Manchester United 2-2 AC Milan (5-4 on Penalties): 3 Talking Points
Manchester United faced AC Milan in the International Champions Cup 2019 on Saturday for their last pre-season game and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had one last opportunity to test his side before the all-important Chelsea clash next week in the Premier League.
Romelu Lukaku and Matteo Darmain were the only two players unavailable for this match and both of them have been linked with moves away from Old Trafford. Also, Eric Bailly suffered an injury against Tottenham Hotspur and was confirmed by Solskjaer to be unavailable until Christmas. Paul Pogba also didn't travel with the squad with a minor back injury but he is expected to be fit for Chelsea next week.
Coming to the match, it was a closely fought affair as both teams showed potency in front of goal. Rashford fired United into the lead around the 14th minute, while Suso equalized for Milan. Milan then took the lead with a Victor Lindelof own goal and the second half substitute, Jesse Lingard brought United back into the game. The match went all the way to the penalties and the Red Devils won 5-4.
All in all, it was a pretty interesting watch and in this piece, we are going to take a look at the three talking points from the game.
#3 Manchester United's flexible attack
Surprisingly, Solskjaer has preferred a 4-2-3-1 formation throughout the pre-season for Manchester United and the 4 attackers seem to have the license to be fluid and flexible as all of them interchanged positions quite often. Anthony Martial started as the striker and Rashford operated from the left but both of them weren't stuck to their positions and Rashford was upfront when United scored that first goal.
Also, we saw Juan Mata and Andreas Pereira change positions quite often and we even saw Martial on the right on a couple of occasions. This United attack has a lot of pace and if they continue this constant chopping and changing of positions, they can be terrifying for opposition defenses next season.