Teenage kicks (and some undertones too)
A wonder goal from a 19-year-old and a cool debut from an 18-year-old: United win it with kids
SEVEN ASIDES Premier League: Everton 0, United 3
Everybody was talking about the crowd and how loud they were. After Everton’s ten-point deduction, Goodison Park was a bedlam of boos. But United had started two teenagers and if there’s one thing that doesn’t bother teenage boys, it’s noise. Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo – teammates when United won the Youth Cup only 18 months ago – both made their mark on this match in the first three minutes. As United were pushed back from the kick-off, Mainoo (18) instantly stood out with his cool passing under pressure. When they had their first attack, Garnacho (19) fought Goodison’s fire with flair and turned an overhit cross into an overhead screamer. It was the sort of goal that will long be remembered.
It was also the sort of goal that United’s naysayers tend to dismiss as individual brilliance. As insults go, this is almost a compliment, and here it was only half the story. Yes, it was a moment of magic from Garnacho, but it was still a team goal. Victor Lindelof started the move with possibly the classiest pass he has ever played – a 60-yard switch from the left side of defence to Marcus Rashford on the right wing. Lindelof had posted the odd gem to Rashford in the past – more often from right to left – but this was even better because he hit it harder and lower than usual, with some swaz as the players say, and it was fast enough to take Everton by surprise. Diogo Dalot helped by making a run on the underlap, drawing defenders away to give Rashford more time and space. He weighed up the options and slipped a simple forward pass to Dalot, who now went from the underlap to the overlap. A serial over-hitter of crosses, Dalot seems to forget to take his own momentum into account. He did put some backspin on this one, but it still sailed over the six-yard box. Garnacho had to take two or three steps back, something he did with an adroitness that bowled Gary Neville over. And then he had to get a clean hit, something Wayne Rooney hadn’t managed with his famous overhead in the derby, which went in off his shin. Stroke of genius or team effort? This was both.
Neville made Garnacho the player of the match while maintaining that he hadn’t actually been United’s ‘stand-out performer’. Slight contradiction there, Gary? But nobody was arguing with his view that Mainoo was the star. ‘He looks like a Man United player,’ Roy Keane said. Neville went a step further, saying ‘he looks like a Man City player.’ Mainoo took his duties as a defensive midfielder so seriously that after half an hour he saved a certain goal by clearing the ball off the line with a nonchalant flick of the outside of his right foot. He operated like a senior player, completing more of his passes (82 per cent) than any of United’s other starters, and he needed to as his partner in the pivot, Scott McTominay, often left him in charge of the shop. But Mainoo also played with freedom, not fretting when hemmed in by Everton’s pressing. Like any top-class player, he seemed to have a little more time than most. And all this in his first Premier League start. He took up where he left off against Arsenal in pre-season, when we said ‘Kobbie Mainoo has arrived’, only for him to miss four months with an ankle injury. It’s just a shame that his league debut came when he was playing against James Garner, not alongside him.
United didn’t play that well as a team – for the second quarter of the match they were under siege – but every starter did something good. Anthony Martial won a penalty off Ashley Young, scored a fine goal (with a Mainoo-esque flick) and maintained his habit of having a better effect on a league scoreline than Rasmus Hojlund, who is routinely preferred to him. Harry Maguire was imposing again. Luke Shaw’s return lifted the left-hand side as we knew it would. Rashford took the penalty with far more aplomb than we might have expected after his bad run. (You wait 12 weeks for a league goal from a United forward, then three come at once.) André Onana made several strong saves. As Statman Dave spotted, he is now first-equal among Premier League goalies for save rate and clean sheets.
Bruno Fernandes had his finest moment as captain. Handing the ball to Rashford before the penalty was a classic case of putting the team before the self. Fernandes is United’s regular penalty-taker but as he said, Rashford is ‘excellent’ too. This one could have been harder for him in three ways – he was bang out of form, he could see that Fernandes was showing pity, and he was facing Jordan Pickford who must know his pens well from England training. But his strike was still high, not wide, and handsome, showing courage as well as class. It may not be a coincidence that Rashford is reported to be reunited with his ex-fiancée, Lucia Loi. Last time he got back together with her after being on a break, he scored 30 goals in a season.
With Erik ten Hag up in the stand, United’s coaches missed one trick. They used only four subs, which meant that Joe Hugill remained on the bench. Surely they could have brought him on, either with Hannibal Mejbri in the 84th minute (when Martial went off) or instead of him. Perhaps the coaches are so unused to being 3-0 up that they couldn't see there was no need for a defensive substitution. As United’s third-choice centre-forward, Hugill will surely have to lead the line soon as the men in front of him in the queue, Martial and Hojlund, are both injury-prone. This was a chance to give him a taste of the atmosphere for ten minutes.
Still, United managed to turn a tricky trip to Goodison into a walk in the Park. Now they just have to do it twice more, at Rams Park, Istanbul, and St James’ Park, Newcastle. Gary Pallister, who played at Galatasaray in the Welcome to Hell match 20 years ago, said Rams Park ‘made Anfield look like a tea party’. I have a feeling it may be Kobbie Mainoo’s cup of tea.
Tim de Lisle, a United fan since before Ashley Young was born, is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter at The Guardian. Last week he was among the runners-up for Editor of the Year (Sport, Health and Fitness) at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards.