Northampton vs Manchester United match report: Crisis averted as Michael Carrick eases pressure on Jose Mourinho

Northampton Town 1 Manchester United 3: Goals from Herrera, Carrick and Rashford saved Mourinho's blushes after a week to forget for the Portuguese manager

Michael Carrick impressed for the visitors (Getty)

A calamity averted for the manager and the side with whose struggles the football firmament is currently transfixed, though there was nothing to suggest days of cloudless skies ahead.

Even before United drew Manchester City in the 4th Round, Jose Mourinho looked subdued, carrying some of the world on his shoulders. He wore grey shoes on Wednesday night and the grey look of an individual wondering where his Midas touch disappeared to. Most of his energy was directed towards one of those running battles with the fourth official. Managers usually arrive to discuss a regulation win against a side two leagues below them but he just headed straight for the bus. The club were “not contractually bound” to discuss EPL Cup games, those waiting for him were told.

It didn’t help that the burden at the heart of his Old Trafford inheritance - Wayne Rooney - had not been lightened one iota. The 30-year-old ended the game wide right, a bystander to a recovery which substitutes Zlatan Ibrahimovich and Marcus Rashford had fashioned. The drift towards the unenviable decision to drop Rooney is no less inexorable because of this win. There was an awkward moment before the game when Mourinho was asked what he expected from Rooney. “Goals,” he replied. There was a pregnant pause during the wait for some kind of elaboration which – like Rooney goals - never came.

Plenty to avoid a discussion about then, even though the performances of goalscorers Ander Herrera and Michael Carrick in the 3-1 win provided a source of optimism. It required attacking reinforcements, in the form of Zlatan Ibrahimovich and Marcus Rashford to unlock the door and bend the match in United’s favour.

Sixfields was no place for a manager who, as every amateur statistician seemed to know, had lost 14 out of his previous 32 games as a football manager and just succumbed to three successive defeats for the first time in 14 years. All the little rituals of a Manchester United journey into modest surrounds were in place. A chorus of four boos for Ibrahimovich as stepped out from the stand, pausing for a moment with manifest disdain to take in his surroundings. A face-to-face encounter ensued with Northampton’s Bob the Builder mascot.

Mourinho’s team sheet had a touch of reputation building about it. All but two of team that succumbed at Watford were rested and the prevailing mood of national doubt about Rooney in the intervening days made his own inclusion an enforced one. The work-rate from him was there in the first half, of course, but there was no breakthrough moment. Operating at the spear of the attack, he was anything but sharp.

Carrick's goal flies past Northampton's Smith (Getty)

The forward was spared initial embarrassment by straying into an offside position when he side-footed wide from six yards, after Ashley Young teed him up after seven minutes. He couldn’t reach the six-yard box fast enough to divert Marco Rojo’s low cross from the left into the net, seven minutes later. When he finally did poke home a rebound after Tim Fosu Mensah’s header had clattered the bar, he was offside again.

Carrick provided the early class and assurance. His 18th minute goal - a right-footed shot bent into the top left hand corner when a free-kick was blocked into his path – was as fine as his ability to find a forward pass. United eased into a state of supremacy. A packed little stadium – the 7,798 was a record attendance since it was opened in 1994 – could not send Northampton running into United’s faces. The home side dropped into a state of retreat, ceding time and space to opponents with insecurity to exploit.

Northampton were in possession of two dangerous assets though – the wide players Sam Hoskins and Kenji Gorre – and United’s failings at the back allowed them in. Marcos Rojo’s attempts to defend United’s left flank was inept enough to sharpen the clamour among many United fans to see him gone this winter. Hoskins had embarrassed him twice before the game was half an hour old.

Alex Revell celebrates his penalty goal (Getty)

Fosu-Mensah was also reduced to a state of panic by Kenji Gorre, the former United trainee. It was when he dithered in possession in the box, allowing Hoskins to seize the ball, that Daley Blind clumsily fouled him and Alex Revell converted the penalty.

The artillery arrived to finish the job within ten minutes of the re-start. Rooney dropped back for Ibrahimovich to seize the centre forward’s mantle though it was Marcus Rashford, assuming a position on the left, who delivered most.

Jose Mourinho gives his orders from the sideline (Getty)

First, he laid a 40-yard ball from Carrick into the inside left channel for Herrera to run in and thumped low past Adam Smith. Then he scared the living daylights out of the goalkeeper, running towards him in pursuit of lumped ball by Herrera. Smith made to kick it and found fresh air, allowing Rashford to nip in behind him, seize it and walk it into the net. It was the fortune of a striker operating with such an unfettered mind that he believes thing will happen. Rooney, observing this unfold from the flank, has forgotten what that feels like. For Mourinho, October brings Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Fenerbahche.

Northampton Town (4-2-3-1): Smith; Moloney, Diamond, Zakuani, Buchanan; Beautyman, McCourt; Hoskins, Taylor, Gorre; Revell. Substitutes: Byrom, Richards, Potter, Sonupe, O’Toole, Nyatanga, Cornell

Manchester United (4-3-3): Romero; Fosu-Mensah, Smalling, Blind, Rojo; Herrera, Carrick, Schneiderlin; Depay, Rooney, Young. Substitutes: Mata, Ibrahimovich, Lingard, Rashford, Fellaini, Johnstone, Darmian

Star man: Carrick

Match rating: 6

Attendance: 7,986

Northampton subs: Richards for McCourt

Manchester United subs: Schneiderlin for Fellaini