Manchester United vs West Bromwich match report: Jesse Lingard gives Old Trafford something to cheer

Manchester United 2 West Bromwich 0

(Getty Images)

One of the threads that runs through Louis van Gaal’s football life has been his trust in young players. The 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert won him the European Cup when he was at Ajax and he likes to tell stories of how at Barcelona and Bayern Munich he gave debuts to Andres Iniesta and Thomas Müller.

When he is spending his retirement pottering around the golf courses of the Algarve, Van Gaal might mention to his caddie that he gave Jesse Lingard his first senior game in a Manchester United shirt. Lingard’s debut goal, a beautiful, curling drive from the edge of the area that beat Boaz Myhill beneath the Stretford End, ensured this game did not, like so many others at Old Trafford, degenerate into a scoreless stalemate which seemed to be the result West Bromwich Albion had come for.

Only when they were a goal down, did Albion extend their ambitions beyond a point. Tony Pulis brought on Rickie Lambert and Saido Berahino, who promptly squandered a header from the edge of the six-yard box. Then, as they lumbered forward once more, another young but rather more expensive Manchester United footballer, Anthony Martial, broke away.

The odds were against him scoring. The teenager had taken one too many touches and the angle would have been reasonably tight but Gareth McAuley made those calculations irrelevant by chopping him down for which he was given a straight red card. Juan Mata placed his penalty in the dead centre of Myhill’s net to give result a deep gloss of respectability. For Van Gaal’s Manchester United 2-0 represents something of a rout.

As befits Britain’s biggest sporting institution, Manchester United tend to reflect the nation. They swung in the Sixties, declined horribly in the Seventies and spent the Thatcher years collecting flashy bits of silverware without ever really fulfilling their potential. When Sir Alex Ferguson had Tony Blair’s direct line to Downing Street, United were swaggeringly powerful.

Now they are playing austerity football. The past five matches have seen three goals scored and none conceded. Every point is eked out and it was a sign of the times that Manchester United should have staged their Christmas party before Bonfire Night. This has not been a season to be jolly.

James McClean before the match at Old Trafford (Getty Images)

“I know the feelings of the fans – we have to attack better,” said Van Gaal after a result that left United a point off the Premier League’s summit. “I think they were very influenced by Paul Scholes and all the criticism he has given us and what the media has written about that. When you are yelling: ‘attack, attack, attack’ and you attack for 85 minutes, you have to think, as a fan, is it all right to yell. But they know we have to score. But my mother knows that and my grandmother knows that.”

It seems strange that West Brom- wich should have been so defensive. In September 2013, they had been the first club to expose how fragile the post-Ferguson United were, coming to Old Trafford and out-playing Manchester United to win 2-1. For the first time, people realised how completely the fear had gone from a stadium where certain clubs almost expected to be beaten. Pulis said his plan had been to hold out for an hour and then take Manchester United on the break. Van Gaal pointed out this had been CSKA Moscow’s strategy and neither had quite worked.

Jesse Lingard celebrates (Getty Images)

His winner against CSKA on Tuesday night notwithstanding, the expectations surrounding Wayne Rooney have declined dramatically. There were a couple of flashes of the old skill, taking down a deep, crossfield ball on the tip of his boots and a moment when he allowed the ball to run past his one-time team-mate, Jonny Evans, before accelerating away. His pass fed Mata, whose shot slid past the post.

Lingard and Martial, the 22-year-old from Warrington and the 19-year-old from the hard suburbs of Paris, looked United’s most obvious threat. But for a superb covering header from Craig Dawson, Mata’s cross would have found Lingard perfectly placed on the far post. When Martial, with three defenders in front of him, saw a gap it produced the first save either keeper had to make. The match was then 44 minutes gone.

However, Lingard has long understood the art of waiting. Four years ago, he won the FA Youth Cup with Manchester United and in the intervening years he had seen his team-mate Ravel Morrison’s career flare and then fade because of his own stupidity, and he saw Paul Pogba play in a European Cup final with Juventus. There had been loan spells at Birmingham, Brighton and Derby and unfulfilled promises of a first-team place. His time, however, was now.