David Moyes bagged his first win as United boss today in a comfortable 5-1 victory against the A-League All-Stars. Jesse Lingard scored a couple of excellent goals, including a great strike into the top corner. Danny Welbeck also added a brace that’ll surely boost his confidence. RvP added the fifth.
United played excellent football from the word go. They pressed high up the pitch forcing their opponents into mistakes and this paid off after just 11 minutes when Jesse Lingard cooly slotted home after a great dummy by Danny Welbeck.
Danny Welbeck then turned into the scorer, an excellent ball from Giggs set him through one-on-one with the keeper and Danny remained calm and beat him before slotting the ball into an open goal.
Things settled down then up till the second half. United carried on the front foot and you could see they were hungry for goals. Zaha created numerous chances down the right wing and thoroughly impressed. Unfortunately for him though nobody managed to latch onto his crosses.
The A-League All-Stars then managed to pull one back, Michael Keane lost track of his man and allowed him to fire a scuffed shot that bobbled past Lindegaard in the United goal. The Dane should’ve done better and will be disappointed not to have kept a clean sheet.
Then came the moment of the match; Jesse Lingard sent his man the wrong way before smashing a thunderbolt into the top right hand corner leaving the keeper helpless. The smile on his face said it all, he looked delighted to be playing for United and that’ll certainly be a goal he won’t forget for a long time.
Robin van Persie came on just after the hour mark and made instant impact. He drifted in a corner from the right hand side and Danny Welbeck met it in a very similar fashion to his header against Real Madrid. His brace will give him a massive confidence booster going into the new season.
It was inevitable he’d score from the moment he came on. Robin van Persie wrapped things up but somewhat surprisingly he needed two bites at the cherry. He missed his one-on-one as the onrushing keeper did enough to put him off, but the ball found his way back to him and there was no way he’d miss twice. He finished nicely to the goalkeepers left.
A late flourish of chances saw Zaha go close twice, before Adnan Januzaj was played in by the new boy, and he hit the post.
The final whistle was greeted by a roar from the Australian crowd. United were absolutely brilliant and I was massively impressed by the young lads in the side. Zaha, Lingard, Welbeck, and Januzaj all shone and it was a joy to watch.
Now onto Japan where we’ll next play on Tuesday. Shinji Kagawa will also meet up with the squad there.
Man of the Match – Jesse Lingard
Contrary to what the fans inside the stadium believed (they voted for Robin van Persie), I’ve gone for Jesse Lingard. The young man was at the heart of everything good about our play. He linked up superbly with Danny Welbeck and Robin van Persie and he more than deserved his two goals. The other contender for the award was Wilfried Zaha, but his end product let him down.
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