Aston Villa 1
Man Utd 2
Super-sub Scott McTominay popped up with a bullet header late on to give United an important 3 points. It was a win that pushes us further up towards the top 4 although feet need to be firmly on the ground as there is a lot of work to be done and much room for improvement.
United took the lead early on when Hojlund continued with his goalscoring form and tapped in from close range from a Maguire assist. Those who know me know how irritated I am every time we waste corners and the crosses never make it past the first defender. Something weird happened today! We were getting all the corners right. It seems that suddenly the players realised that if you actually hit it high towards Maguire, you have a chance…Eureka!!
Villa did react and they seemed to be finding their way into the United box with relative ease but in some way or another, we managed to defend the lead till HT. The gut feeling was that United needed to score another goal to get the 3 points as sooner or later we would concede.
The second half was pretty much in Villa’s hands with United looking dangerous on the counter (something which was not always the case this season). The equaliser came on 67 minutes and I think it was a deserved one as Villa had been piling on the pressure. At this point, I feared the worst but as Villa pushed on for the winner, United were trying to exploit the gaps.
On 86 minutes, Mainoo showed the usual composer down the right wing and set up Dalot for the cross. The cross was perfect from Dalot and McTominay said thank you I’ll have that. 2-1 up with 4 minutes of normal time and additional time to see this through. The additional 6 minutes seemed to go on for eternity but we held on as ETH brought on Evans and Amrabat to defend the lead.
Villa and their fans will probably believe that they deserved something out of a match in which they had 20 attempts on goal. United, on the other hand, took the chances and the 3 important points and that makes it 3 wins on the trot in the EPL.
Hojlund scored again, Garnacho on the right was lively and Marcus was not bad but could do better. Shaw came off at HT which is a concern, also because Lindelof is definitely not a left back.
Today week we go to Luton – can we make it 4 Ws? Numquam Moribimur…
