Man Utd’s win over Everton gives four huge positives ahead of Newcastle & Chelsea clashes

Watching a 90-minute football game and drawing post-match conclusions should be a straightforward process, yet little about Manchester United is ever that simple.

How to assess a performance on Sunday where the Red Devils wilted under the daunting pressure in the first half at Goodison Park, only to emerge with a comfortable 3-0 win? How to assess the showing of Anthony Martial, who was lethargic and often looked disinterested, but produced two game-changing moments in the second period? Alejandro Garnacho was voted man of the match for his outstanding bicycle-kick goal after three minutes, but he lost his individual duel against a 38-year-old Ashley Young.

Even Erik ten Hag admitted post-match that it was a performance of contradictions. “The first half we were too passive, we were too easy going, too comfortable,” he opined. “I was not pleased with that part of the game and Everton created some chances, but second half we were proactive and it was a very good performance and we scored two good goals.”

United are a complex and frankly baffling side, who have underwhelmed all season and somehow sit just two points behind high-flying Tottenham Hotspur, and are four points off Aston Villa and Liverpool. Even more confusing is how United are the most in-form side in the Premier League and have won five of the last six.

Those wins may have come against bottom-half teams, but as the old adage says, you can only beat what’s put in front of you. What has been put in front of United this season is nine of the 10 sides who are currently placed between 11th and 20th, and they’ve managed to win eight of those nine encounters, without playing particularly well in any.

That suggests, for all the subpar showings, that this Ten Hag side find ways to win football matches. Individual moments of magic have been key, and three of the last four away wins have been achieved thanks to outstanding strikes from Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot and Garnacho.

Sunday’s 3-0 victory was the exception to the rule; all seven previous wins against bottom-half clubs this season have come by one goal, and six were either 1-0 or 2-1. In those wins, United’s quality has ultimately shone through in tight, scrappy affairs. It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of Ten Hag’s tactical instructions, but Sunday was undoubted progress in that department.

“Sometimes you have to adjust and be more pragmatic,” Ten Hag said post-match at Goodison. “If we have players on the pitch, we fill in the positions with our players when they are available, they can play very good football and be comfortable playing out from the back. The first and third goal, you saw that - how we want to play. We want to take initiative in and out of possession.”

Improvements are needed though, ahead of a run where United play top-half sides in five of the next six. They’ve lost all four meetings with top-10 opposition this season, which perhaps provides a more accurate assessment of this team.

As Ten Hag alluded to, the injury list is slowly starting to dwindle and Jonny Evans and Ramsus Hojlund are expected back soon, while Luke Shaw’s return is one of the biggest positives in recent weeks.

But it was a teenage Kobbie Mainoo who was the star of the show on Merseyside, earning rave reviews from Ten Hag, Fernandes and Roy Keane. United have lacked midfield control all season, someone who can dictate the tempo and players willing to take responsibility. Mainoo did all three on Sunday and, while drawing sweeping conclusions from one performance is reckless, if the academy product can continue that level of performance throughout the campaign then he will solve several of Ten Hag’s early-season headaches.

The United boss will also be delighted that three forwards scored against Everton, quadrupling the team’s attacking numbers in the Premier League in one afternoon. Ten Hag has insisted for weeks that once his offensive players start scoring, they’ll kick on with renewed momentum and confidence.

"I think every striker, in the moment, has a period that he is not scoring," he said on Friday. "And then every striker starts to [over] think and when it happens, you know you were right and then you missed a moment because you have only a split moment.”

Getting Rashford, Garnacho, Hojlund et al to regularly find the back of the net is vital as United begin the most fixture-laden section of the campaign. Ten Hag and his players have rescued a season that looked to be spiralling out of control less than two months ago, but bigger and more problematic tests await.