Our Man of the Match: Leicester City (H)
Three games, three wins, three clean sheets. It’s been smooth sailing so far for Manchester United, and they continued that with a 2-0 win over Leicester City on Saturday afternoon.
However, Craig Shakespeare’s men made it hard work for United, and it took 70 minutes for the Reds to finally break down the Foxes, with substitute Marcus Rashford guiding home Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s corner to break the deadlock.
And another substitute finished the game off and sealed all three points for the Reds, with Marouane Fellaini guiding home Jesse Lingard’s drilled effort with his thigh despite being marginally offside.
José Mourinho will have been pleased with his side’s performance, despite the lack of cutting edge in the first half. They were positive for long periods, always looking for opportunities to strike and only some heroic defending from Harry Maguire kept the score respectable for Leicester.
As always, there were a number of standout performers. Eric Bailly and Phil Jones were both outstanding in the centre of defence, while Anthony Martial continued to impress after being given his first start of the season.
But our man of the match was…Marcus Rashford!
The man from Wythenshawe certainly had a point to prove after being dropped for Martial after starting United’s first two matches of the season. That was no fault of his own, as he had impressed without delivering an end product, but Martial’s goal had certainly swayed Mourinho’s opinion.
But Rashford was impressive once he came on, scoring almost instantly and providing a constant threat for United with his directness and pace. He also played his part in the second goal, slipping in Lingard with a wonderfully weighted through ball.
The competition between Martial and Rashford for that spot on the left-hand side of attack is certainly heating up and I wouldn’t be surprised if both men were rotated evenly over the rest of the season. Perhaps Mourinho won’t need a new option on the wing after all.