For the first time in a very long time, Manchester United looked like a top team when they dispatched Tottenham Hotspur.
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Louis van Gaal had suggested beforehand that a victory against what he described as a big team may be enough to turn Manchester United’s season.
As it turned out, this was a rather small-time performance from Tottenham but the manner in which United rolled them over suggested that Van Gaal’s team have an appetite for achievement this season after all.
This was the afternoon when the race for the final Champions League place may have been reduced from four runners to three — United, Liverpool and Southampton. Tottenham were pitiful.
As for United, who knows?
Here, against a team fancied by many, Van Gaal’s team found something of their true selves. They were quick, brave, incisive and merciless. For the first time in a very long time United looked like a top team.
Wayne Rooney started the day on the front pages and ended it, appropriately, on the back.
The scorer of a brutally taken third goal in a first half that United wrapped up and kept as their own, the United captain followed it with a celebration he must have choreographed as soon as the morning papers landed.
Rooney was brilliant and he will need to be between now and the season’s end. There were other bravura performances, too.
Marouane Fellaini scored United’s first goal in the ninth minute and contributed to a second, for Michael Carrick, in the 19th. The Belgian was excellent in his own peculiarly lumbering way, as were Juan Mata on the right and Ander Herrera in the No 10 position.
Yes, Tottenham were compliant but we should remember that United have laboured against poor opposition this season.
There was something different — something meaner and sharper — about this United performance and Van Gaal can only hope it can be bottled between now and next Sunday when his players disembark at Anfield.
Early on there were signs of nerves. Once goalkeeper David de Gea managed to divert Phil Jones’ panicked back pass in the second minute, however, they appeared to dissipate.
From the get-go, Mauricio Pochettino’s team struggled desperately down their own right side. On television, Gary Neville called it a ‘graveyard’ and Kyle Walker and Andros Townsend seemed to see only ghosts as Fellaini and Ashley Young eased forward down that side of the pitch.
The pattern was set early on and United scored when Fellaini galloped through a huge hole down the inside-left channel to collect Carrick’s pass and beat Hugo Lloris across his body with a left-foot shot.
Lloris may have done a little better but, with their nerves calmed and their tails up, United pressed on eagerly. The runs of Rooney off the shoulder of the two Tottenham central defenders gave the London club persistent trouble while the number of times players in white simply gave the ball away or were let down by poor control soon became too numerous to count.
Such was Tottenham’s disorganisation that United had several options whenever they moved forward. Van Gaal’s team continued to use Fellaini intelligently while Mata’s runs off the right touchline were also proving troublesome for Danny Rose.
The second goal, however, was rather basic.
A corner from the left was headed towards goal by Fellaini and when Rose hooked it clear, Carrick applied a firmly placed header from 18 yards that managed to beat both Lloris and Nacer Chadli, who had moved away from the far post.
With less than a quarter of the game gone, United were rampant. They have not been used to that here this season.
Playing with rare self-belief, they were able to move freely and with speed. It was, on occasion, reminiscent of United displays that we used to see at this great stadium.
Desperate to stem the tide of red possession, Pochettino made a change, withdrawing Townsend and sending on the more defensive Mousa Dembele. Changes in personnel don’t mean anything, though, if you continue to make mistakes and Nabil Bentaleb contributed the biggest one of all in presenting the ball straight to Rooney 10 minutes before half-time.
Rooney still had much to do but surged forward to hold off two players and beat Lloris with his left instep.
With the outcome of the game all but settled with almost an hour still to run, it was perhaps expecting a lot for United to keep such intensity.
As it was, they fell into something of a slumber for the next hour. Only the cruel would say that normal service was resumed.
Eventually, with just a minute to go, Tottenham mustered their only shot on target as Harry Kane was denied by De Gea at the near post.
Tottenham had begun and ended the game on the front foot. What passed between, though, was rather different.
This may well be the afternoon that finally, belatedly, signalled a real United push towards respectability and credibility. Sunday afternoon at Anfield will no doubt tell us more. – Daily Mail
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