Right then, I’m off. First, though, a gift for you. It’s a match report! Bye!
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Pogba and Mkhitaryan do some chatting, starting with Pogba:
The game, we have a very good result. So we carry on on this road. We want this, and we have to carry on. I think we’re more confident. We know each other more. Everybody knows each other, we work for each other and I think that’s easier for us.
And continuing with Mkhitaryan, who got two assists and is the official man of the match:
Of course it was a tough game, especially in the first half, but we were patient, we were doing what we had to do. We scored in the first half and in the second half it became easier, because they played with four defenders and there was space behind the defensive line. We had team spirit last year, but this year we’re having a little bit of luck, we’ve started very well. The most important thing is that we keep doing the same.
Swansea worked hard, but never appeared to have much ambition beyond keeping the score down and in the end they couldn’t even do that. But for those six second-half minutes when the hosts finally crumbled United never really purred, but they have too much quality for limited sides to live with at the moment. Rashford was their brightest forward, and Martial continued in a similar vein when he came on, but they have any number of matchwinners at the moment.
Final score: Swansea 0-4 Manchester United
90+4 mins: Two games, eight goals, none conceded, six points. That’ll do for United.
90+2 mins: Ayew, who has to be fair tried very hard today, wins the ball, keeps it, protects it, loses it, wins it back and then shoots wide from 20 yards.
90+1 mins: There will be at least three minutes of stoppage time.
@Simon_Burnton Seriously, how do Swans expect to score without Sigurdsson?
— James Thomas (@jbtcardfan) August 19, 2017
This is a reasonable question, and one to which Swansea themselves don’t appear to have an answer.
88 mins: The margin of their defeat does Swansea a disservice, as they have defended well. But United do have a lot of good attacking players, and they don’t really have any (though Abraham may become one), and sooner or later that was going to become a problem.
85 mins: Both teams have made their final substitutions. McBurnie replaced Abraham for Swansea between goals three and four, and United bring Herrera on for Mkhitaryan, who was only influential for about 10 minutes, but they were good ones.
GOAL! Swansea 0-4 Manchester United (Martial, 84)
Classic Martial. The forward is picked out by Pogba, 40 yards from goal, and carries the ball to the edge of the area, cuts onto his right foot and slots inside the far post!
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GOAL! Swansea 0-3 Manchester United (Pogba, 82)
And another one! Pogba intercepts the ball inside the centre circle and passes right to Mkhitaryan, who runs to the edge of the area and plays a perfect return pass. Pogba lifts the ball over the onrushing Fabianski, and suddenly it looks very comfortable indeed!
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GOAL! Swansea 0-2 Manchester United (Lukaku, 80)
And surely that’ll win it! Martial, who has been bright since coming on, runs to the edge of the area and into the path of Mkhitaryan, who unlike the Frenchman can see Lukaku in oceans of space inside the penalty area and picks him out. The finish is straightforward.
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78 mins: United stretch and probe the Swansea defence before finally losing the ball, which is promptly thumped straight down the other end for Abraham to chase, in vain.
74 mins: Pogba shoots wide from the free-kick, and United make their substitutions: Mata and Rashford are off, and Fellaini and Martial are on.
73 mins: Blind shoots high from 25 yards and is fouled by Fer mid-follow through. Fer gets booked.
72 mins: The second corner is an excellent one, but somehow bounces through the penalty area without getting a significant touch, both Ayew and Abraham coming close.
71 mins: Swansea are having their best spell of the match, and are preparing to take their second corner in quick succession. United, for the first time, are being forced into some sustained defending.
70 mins: United are readying a double substitution of their own, with Fellaini and Martial preparing to come on.
68 mins: Mkhitaryan, set up by Rashford, has another long-range shot. This one doesn’t need a deflection to go wide.
67 mins: A double substitution for Swansea: Narsingh comes on for Mesa, and Routledge for Bartley.
66 mins: Swansea have had some encouragement this half. Another cross from the left, from Ayew this time, curls low across the area without Abraham anticipating it.
62 mins: Mkhitaryan, who has enjoyed none of the space he needs to thrive today and is earning his first mention since the teams, sends in a shot that deflects wide. The corner is cleared.
61 mins: A chance for Swansea! They work the ball from right to left, where Carroll spears the ball into the box and Abraham heads over!
58 mins: Fer spins into space in midfield and looks up to see what options lie further forward. Abraham and Ayew are pretty much standing on each other’s toes on the edge of the penalty area, neither of them doing much moving. He picks one out, the other gets in the way, and the ball is lost.
56 mins: David de Gea touches the ball, and not from a back-pass either. It’s a cross from the left, and the goalkeeper catches it unchallenged. Still, it’s something.
55 mins: United continue to seek a second: Matic chips the ball into the penalty area, but Fabianski reaches it long before Rashford.
53 mins: Nothing much seems to have changed at the break. United still have very great dominance of possession. Swansea continue to head or boot clear most of the balls that pepper their penalty area.
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49 mins: A hopeful ball towards Lukaku turns into a corner after Bartley miscues a header. This time, though, Mata can’t pick out a giant teammate.
47 mins: United play the ball between their defenders for literally two minutes, and then Blind thumps it forward and gives it away.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! It’s happening again.
The home side are back out. More action ahoy!
So Mourinho’s policy of packing his team with giant superbeings bears fruit again. Swansea defended resiliently, and threatened themselves a couple of times, but then started thinking about their half-time sit-down a few moments too soon. “At a time where there are so many Premier League defences that struggle with set pieces, Mourinho has chosen to buy a bunch of tall players and has been drilling his side on how to go about attacking set pieces. I wonder whether he will admit to taking a lesson from Big Sam,” writes Prateek Chadha.
Half time: Swansea 0-1 Manchester United
The goal was coming. And then, just in time, it came.
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GOAL! Swansea 0-1 Manchester United (Bailly, 45 mins)
The corner is powerfully headed goalwards by Pogba; Fabianski fingertips it onto the bar and the ball bounces onto – but not over – the line, up again, and as it works out which way it should go next it is gleefully hammered home by Bailly!
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44 mins: Of many defensive headers in this half, we’ve just seen probably the most vital. A ball from the right seemed about to drop onto Lukaku’s head, six yards out, just beyond the far post, but Fernandez stretched his neck and just flicks it clear.
42 mins: Another chance for United! They win a corner, but it’s easily headed clear at the near post. But when the ball is sent back into the area Fabianski comes out and tries and fails to catch, falls and the ball bobbles to Mata, whose first-time left-foot effort goes wide of an empty net.
38 mins: Swansea win a free kick, 40-odd yards from goal, and Mesa lifts a lovely ball into the penalty area. Bartley heads it back across goal, but with a little too much power. Goal kick.
36 mins: Chance for Rashford! Mawson’s miscued header from an aimless upfield hoof gives him a chance to sprint clear, but he’s a little over-confident, tries to chip a goalkeeper who hasn’t yet gone down, and Fabianski catches.
35 mins: The corner reaches Bartley who, with Bailly not so much jumping with him as pushing him a bit, heads wide.
33 mins: Rashford is United’s brightest player on the ball, but he does like falling over. He goes down on the edge of Swansea’s area when nobody is challenging him at all, loses the ball, Swansea spring forward and Ayew’s low centre is cleared just before it reached Abraham.
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30 mins: Pogba trips Olsson, and could easily have had a second yellow card! Instead the referee lets him off with a stern talking-to, but he is on a disciplinary tightrope now!
28 mins: Now Valencia hoofs the ball clear, his follow-through taking his foot so high it pokes the nose of Ayew as he closes down. Some elements of frustration perhaps creeping into United’s game as they continue to find Swansea’s back five – plus three defensive midfielder – hard to crack.
26 mins: Pogba swipes Carroll’s legs out from under him with the ball long since departed, and earns the game’s first yellow card.
26 mins: Now Rashford gets a talking-to from the referee, while he performs his best who-me? mime. The Swansea fans don’t like him at all.
24 mins: Martin Olsson tries an overhead kick, which looked very good but was easily dealt with by De Gea.
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22 mins: Rashford, near the halfway line, prods the ball 10 yards forward, giving Bartley a five-yard head start in the race to regain it, and loses the sprint by perhaps a foot. Still, potential there.
19 mins: Now Matic is not fouler but foulee, and Leroy Fer gets a ticking off by the referee for his challenge.
18 mins: Another few minutes of resolute defending for Swansea ends with Ayew going down readily under Matic’s challenge, and winning a free kick midway in his own half.
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14 mins: After a slightly rocky start, United are dominating proceedings at the moment. Swansea’s possession is entirely in their own half, and they’re not having that much of it.
12 mins: A lovely run from Rashford on the left ends with a smart shimmy that deceived a defender but also sent the ball running a little too far, and out for a goal kick.
9 mins: Now United hit the bar! Mata sends in a cross from the free kick, and Phil Jones heads it – well, shoulders it – into the meat of the woodwork! That was a let-off both for Swansea and for the officials, given that Jones was pretty clearly offside when the free-kick was taken.
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9 mins: Rashford wins a free-kick on the right wing, going over after his right boot was brushed by Mawson. The United forward is getting booed here, presumably because of this:
7 mins: After a patient build-up, Rashford turns smartly onto his right foot and mishits a bobbly shot wide from 20 yards.
4 mins: And United scream down the other end, Lukaku runs from the centre circle into the penalty area and, when an attempted pass rebounds back to him, lashes a shot wide!
3 min: And then they nearly score! And hit the bar! Ayew benefits from a fortunate ricochet to run clear down the left, and he waits for Abraham to get into the middle, sees De Gea step away from goal in anticipation of a cross, and shoots towards the near post! There was a massive gap for him to aim for, but his effort is just too high!
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3 mins: A bit of gentle sparring to start the game, with Swansea making a couple of early forays forward without threatening to get into United’s penalty area.
1 min: Peeeeeep! We’re off, with the home side getting the action under way.
Before the action gets under way, there is a minute’s applause in memory of Gwilym Joseph, a former Swansea player and honorary president who died this week. More on him here.
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Swansea’s three-man backline is probably the most intriguing tactical issue today. Having been trialled for 10 minutes at Southampton last week, it’s getting a full baptism of the fieriest fire today.
The players are in the tunnel! We’re about to savour a serving of Saturday soccer.
And José Mourinho also does some pre-match talking, in which he brings up the concept of happy football. He doesn’t look tremendously happy while talking about it, but his players, he says, have happy feet.
It was difficult to leave anyone out. I think the players understood that. I had a conversation with them, I trust everybody, and I have great players on the bench who have the ambition to start, and I left some at home that don’t deserve to stay at home. But we played quite well and we have at this moment only one match a week, so we keep the team.
Of course we can improve. But every match is a different match and you are never in control of matches for 90 minutes, so I can expect that even if we are a team playing with tactical discipline, there will be for sure moments in this match when we are not going to have that control, but we need to keep that stability. The team are playing happy football, because the players are very comfortable on the pitch. We need to have a good performance, because only with a good performance can we win.
I think we need freedom, instead of being too much connected, with the tactical discipline that we need. We also need this happiness, the freedom to want the ball, to participate, to try and influence the game, players without fear to move, without fear to go into areas that are not their areas of control. I think when the team is confident we can do that, but our opponents are strong and we have to respect them, especially when they have the ball, and we are going to try to do that.
Swansea have won four of their last six games against Manchester United, which is a pretty handy recent record. Paul Clement talks to Sky about their prospects and, first, their formation:
I always thought that when Bartley came back to the club there was a possibility to play three central defenders. I feel the shape today will give us the best chance of getting a positive result. It will give us first of all defensive solidity, but with two strikers up there we can trigger some good attacks as well.
There’s always challenges at this level, first of all to try and stop the ball going into your net, which is going to be a big challenge against a very strong and powerful Manchester United side. But scoring goals is a challenge too ... all aspects of the game are a challenge at this level.
There’s no question that Roque Mesa can play in big games. He’s a good footballer, that’s why we brought him here. And only time will tell if the physicality of the English game is going to be too much for him, but I don’t believe it will.
They were strong last season, two major trophies. I believe they’re stronger this year. They had a good start. But we hope we’re going to provide a tough test for them here. We’ll expect a very good atmosphere and our players are very motivated for this game.
It is, we’re told, the first time Manchester United have selected the same starting XI in consecutive games since last August.
So José Mourinho selects the same team that crushed West Ham last week; Swansea make two changes, with Mesa and Bartley in and Britton and Routledge out.
Hello world!
We already have the teams! And these are those teams!
Swansea: Fabianski, Naughton, Fernandez, Mawson, Olsson, Fer, Bartley, Carroll, Roque, Ayew, Abraham. Subs: Van der Hoorn, Narsingh, Nordfeldt, Routledge, Rangel, Fulton, McBurnie.
Man Utd: de Gea, Valencia, Bailly, Jones, Blind, Matic, Pogba, Mata, Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Lukaku. Subs: Lindelof, Martial, Smalling, Lingard, Romero, Ander Herrera, Fellaini.
Referee: Jon Moss.
Here’s how we will line up against @ManUtd this afternoon… 📋#SWAMUN pic.twitter.com/HwrWFe7TkO
— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) August 19, 2017
Here is today's #MUFC line-up... #SWAMUN pic.twitter.com/KJLmYkhpci
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) August 19, 2017
Simon will be here shortly. In the meantime, here are the thoughts of our reporter Stuart James before kick-off:
Everything fell into place for Manchester United against West Ham last Sunday and it will be a surprise if José Mourinho’s team fail to pick up another three points . Mourinho’s only real selection dilemma revolves around whether he should set up a bit more conservatively away from home and recall Ander Herrera. As for Swansea, they are still without Fernando Llorente, who is building up his fitness after breaking an arm. Roque Mesa could make his debut in place of Leon Britton, who is struggling with a back problem.
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