Manchester United are in the semifinals of the League Cup, after beating Colchester United 3-0 on Wednesday night. They will play Manchester United in the two-legged clash during January, but before we completely turn action to the team’s hectic schedule in the next couple of weeks, we are going to talk about the match against Colchester from a bit different perspective.
We will be taking a closer look at numbers to see how our players performed.
Rashford Up For It Yet Again
Marcus Rashford being in form is an understatement. Manchester United star has been in the form of his life and continued it against the League Two side. Ever since his great goalscoring run started with that England match in Bulgaria, Rashford scored in the big majority of games. Only four times he did not manage to get the ball into the net and only once in those four matches United still managed to win.
That was against Partizan in Belgrade when Anthony Martial’s penalty was enough for the Red Devils, but the team failed to win against Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Everton too, three matches in which Rashford did not score.
But he did score against Colchester and he assisted Martial with the final goal of the night and he showed he was up for it yet again. He was lively with five attempted dribbles, completing three of them.
Mata’s Lack Of Creativity
Juan Mata is the player we talk about in recent times, as the Spaniard is failing to show why he could remain a valuable part of this team. And there are fewer and fewer reasons for that. His performances are far from his best days and these days he barely manages to ever influence the games he is playing in. Mata’s performance against Colchester was another poor showing, in which he did not manage to offer creativity or any kind of spark, for that matter.
Mata played all 90 minutes against Colchester, but the only key pass he made in the entire match came right at the end, after his corner kick. And that was it. Mata did not do much with those 76 passes he made. He did play against a set defence with a low block, but that is exactly the time when he should be expected to show his intelligence and creativity. He lacked it yet again.
Martial Involved Centrally
When Man United play against deep blocks, often their central attacking players fail to do much. For example, it was a usual thing last season to see Romelu Lukaku unable to get more often on the ball, but against Colchester, Martial managed to do so. All of his 45 touches came in central areas, in and around the box. He even made 13 touches in Colchester’s penalty area, which is almost one third of all of his touches. His movements were good and sharp in the second half and from them came some good chances and also that goal he scored to make it 3-0 and seal the win.
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