Manchester United beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon to gain momentum in the race for Europe.
Sunday’s match between Manchester United and Spurs was key in the battle for the Champions League spots and with upcoming fixtures against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea you felt Man United really needed a positive result.
With Spurs’ recent form in the League and United’s impressive 5 league wins in their last seven games it had all the ingredients for a fantastic fixture.
In the opening moments Phil Jones completely misjudged a pass back to De Gea that saw De Gea scrambling to keep the ball out of his own net. It looked like it may be a long afternoon for United.
However, after some patient build up play Michael Carrick split open the Spurs defence, completely exposing the high back line, and Fellani found himself through on goal, cooly finishing past Hugo Loris with his left foot.
With any early nerves seemingly gone United went for strength to strength and began to knock the ball around confidently, leaving Spurs chasing shadows.
Spurs’ problems went from bad to worse in the 18th minute after Fellani got up powerfully to meet a corner, Chadli failed to deal with it properly and Carrick headed home from 12 yards to make it 2-0.
Pochettino was clearly livid with his team and made a change at the half-hour mark, replacing Andros Townsend with Moussa Dembélé.
However, shortly after the change, Bentaleb summed up Spurs’ first half performance when he unnecessarily gave the ball away to Wayne Rooney who only had one thing on his mind. Rooney turned and ran to the Spurs defence, leaving Eric Dier in a right mess before slotting the ball past Loris to make it 3-0.
Manchester United set the tone for the second half early on, going into cruise control.
Mason drifted past Carrick to give himself a couple of yards but dragged his shot wide. A half chance from Spurs but nothing more.
Spurs enjoyed a bit more of the ball in the second half but failed to do anything with it, posing no real threat to United who looked comfortable throughout.
Lamela came on for Mason in the 64th minute, with Dembélé moving back into the centre of midfield and Lamela playing off the left.
Chadli was replaced in the 79th minute by Emmanuel Adebayor – remember him?
Shortly after, Marouane Fellani was replaced by Radamel Falcao. He rightly went off to huge applause from the United faithful as he was fantastic this afternoon, showing glimpses of what we all saw him do in an Everton shirt.
Rafael returned from injury to replace Michael Carrick with a few minutes left on the clock. Again, Michael Carrick really put in a performance today, providing an assist and a goal for his team. United really do look a better side with him in the middle of the park.
Harry Kane got a sight of goal in the 89th minute with Spurs’ only shot on target, but his shot was smothered by a grateful De Gea who really would have hated to lose out on a clean sheet on a day he’s hasn’t been troubled.
The final whistle must have been music to the ears of the Tottenham players who will want to put this game behind them and try and get back to their best for their remaining fixtures.
United were very impressive, and their first half display was something Sir Alex Ferguson would’ve been proud of as they exploited the flanks and tried to move the ball forward as quickly as possible.
Manchester United were deservedly 3-0 winners against a Spurs side that never really showed up at Old Trafford with Marouanne Fellani, Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney the stars of the show.