Manchester United Come Back To Beat Newcastle

By Harry Morgan

Manchester United fought back from two goals down to beat struggling Newcastle United 3-2 in a five-goal English Premier League thriller at Old Trafford on Saturday.

The Red Devils, already saddled with the troubles of going through their worse Premier League start in history, fell down to Kennedy and Yoshinori Muto’s 7th and 10th-minute strikes, respectively, in a first half in which they looked simply abject.

Jose Mourinho showed his tactical prowess in the second half, and the players responded with a dominant second half, which ended with the side recording yet another trademark comeback win with goals from Juan Matta and Anthony Martial, plus the late winner from Alexis Sanchez.

Manchester United have moved to the 8th position on the 2018/19 league log with 13 points and left Rafael Benítez’s Magpies to the 19th position with a paltry 2 points.

Kenedy shot Newcastle United in front in the 7th minute by latching on to a superb pass to break through the hosts' defence before firing a shot from mid-range into the left post.

The goal was most deserving as the visitors dictated proceedings, and they added to the dose in the 10th minute through Yoshinori Muto, who fed on a lovely pass inside the penalty box to strike into the left side of the net, having come up one-on-one with David De Gea.

The embattled Jose Mourinho sensed danger, and so changed course in the 19th minute by replacing defender Eric Bailly with wing-forward Juan Matta as he switched to a three-back formation to add up in the attack.

But things did not change much for Manchester United apart from their slight control in midfield which did not yield any benefits because they lacked the cutting edge whenever they ventured into the visitors’ final third.

Yoshinori Muto came close to scoring from very close range in the 40th minute but saw De Gea make a good save to his shot, and Luke Shaw closed the first half with a yellow card after a bad foul on Jonjo Shelvey.

Mourinho replaced Scott McTominay with Marouane Fellaini at the birth of the second half, and Paul Pogba got to a rebound outside the penalty box in the 50th minute and unleashed a long-range shot which Martin Dubravka saved decently.

Nemanja Matic fired the ball high over the crossbar from inside the six-yard box two minutes later, and Kenedy went for goal from mid-range but missed the right post by a whisker.

Juan Manuel Mata curled a free kick straight inside the right post in the 70th minute to grace an early 25 minutes of dominance and usher in a remaining 20 minutes in which the visitors would be bartered and overpowered at every department of the game.

A 76th-minute corner kick found its way to Chris Smalling inside the box and the defender managed to steer it to the middle of the target and was about celebrating the goal when Martin Dubravka made a save in the nick of time.

Paul Pogba found Anthony Martial with a clever pass seconds after,  and the French striker made an opening for himself before whipping a tremendous shot into the left side of the goal to draw parity for the hosts.

The fourth referee showed five minutes of stoppage time, but the 90 minutes had barely elapsed before Alexis Sanchez grabbed the winner for Manchester United by heading in Ashley Young’s precise lofted cross.