Manchester United cruise into 5th with easy win over Tottenham

Manchester United vs Tottenham recap: The Red Devils dominated possession and, eventually, the scoreboard as they beat Spurs 2-0 at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

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Erik ten Hag’s side dominated proceedings for the entirety of the first half before Fred opened the scoring just two minutes after the restart. Bruno Fernandes curled home goal no. 2 midway through the second half to end his nine-game goal-less drought for Man United (all competitions).

The victory sends Man United (19 points) up to 5th in the Premier League table, now just one point behind 4th-place Chelsea and four back of 3rd-place Tottenham (23 points)

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It was a minor miracle that Tottenham found themselves level at halftime after facing wave after wave of red shirts converging on their penalty area. There wasn’t much space in behind as Spurs sat quite deep without the ball, but Fernandes looked (nearly) back to his best as he operated in the hole and found Antony and Jadon Sancho with clever passes and one-twos between and around the three-man backline. Hugo Lloris made a handful of saves to keep it scoreless for as long as he could, but the goal(s) felt inevitable from the start. After finding some success as a counter-attacking side in recent weeks, it was refreshing to see Manchester United perform so well with the onus of dictating the game squarely on their shoulders.

Just a week ago, I wrote this about Spurs’ defense coming under lots of relentless pressure, largely due to their insistence on passing the ball out of the back every time they restart with possession. With only Harry Kane and Son Heung-min up top as Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison are both injured, Tottenham are short on