EPL 2021-22: Tottenham Hotspur 0-3 Manchester United: 3 factors which stood out in the match
Manchester United beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 in a crucial Premier League match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Saturday. United are now in the 5th position in the league table with 17 points from 10 matches. Meanwhile, Tottenham are 8th with 15 points from the same number of matches.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford scored for the visitors in the 39th, 64th and 86th minutes respectively. The win should have provided welcome relief to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, United’s under-fire coach.
Bouncing back with a big 𝐖.
Up the Reds! 🔴
#MUFC | #TOTMUN
On that note, let's take a look at
3 stand-out factors from the match:
1. Manchester United kept playing crosses as Ronaldo scored a stunner
United started with a 3-4-3 formation instead of their customary 4-2-3-1, and both their wingbacks, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Luke Shaw, worked hard.
Wan-Bissaka’s work rate was particularly impressive. He kept attacking through the right flank and played an incisive grounded pass to Cavani, whose shot deflected off a Tottenham defender and went wide.
On another occasion, Bruno Fernandes found Cavani unmarked with an inch-perfect cross, but the latter saw his header miss the goal by a whisker. United kept having numbers in the opposition half and both Ronaldo and Cavani kept moving to the flanks to support the wing-backs.
Ultimately, one of United’s crosses bore fruit as Fernandes played a chipped ball towards the far post of the Tottenham goal. Ronaldo hit a wonderful diagonal volley from an acute angle to put the visitors ahead. It was the Portuguese superstar’s seventh goal of the season.
2. Tottenham earned a number of corners, but lacked energy overall
Tottenham were successful in earning a number of corners in the first half, and Cristian Romero scored from one of them. However that goal was ruled out as the Argentine was in an offside position. But besides that, deliveries from corners from Heung-min Son and Giovani Lo Celso were poor.
Tottenham started with a 4-3-3 formation which often became 4-2-3-1 with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Oliver Skipp playing as holding midfielders. Lo Celso was the attacking midfielder, Son Heung-Min and Lucas Moura on the flanks, with Harry Kane being the lone frontman.
Son was a constant nuisance to the United defense with his tireless runs and high press. However, Kane and Giovani Lo Celso lacked energy in the first half and did not do enough to trouble the defenders.
Moura was also one of the outlets of Spurs’ attacks in the first half and worked hard. But there were not enough probing moves in general and neither did the Tottenham forwards have enough shots at the United goal.
Emerson Royal, Tottenham’s right full-back, was involved in a lot of attacks in the first half, but the home side lacked the same impetus through the left flank.
3. Tottenham made substitutions, but United scored again in the second half
Tottenham made changes, quite understandably, by throwing in the likes of Steven Bergwijn, Dele Alli and Tanguy Ndombele into the match. Moreover, Son and Emerson continued their good work, and put pressure on the United defense through the right flank.
They also started playing a lot of crosses into the United box, but failed to register a single shot on target. Raphael Varane was also rock-solid in the center of United's defense.
United piled on their misery by scoring from a brisk counter-attack. Fernandes won the ball near the halfway line and played it to Ronaldo. He dodged past a Tottenham player before playing a pass to Cavani, who slotted the ball home neatly past an advancing Hugo Lloris.
The second goal sealed the fate of the match and Tottenham never recovered from that blow. United took off Ronaldo, Fernandes and Cavani, and Rashford, one of the substitutes, managed to score a third to steer United to a convincing victory.