Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville said United’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday was “perfect” after a very tough week for the club.
In what turned out to be a fairly comfortable and routine 3-0 win over Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, United were able to end what had been the hardest six days the club has faced since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over from Jose Mourinho in December 2018.
The 5-0 defeat to Liverpool last Sunday saw Solskjaer’s job come under heavy pressure.
It is believed Solskjaer faced three games to save his job, starting with Tottenham on Saturday, and answered his critics with an empathic win due to a change in formation and personnel.
Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford were dropped and Edinson Cavani and Raphael Varane started, as the Norwegian deployed a 5-3-2 formation.
It worked to perfection, United were solid defensively and looked dangerous on the counter-attack.
Spurs failed to register a single shot on target throughout the game and Neville, now a pundit, said the circumstances for his former side were “just perfect.”
“I think it was a perfect game for Manchester United there,” Neville said on Sky Sports after the game. “Spurs had a cup game this week, Spurs aren’t scoring many goals. Spurs with less possession. It was just perfect.
“It was a case of how many do we want to score, the perfect day for Manchester United. Go back to when I played, we always use to say, ‘it’s Spurs, you will beat Spurs’.
“This Spurs team were desperate. The biggest criticism I can give this Spurs team, they were 2-0 down and they get a corner after 75 minutes, Man United had everyone back and Spurs had three players back. There were 2-0 down at home.
“Abysmal. But United? Job done.”
Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring in the first half and he turned provider after the break when he set up Cavani.
Rashford came off the bench to add a third on the counter and put the icing on the cake.
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