Manchester United stormed back to defeat Newcastle United 4-1 in Premier League play at Old Trafford on Thursday.
The visitors actually took the lead through Matty Longstaff’s well-taken strike but goals from Anthony Martial, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford put the Red Devils 3-1 up at half time.
Martial added another shortly after the break as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men showed a ruthless streak up front to claim the deserved victory.
Only goal difference separated the two sides in the Premier League table before kick-off but it became very clear by half time who was more superior.
A slow start to the contest kicked into gear on 15 minutes when Dwight Gayle was put clean through by Joelinton, however, the forward failed to convert the huge chance as he could only fire the ball off the bar.
But Newcastle were ahead a minute later through with Longstaff, who scored the winner in the St James’ Park fixture, beating David de Gea after cleverly letting the ball roll across his body.
That was as good as it got for Newcastle
Man United were only behind for seven minutes though and it was Martial who levelled the scores.
A decent ball by Luke Shaw found Andreas Pereira, who teed up his teammate and the Frenchman beat Martin Dubravka at his near post.
The Red Devils then went ahead when Fabian Schar’s dreadful ball across goal went straight to Greenwood, although the 18-year-old’s powerful finish in-off the bar was sublime
And the game was pretty much sewn up after 41 minutes when Rashford leapt brilliantly to head in Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s searching cross from the right.
Newcastle’s errors didn’t stop after the break and another dodgy pass, this time from Longstaff, cost them another goal.
Longstaff’s backpass went straight to Martial who then proceeded to dink the ball over the helpess Dubravka.
Martial nearly scored his first senior hat-trick just short of the hour but that proved to be his final chance as he was substituted shortly afterwards, as was Rashford with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer no doubt thinking of their trip to Burnley on December 28.
Harry Maguire also went close with a long-range effort as Man United saw out the rest of the game with consummate ease.
After the match, Harry Maguire said,
The first 20 minutes they had a good chance, and then we gave a sloppy goal away. We were too open, too wide as a back four. We learn from it. We showed great mentality to come back into the game after a bad result in our last game, and shows the boys have good spirit. Four great goals. We know we can score goals. We’ve got to make sure our mentality’s right. We’ve been a bit inconsistent this season and that’s something we need to work on. Against Watford we weren’t at it, but the boys showed great intensity today, all through the game, and we deserved the three points.
We’ve now got a big game in two days’ time [at Burnley]. We remain focused. The story of our season up to now is we put in a good performance, and then follow that up with a not so good one. We need to find that consistency. We’ve got to keep pushing, keep working, and make sure our mentality’s right for that one.
