the Red Devils but they never really made it difficult for the visitors.
Barring a few minutes at the start where they looked like scoring, the home side couldn't keep up with United's intensity. They were giving almost every United player space and time on the ball and they were being cut open at will as they defence looked weak and spent.
The biggest drawback was their lack of pressing on the day and to be very honest, the hosts did look tired and that could have been because the played Watford on Thursday night. All in all, the drubbing they took was deserved.
#2 A confidence-booster for Solskjaer and his side
As stated before, prior to the game, all eyes were on Solskjaer as he was under a lot of pressure because of that loss to Burnley last week. He would have been delighted in the end with the way his team performed and everyone at the club needed this kind of a performance.
Not only does it give the players some confidence, but it also eases the nerves of the coach. The Red Devils have Manchester City away next in the second leg of the Carabao Cup and to be fair, it will not be an easy game for them.
The United players need to take this confidence into that match against City and if they give their all, who knows what will happen?
#1 United looked much more comfortable in a 3-4-1-2
There was a formation change implemented by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer against Tranmere and it has to be said that the Red Devils looked more comfortable in a 3-4-1-2 than they have looked previously in a 4-2-3-1.
It might be because in a 3-4-1-2, there are four players to control the midfield area, something which allows United to keep the ball and constantly switch play with ease. The Red Devils definitely created more chances on the day than they have done for quite a while now and that can be seen through the scoreline.
This is a formation United can play until Marcus Rashford is out due to injury and we might see it again on Wednesday night against Manchester City.
