Manchester United 1-0 Tottenham Hotspurs - Five Talking Points

Manchester United started the new season with a narrow win over Tottenham Hotspurs at Old Trafford. Kyle Walker’s own goal was the difference between the two sides at the end of 90 minutes.Louis van Gaal had introduced four new faces in his starting lineup for the season opener while Pochettino made some tactical tweaks after suffering an embarrassing drubbing in the same fixture last season. Both the teams were unconvincing but the hosts held their nerves and showed their winning mentality as they ground out a 1-0 win on the opening day.The game was a bit quiet all around apart from a few spells, but there’s a lot of take aways for both teams involved.Here are the five talking points from the match.

#5 Harry Kane\'s misery

Harry Kane entered this season with some reputation attached to his name. After having a fairytale last season, Kane had to start his new season at Old Trafford, which is one of the most difficult places to play for an opposition player.

Well, this time around he didn’t have a fairytale beginning as he was ably managed by the United rear-guard.  There are murmurs in England of him being a one season wonder and tonight these critics will be out with full strength bashing the North London lad left, right and centre.

Although his performance wasn’t top class, he wasn’t awful either. It was one of those days where he was carefully isolated by Chris Smalling and Michael Carrick in first half and Schneiderlin replaced Carrick in that duty in second half. He tried drifting outwards to create more space but didn’t have much success there as well.  

The young striker may as well not even wear Lilywhites come at the end of August, with potential interest from Manchester United, the odds of that happening just might have got slashed after today.