From deep trouble to strength in depth
At last, a convincing victory – and it came from a cast full of understudies
COMMENT Carabao Cup, third round: United 3, Palace 0
It was only the League Cup. It was only Crystal Palace. It was only a tussle between two teams that were both depleted, twice over – first by injuries, then by rotation. And yet it turned out to be quite significant.
United, in their eighth match of the season, finally managed a convincing victory. They secured a second clean sheet in a row, badly needed after their four-game sequence of defensive calamities. And they displayed something that a few informed observers had accused them of lacking: strength in depth.
Erik ten Hag put his two biggest threats, Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford, on the bench, and left them there all evening. His starting line-up included only two names (André Onana and Casemiro) that would be sure to make the first XI in the unlikely event that everyone was available.
It also included two players feeling their way back from injury in Mason Mount and Sofyan Amrabat, whose first start for United came in a position he hadn’t occupied for years. They could hardly have done better. Mount was closely involved in the first two goals, while Amrabat was the classiest player on the field, completing 78 passes out of 81. He showed exactly how to play a game of two roles – left-back and holding midfield, the full Zinchenko.
The front four consisted of three under-22s (Facundo Pellistri, Hannibal Mejbri, Alejandro Garnacho), plus one eternal teenager (Anthony Martial). The last two both scored, while the first two brought energy. Pellistri had the most shots in the match (four) and supplied a deft lay-off to the underlapping Diogo Dalot to set up Garnacho’s goal. Mejbri, in his first pair of successive starts for United, has galvanised the whole team with his running. At Burnley he ran 12.9km, the most by a United player in one match since records began four years ago. And he did it with the biggest hair.
That’s one way to add to your depth – by throwing young players in at the deep end. And that can have the effect of firing up the elders. Casemiro not only maintained his improbable bid for the Golden Boot, he also remembered that he has a day job as a defensive shield. Hell, United even started Harry Maguire in the slot where Gareth Southgate uses him andTen Hag normally doesn’t, as the left-sided centre-back.
Palace may have been strangely passive, but United were admirably positive. Now they just need to do it all again in the instant rematch.
Tim de Lisle, a United fan since the days of Alan Gowling, is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter at The Guardian. If you’re on Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.