Man United bounce back with win over Spurs

London, Oct 30

After the humiliating defeat against their fiercest rivals, Liverpool, last week, Manchester United lifted their performance with a thumping 3-0 victory against Tottenham Hotspur.

It lifted the pressure on their beleaguered manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who said: “The old men led from the front. It was the oldest team I’ve picked for United and it was time for it.” Two of the goals came from 36-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani, 35.

Solskjaer went on to say: “We were excellent, the experience came through. I’ve been here three years as manager and Tuesday’s training performance by Edinson is the best anyone has put into a training session here. He and Cristiano led the line all week in training. The two of them helped change the mood and the performance.”

He added: “The work rate and the quality they put in is second to none. They are fit lads and really experienced. Experience shone through. The boys were brilliant, they took everything on board. It’s about us improving as a group.”

Tottenham were poor, they looked an ordinary team and the two men up front, Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min were off form. Son did miss a glorious chance to score in the 23rd minute from a couple of yards but shot over.

The first half of the game was dull until six minutes before the end when Ronaldo put his side in the lead.

Bruno Fernandes lifted the ball to him from 10 yards outside the box and the Portuguese beat his marker Ben Davies to hit a brilliant right foot volley across Hugo Lloris and inside the far post.

It was a livelier second half, three minutes into it, Ronaldo found the net with a superb shot but was ruled off side. The visitors, however, extended their lead in the 64th minute with Ronaldo again in the action. He received a pass from Fernandes and with a clever flick he went past Oliver Skipp to put a perfect pass into Cavani’s path who after just one touch beat the onrushing goalkeeper to calmly place the ball in the net.

The latter part of the second half saw much pressure from Spurs but United’s defence stayed firm. The game was put beyond the London side four minutes before time with substitute Marcus Rashford side-footing a shot past Lloris after fellow substitute Nemanja Matic had passed to him behind the Tottenham defence.

Spurs manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, admitted his team is struggling. He said: “We’re not on the right track. The fans suffer when you’re not performing well. They have showed they are not happy. We keep on trying. We didn’t play good. Man United were stronger than us. We allowed counter attacks.”

He added: “They were organised, with three centre-halves and that’s difficult. We could not do it, we were not able to find combinations. It was a bit better in the second half but the finish wasn’t there. Bad performance. We’re trying to find solutions, working on the training ground, there’s no other way.”