Manchester United have won again against Partizan Belgrade, but this time at Old Trafford it was a much more comfortable 3-0 victory against the Serbian side, as Mason Greenwood, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford all scored in the span of less than half hour.
The team will now be in much better mood after that loss to Bournemouth and the game against Brighton will be one many players will be itching to feature in.
Here are the things we learned from the match.
We Were Right
Yesterday, we said prior to the match that a comfortably win with a clean-sheet would be the best for United, especially if that meant some free-flowing display from the attacking players. And guess what? We were right. United did show such performance, as it turned out that Partizan really are a side that you can try different things against to achieve attacking patterns of play that were non-existent against Bournemouth.
Wan-Bissaka Shows Attacking Side To His Game
Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s display in this match showed that he is not all about defence and that he can be very useful offensively. Sure, there are still plenty of things to iron out and Partizan are not the ideal opposition to test yourself against, but he was bombing forwards on the night, tormenting left-back Urosevic. He even created some really good opportunities Marcus Rashford did not convert, but those goals might come when it matters more.
Anthony Martial Is Brilliant
If you were to only see Man United’s second goal of the match, there would be nothing else anyone should have told you about Anthony Martial. Such piece of brilliance and such skill to get on a slaloming run between four players and then get the ball past goalkeeper was spectacular to see, even better so that it happened at Old Trafford. This should be a massive boost for the Frenchman.
Solskjaer Gets Some Answers
This match also gave some answers to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and one of them was that the balance is necessity for Man United. On the night, he started Juan Mata as the number ten and Mason Greenwood on the right. When you have a natural right winger in his position and a playmaker in his, things tend to get much better, rather than tinkering around too much.
Also, Ashley Young’s performance showed that a real left-back is always a better option rather than the veteran. He was struggling to track back and it was much easier for Partizan to defend on that side of the pitch, at least when Young was involved.
Man United Qualify
And the most important thing of the night – Manchester United have qualified for the first knockout round of the Europa League. They will feature in round of 32 next February despite still having two matches to spare. The conclusion is that the Europa League group stages should be like this for Man United if they are already in the competition. Easy, with a few changes and not spending too much energy.
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