Manchester United’s commercial department will disagree, but the benefits of not traipsing around the globe in pre-season are paying dividends for Ole Gunnar Solskjær. The United manager is under no illusions he must deliver this season and, on the evidence of a comfortable 4-0 friendly stroll against Everton, his squad is well-prepared for the considerable challenge of closing the gap on Manchester City.
Bruno Fernandes celebrated sweeping a stunning free-kick past Jordan Pickford in a manner more befitting a decisive Premier League fixture than the final warm-up game of the summer. Juan Mata and Fred gave the midfielder a standing ovation on the bench. Mason Greenwood started the rout with a sharp finish after a mix-up between Everton left-back Lucas Digne and Pickford.
A summer’s work with England was in evidence when Harry Maguire steered an unstoppable header beyond his international teammate in goal from Luke Shaw’s corner. With the final act of the game, Diogo Dalot sent an exquisite back-header looping over Pickford’s replacement, Asmir Begovic.
A 55,000-strong crowd, the largest at Old Trafford in 17 months, lapped up United’s total superiority and the promise of more to come. The home side were without their summer recruits, with Jadon Sancho due to start training on Monday and Raphaël Varane awaiting medical clearance. Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford were also absent.
It mattered not, as Solskjær’s side clicked impressively before next Saturday’s Premier League opener at home to Leeds. Solskjær, who had Anthony Martial back after a knee injury, said: “We’ve had a longer pre-season than last year, when we only had the full group for five days before the Palace game. That was difficult.
“This summer at least everyone has had three weeks off, some have had four or five. We are better prepared for this season. Some players started back on 5 July, some trained with us for the first time this week, Jadon will be next week and Raphaël hopefully in a few days after his medical.
“We still have to get them through a fitness regime but the sports science staff are doing great work getting everyone up to speed as soon as possible.”
Covid remains a dangerous disruption, however, and Jesse Lingard was absent having been forced to isolate after a positive test. Worryingly, goalkeeper Dean Henderson is struggling with his recovery from Covid-19 several weeks after contracting the virus.
Solskjær said: “Jesse feels okay and hopefully it will stay that way. Dean was positive early on and now he’s negative in his testing but has not felt as energised or as sharp as he has done. He feels fatigued – you see so many effects of this virus – and he’s still got a few days to rest and then we’ll check up on him again.”
United were confident, physically strong, incisive and solid. The opposite was true of Everton, for whom an arduous and potentially acrimonious season awaits on this evidence. There was no reception of any kind for Rafael Benítez from the 1,400 travelling Evertonians before his first game in charge of the club in England.
Towards the end of United’s walkover, however, with many in the away section having departed early, there were shouts against the former Liverpool manager along with jeers for Alex Iwobi and the substitute Fabian Delph. Patience is likely to be in short supply at Goodison Park should Benítez and his team falter this season.
Everton were missing Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who picked up a knock in training this week, and the Olympic finalist Richarlison. They ended the game with a forward line of academy graduates in Anthony Gordon, Nathan Broadhead and Lewis Dobbin.
The visitors improved in the second half. New signing Andros Townsend rattled David de Gea’s crossbar and fellow new boy Demarai Gray was centimetres away from connecting with Iwobi’s inviting delivery across the face of goal.
But, overall, this was an early warning for Benítez and director of football Marcel Brands, who was watching on here and will clearly need to be busy in the final weeks of the transfer window.
“The main thing I am asking my players is to have intensity, character and desire on the pitch,” Benítez said. “We have to improve as a team, not just a couple of players. We have to make sure the understanding and the character is there and if we have that we can be more competitive.
“We conceded goals that didn’t give us any hope we could get a good result. The other team was much better and we couldn’t cope with that. Overall it was not a good performance.”
