Rashford, Zirkzee and a pair of braces
United get clinical to turn Amorim's first home league game into a triumph
SIX ASIDES Premier League: United 4, Everton 0
There’s a subscriber to this newsletter, my friend Martin, who has a season ticket at Old Trafford and always has a small bet. He always backs the same result: United to win 4-0. There have been times in recent years when this policy has seemed a little deluded, but Martin has never wavered. He’s an optimist and a loyalist, a true all-weather fan. And on Sunday, at long last, he saw his boat come in – though the triumph was bittersweet because sitting next to him was his son, who had had a flutter on 5-0.
United hadn’t won 4-0 in the league since the visit of Norwich City way back in January 2020. (There had been two other four-goal margins in the meantime, a 5-1 and a 6-2, both against the same club – our old friends Leeds.) The Norwich win was United’s second 4-0 of 2019-20, the first being on the opening day when they dismantled Frank Lampard’s Chelsea. Everything at United has changed since then – the manager was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who is now five regimes ago, counting stopgaps – but one thing has stayed the same. Against Chelsea, against Norwich and now against Everton, half of the four goals were scored by Marcus Rashford.
He had some luck with the first one, as his half-volley from a corner was deflected by Jarrad Branthwaite. But Rashford had won the corner himself after a lonely run down the left – and it was his angled run to the right, as well as Amad’s tireless pressing, that set up his second goal. Rashford now has three goals in two starts under Amorim despite not being picked once at inside left, the position that should suit him best in the 3-4-2-1. His finish was clinical, as United’s forwards were throughout (bar a bad miss early on from the otherwise outstanding Amad). According to expected goals, the result should have been 1-1. United had only five shots on target – the four goals plus a crisp strike by Kobbie Mainoo on his first appearance in two months.
You wait ages for a United striker to score twice in the same game, then three of them do it in four days. If Martin had had a side-bet on Joshua Zirkzee to score twice, he would have made his fortune. Zirkzee’s finishing was impressively composed for someone who hadn’t managed a club goal since August, but the really promising thing about his performance was his lay-offs. They weren’t the simple knock-downs and occasional flick-ons that you get from Rasmus Højlund: they were proper passes, played out to the wings, suggesting that Zirkzee had spotted the space before going for the ball. Where Erik ten Hag was struggling to get a tune out of United’s centre-forwards, Ruben Amorim has got them all singing, switching between lead vocals and harmonies.
Amorim hasn’t solved all United’s problems. For the first half an hour, they failed to dominate a lowly team. Mainoo and Lisandro Martinez were silly to get booked and banned for the big game at Arsenal. When you're three up at home against Everton, United’s most obliging opponents of all time, you can afford to let them through on goal. With no Martinez there to nibble at his ankles, Bukayo Saka will have even more joy on Wednesday. United have only half-adapted to Amorim’s formation, and they retain their mysterious ability to be undone by one brave run – if Abdoulaye Doucouré had got the ball back from Beto, he might well have rounded off his early slalom with a goal. But Amorim has been brave too, with his rotation and his willingness to give forgotten men a go, and although they squandered two points at Ipswich and flirted with embarrassment against Bodo, United are in a far better place than they were a month ago.
Under Ten Hag they won four games out of 14 this season; since he left, it’s been five out of seven. They have gone roaring up the table to ninth and even, in the goal-difference league, passed Man City going the other way (United +4, City +3). Now, somehow, they have to pull off a heist at the Emirates, just as Arsenal have returned to form. Let’s hope Amorim has done his homework on the recent meetings between the sides. If so, he will have seen that, while the results have been uniformly poor, Rashford has scored four goals in his last three games against Arsenal. Even when looking lost last season, he was still United’s best big-game player. It would be a shame if Amorim repeated one of Ten Hag’s blunders and benched him just as he’d found his mojo.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian. If you’re on Bluesky, do follow him.