The Brazilian was handed a well deserved Premier League debut and showed Jose Mourinho he deserves to keep his place in the starting XI after an impressive display against Leicester.
He was one of the stand out performers on the American tour and he’s continued the new season in the same vein. He played at the base of United’s midfield three and barely put a pass wrong all night.
He’s a more enterprising option going forward than Nemanja Matic, who regularly occupies that role, and the 22-year-old looked comfortable on the ball defensively too.
Even if Matic recovers in time for Brighton away, Pereira surely has to keep his position.
Captain POG
After a week of speculation about Pogba’s future Mourinho handed him the captain’s armband. He may have been doing it to send a message to his La Liga rivals that the France international isn’t going anywhere but, the 25-year-old should be a serious contender to have the captaincy on a permanent basis.
Antonio Valencia has been confirmed as taking over the mantle from Michael Carrick but with a poor injury record Mourinho could do worse than to make Pogba his deputy.
It was a solid performance from Pogba, despite his lack of pre-season, and he definitely didn’t play like someone who had only four days training after returning from his summer holiday.
He took charge in the centre of the pitch. Not least to demand to Alexis Sanchez that he would be taking the penalty in the second minute.
Centre back partnership.
Having missed out on a centre back signing in the transfer window Mourinho decided to start the first Premier League game of the season with a pairing who have only played together once before. And that was cut short due to Eric Bailly’s injury.
The pair barely put a foot wrong and particularly impressed in the first half under pressure from Leicester’s attack. Mourinho’s struggled to find a solid pairing at the back but given a run of games Bailly and Lindelof could show that it wasn’t a total disaster that United missed out on that centre back they were after.
Darmian’s goodbye.
It could have been his last ever game for United and he didn’t go out on a high. The Italian actually showed some promise on pre-season tour but his performance against Leicester showed why a large proportion of Untied fans won’t miss him when he’s gone.
He started the game brightly with a promising run in the first two minutes but it went downhill from there with some sloppy passing.
The decision to allow Timothy Fosu-Mensah to go out on loan looked an even more remarkable one given the full back’s performance and Mourinho will have to hope Valencia and Dalot recover from their injuries quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment