When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer first took the wheel at Manchester United, he found that his best attacking trio consisted of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard. Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez were not a part of that first choice front line, and now both have moved on to Inter Milan.
United did not replace either of those players, who were both essentially a bust at Old Trafford. However, they did acquire winger Daniel James from Swansea City this summer, a pick-up that flew under the radar at the time. Today, in 3-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion, we saw United play some exciting, energetic, great paced attacking football.
The Martial-Rashford partnership has provided some excellent free-flowing football, and this was a match that they easily could have won 5-1. Rashford especially, left a couple goals on the table. Martial had two assists today, and he’s been in fine form when fit; which unfortunately hasn’t been all that often.
Rashford is a totally different player with Martial beside him than he is without. And Solskjaer has admitted earlier this season that he’s been forced to play James more than he wanted. The youngster has truly earned it. As for Lingard, well, he’s fallen way down the depth chart, behind even Andreas Pereira now. As Roy Keane put it, he gets an astronomical salary to be a professional Instagrammer now.
Solskjaer, a forward himself back in the day, nicknamed “the baby faced assassin,” said his side left some goals off the score sheet today.
“We should have scored many more goals,” the Norwegian said.
“It was an excellent performance from the lads, when you see them going forward it is a joy to watch. Anthony Martial did not get a goal but he was outstanding. Brandon Williams was excellent too, he has had some good games already and he seems he wants to be out there and enjoy himself.”
United moved up to seventh in the table, and they’re just one point off the pace for fifth now. Of course, there is still a pretty massive gap back to the top four, but overall, considering how disastrous they started, where they are now isn’t bad.
OGS says he’s not focused on what the standings say right now.
“The table does not really matter at the moment,” he said. “We need to keep improving and keep winning games and see where it takes us.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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