Now I don’t for a second think Eddie Howe pays attention to fan media but if he did, he would’ve pleased many with his thought-provoking, effective changes in Wednesday night’s 2-0 win over Chelsea at St James’ Park.
I wrote that what we saw on Sunday was predictable but Howe mixed things up here, and to great effect too. United were crisp and dynamic in the first half and resolute and solid in the second.
The left-sided link up between Joelinton and Willock gave us something new, Sandro Tonali thrived in a more central and slightly deeper ‘No.6’ role, Sean Longstaff was superb off the ball in snuffing out danger, Alexander Isak looked sharper and Lloyd Kelly was superb, not only adding pace to our back line but weighing in with two goal-saving blocks.
A special mention must go to Emil Krafth who was stupendous on Wednesday night, which even included a marauding run from RB to left-wing in the second half which saw a Tino Livramento cross/shot blocked by Chelsea defenders. The Swede was a calm, reassuring presence in the backline and may’ve played himself into contention to start in the League moving forward.
Lewis Hall was immense too, and the lads appears to be maturing into the player we thought we had signed from Wednesday’s visitors 15 months ago.
Longstaff and Willock dominated the Chelsea midfield in the first half and the Geordie has now won five and drawn one of the last six games he has started. Food for thought indeed.
Some will point to Chelsea making eleven changes, but they still had a £80m winger, a £65m full-back, a £105m midfielder, two £45m+ defenders and a £52m striker on the pitch. They were by no means ‘weak’ and we did a real job on them.
All the above gives us a platform to build on as we come to one of the biggest games at SJP this season so far on Saturday when Arsenal come to Tyneside.
In what is sure to be a difficult encounter United appear to have given themselves a platform going into the game. The crowd will have to be on its game on Saturday, especially with the god-awful 12:30 kick off, but Arsenal will be desperate for a result so that they don’t lose ground in the ‘title race’.
We all know they can be tetchy, and we must be in their faces on Saturday to get a positive result. It’s always darkest before the dawn, and if Eddie and the boys can back up the Chelsea result up with a result on Saturday then it will have been an excellent four days on Tyneside and may signal green shoots of recovery for United.
Howay the Lads!
Add Comment