EMIRATES STADIUM — Manchester United rang the changes for the visit to Arsenal making five in total from the embarrassing defeat to Sheffield United, including the re-introduction of Edinson Cavani as his focal point.
It was no surprise that Cavani was reinstated given Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has consistently talked him up over the past week as a model for United’s younger players to follow and given Anthony Martial’s inability to emulate his Project Restart form.
There was a feeling that Cavani was a vanity signing late on in the summer window, a big name brought in to appease fans following the embarrassing Jadon Sancho fiasco. However, he has increasingly grown in stature, so much so that he is now being picked for the big games.
It isn’t hard to see why Cavani has enjoyed such a successful career when you see him up close. Cavani will turn 34 on Valentine’s Day but on a freezing cold night inside a windswept, rainy Emirates Stadium, he hared around the pitch with all the enthusiasm as someone half his age.
Bruno Fernandes was the only United player to run more on the night and although most of his runs – in to out, out to in, back and forth – failed to be picked up by his teammates, his movement would have left ex-PSG teammate David Luiz and his partner Rob Holding feeling dizzy.
All that was lacking was a goal and he should have definitely had one, if not two.
Before the game, Solskjaer reasoned that Cavani’s ability to attack crosses was partly why was he included: “With Edinson there we want to get crosses in and that’s something we’ve worked on for tonight so hopefully we can see some of them.”
Both of his chances came from balls delivered into the box by United full-backs. He somehow skewed wide with the goal gaping from Luke Shaw’s skidding ball across the six-yard-box and then hooked a snapshot agonisingly wide of the post from Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s centre in the final minute of normal time.
“I felt we had the bigger chances to win the game,” Solskjaer told Sky Sports after the game. “It was a decent performance, we were good defensively and had two massive chances in the second half, unfortunately we couldn’t put it between the posts.”
The goals escaped ‘Edi’ – as the United bench call him – on the night, but his track record suggests they will soon flow once more.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/36rd3n0
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