Norwich 1-3 Man Utd: East Anglia Trip Fruitful

Man Utd get their first away win in the Premier League since March as McTominay, Rashford and Martial find themselves on the scoresheet, even though the latter two both missed pens before they scored their effort from open play. A McTominay mistake allowed Norwich to get a late consolation for their efforts.

Front four bouncing

With all due respect to the Canaries, if there was one game that would allow a stuttering attack to stir into action, it would be this one. At long last, more than two goals in a Premier League. In his first start since Crystal Palace at home, Martial led the line excellently and his presence up top was dovetailed nicely by the trio behind him, in James, Pereira and Rashford. It has been the first time in a while that it was possible for United to sustain attacks with the ability to hit the front man into feet rather than down the sides with hopeful punts forward, although this was chosen as an outlet far too often at times in the second half and led to silly turnovers of the ball. That small gripe aside, the second and third goal showed great work from the majority of the attack, the third especially containing beautiful combination play between Rashford and Martial, the latter capping the move with a lovely dink over the keeper

Possession – Work in Progress

Despite, at times, being able to put together nice sequences of possession, it was still a hallmark of the game whereas the passing was too lax, marginally off target or just way off target all together. Even when it was in direction of the player, it was often to the wrong foot, McTominay and Fred being especially guilty of this in the first half. There were still too many touches in order for players to find their men when one would be enough. Luckily, Norwich’s press mirrored much of our passing on the ball so it did not hurt us as much as it would have in normal cases but more work has to be put in on the training ground in order to sharpen up our play on the ball. The eventual re-introduction of Pogba will serve as some aid in this as his modus operandi is finding the pockets faster than most, which should provide more impetus for the forward runs

McTominay’s Mixed Bag

It was the Scotsman that set us away on our fortunes this afternoon from a smartly taken effort that dropped in the box from the corner. In the first half, as mentioned above, his passing could have been slicker and quicker but it was not so bad as usual. Second half, in a ropey opening 10 minutes or so, the defence and midfield were guilty of falling into bad habits and flinging the ball into areas rather than looking for a man. McTominay was as guilty of this as anyone, on one occasion trying to measure a ball down the channel when a simple pass into the feet of the front man would have sufficed. A mix up with his feet is what allowed Norwich to score the consolation goal and it is something that needs to be guarded against in the future as turnovers in midfield seem to be a fruitful way to get the ball into our net.