“I wouldn’t say that Donny is happy,” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer conceded earlier this week. Having signed for £40m in September, arriving from Ajax to enormous fanfare, it’s little surprise that Van de Beek is less than delighted at having made only two league starts for Manchester United thus far.
“Of course, he wants to play more,” said Solskjaer, in what seemed like a significant understatement. “He gets about his job in the right manner… he trusts his own quality, he is a quietly confident guy who deep down knows he is good enough and is just waiting for his opportunity.”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Van de Beek has struggled to secure a starting spot at United. He is competing with Bruno Fernandes, one of the most exciting players in the Premier League, while Solskjaer has plenty of choice in the deeper midfield positions with Paul Pogba, Scott McTominay, Fred and Nemanja Matic all in good form.
United are top of the table, the team looks well balanced and Solskjaer has no need to make drastic changes. “We are doing well and have got players who are playing really well in his position,” said Solskjaer, in a concise summary of the situation.
Knockout competitions have been much more fertile ground for Van de Beek, who gave several promising performances during United’s run to the League Cup semi-finals. This was his fifth start in the domestic cups, with his previous four all ending in wins.
While he made it five from five against Liverpool, he didn’t have as much to do with the result as he might have liked. If this was an opportunity for him to show Solskjaer that he deserves to start more often, he failed to take it.
In fairness to Van de Beek, it’s not easy to spend long periods on the bench and then make an instant impact. Having made his last appearance against Watford in the FA Cup third round and been an unused substitute against Burnley, Liverpool and Fulham in the Premier League, he looked reserved from the start.
There was a telling moment 10 minutes in when, picked out by Scott McTominay, he turned up the chance to run at Fabinho and opted to move the ball backwards instead. That set the tone for his performance: hesitant, cautious and unsure of himself, like a woodland animal waking up from hibernation and blinking into the light.
Upstaged by Fernandes
Van de Beek played a decent pass in the build-up to Mason Greenwood’s goal, though the vast majority of the credit has to go to Marcus Rashford for a fantastic assist. Thundering about on the left of the front three, Rashford was United’s main creative outlet in the first half.
With just over 25 minutes gone, he picked out Van de Beek with a lovely faded ball into the area. Alisson rushed out to make the save and Van de Beek crumpled to the turf, but Craig Pawson rightly waved play on.
After that, Van de Beek looked increasingly peripheral. He was a bystander for United’s second goal, Greenwood teeing up Rashford with a beautiful through-ball in a mirror image of the first. Liverpool imposed themselves in midfield, however, and Mohamed Salah scored his second goal of the evening not long afterwards. With Liverpool’s possession stats ticking upwards and Van de Beek struggling to get on the ball, he was brought off for Fernandes with 66 minutes on the clock.
For the rest of the match, Fernandes showed exactly why he has been Solskjaer’s first choice this season. Not only did he get the winner, making it 3-2 with a thumping free kick late on, his poise and assertiveness allowed United to dominate a game which looked like it could have tilted either way before he came on. In the last few minutes, he killed the ball dead on the edge of the box before whipping in an inch-perfect cross which Edinson Cavani headed onto the post. In just under half an hour, he had scored a brilliant goal and could easily have created another.
There’s no shame in being upstaged by Fernandes: it’s no coincidence that United’s fortunes have been transformed since his arrival last January. With a teammate in such irrepressible form, Van de Beek will need to be patient. That said, when he does get opportunities, he needs to give Solskjaer a reason to start him more often. There was little to suggest that he is owed more minutes in the Premier League from this game.
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