A Europa League last-16 game against Real Betis was never going to entirely undo the Anfield Unpleasantness for Manchester United, but this still went as well as could be hoped.
A week ago Manchester United’s Europa League last-16 clash with Real Betis was a game whose framing would have been entirely built around its role in boosting or denting spurious hopes of a Manchester United Quadruple, hopes that resided almost entirely within the minds of half-a-dozen or so journalists.
Now, though, after The Unpleasantness, it was a match that actually did mean more than a run-of-the-mill Europa League last-16 clash. Now it would by necessity be measured as A Response or perhaps even A Reaction. And in those terms: hurrah! Manchester United are firmly now Back On Track. Sure, there was no result here that could entirely undo The Unpleasantness, but as a performance, this ticked all the necessary boxes and a couple of extra bonus ones.
Bruno Fernandes played well (which feels important) in an unchanged team (which feels very important). He scored a goal, created a goal and was very heavily involved in a nerve-settling, mood-boosting early opener for Marcus Rashford, who took a break from disgracefully driving his own car to places to net his 26th goal of a brilliant season. Some big ticks in there.
Sign-bothering miscreant Wout Weghorst getting a goal is just legitimately a nice thing to happen, and, while the fourth goal in a 4-1 win can’t ever be truly described as crucial, it’s also not entirely meaningless either. There feels like a very big difference between a two-goal lead and a three-goal lead after the home game of a two-legged tie. Two goals is a good lead but one that requires a bit of care and attention. Three goals is a tie-killing lead unless you do something really stupid and we’re pretty sure United have got their ‘something really stupid’ out of their system for a bit.
The second half was an unalloyed success story, 45 minutes of United dominance and crisp attacking football that could have brought more than the three goals United plundered. It may only be half as many as six, but it’s still a very decent number of goals to score in 45 minutes in pretty much any game of football.
What’s perhaps more interesting is how you choose to frame that second half in relation to the way the first 45 minutes panned out. The negative framing would be that United rather lost their way after an early goal that should really have set them…
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