Manchester United Show Character To Secure Important Win At Everton

When the final whistle was blown at Goodison Park on Sunday the Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag did not smile or show any sense of satisfaction that his side had just secured an important and hard fought 2-1 win over Everton.

Instead he had a stern and inscrutable look on his face, bereft of any flicker of happiness, and appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.

This was a man relieved to have won, but who could not be content with the scrappy and often disjointed performance he had just witnessed.

At the end of the game United were desperately holding on to their advantage as Everton launched wave after wave of aerial attacks into their penalty area.

But they managed to repel them all to secure their second win in four days following their 3-2 win over Omonia in the Europa League on Thursday.

That narrow win in Cyprus came with its own frustrations, but taken together these two wins made a statement and showed United have begun to recover from the 6-3 humiliation they suffered at the hands of their local rivals Manchester City last Sunday.

The win over Everton had glimmers of quality, but overall it was the character United showed, and the fighting spirit they summoned that will have pleased Ten Hag the most.

Before the game the Dutchman had asked his players to be smarter and nastier and they showed both of these qualities on an often chaotic night on Merseyside.

Despite the lack of a smile, there was still a lot to please Ten Hag; Ronaldo scoring his first Premier League goal of the season, and the 700^th club goal of his incredible career; Casemiro impressing enough to win the Man of the Match award on his first Premier League start; Antony scoring his third goal in his third Premier League game, and even Anthony Martial looking sharp and providing an assist before he succumbed to an injury in the first half.

Ten Hag’s evening did not start well when he saw Casemiro bundled off the ball after 5 minutes before it made its way to Alex Iwobi who gave Everton the lead with an impressive long-range goal that David De Gea might have done better to stop.

United had lost 8 of their last 10 away games in the Premier League, but Ten Hag’s players were determined not to be responsible for another one and began to assert themselves over what was a rather limited Everton side.

After 15 minutes, Martial smartly played Antony through on goal before the Brazilian finished with confidence past Jordan Pickford.

The clearly uncomfortable Frenchman was only on the pitch for another 14 minutes before he was substituted and made way for the hungry Ronaldo.

The Portuguese phenomenon turns 38 in February next year and does not want to waste the final years of his career sitting on the bench.

Here was his opportunity to prove he deserves to start in Ten Hag’s side, and he took it after 44 minutes by running on to an incisive pass from his former Real Madrid team-mate Casemiro and finishing with a low and powerful shot past Pickford.

This should have been the platform for United to take control of the game, but they spurned it and let Everton leverage themselves back into contention in the second half.

The sloppiness that had marred United’s loss at Manchester City seven days earlier reappeared, with the ball being given away far too easily. The worst offender was Diogo Dalot at right-back who endured a horrible ninety minutes.

In the final ten minutes Everton sensed they could take something from this game and sent on Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Salomon Rondon to try to exploit United’s relative lack of height in defence.

A series of high balls and corners were sent into the United penalty area, and Everton came close to scoring several times, particularly through the physicality and presence of their midfielder Amadou Onana.

Sensing danger, Ten Hag sent on Raphael Varane with only two minutes of added time remaining, but in this time he still managed to provide some calmness and assurance to the rest of the defence and guide his team-mates to the final whistle.

“Criticism is normal when you have a defeat, especially in a big game, in a derby,” Ten Hag said after the game. “You have to deal with that and learn lessons. We did that. We had a setback of going 1-0 down but we responded much better by sticking to the gameplan and doing our jobs.”

Overall Ten Hag will be relieved that his pair of former Real Madrid players Casemiro and Ronaldo look to be finding their form ahead of a very busy October.