Manchester United 4-0 Everton
by James Nalton
at Old Trafford

RUBEN AMORIM could not have asked for an easier first Premier League game in charge of Manchester United at Old Trafford, as his side put four past Everton this afternoon.

The Portuguese took over at United last month, drawing his first game at Ipswich, then winning in Europe against Bodo/Glimt at home on Thursday, but will have been hoping to get off to a trouble-free start in his first home league game. Everton gave him just that.

United were gifted two first-half goals, scored by Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee, before each added another in the second half.

Everton had looked the more dangerous of the two teams early on but couldn’t make the final pass count or sort themselves out to find good shooting positions.

One of Everton’s better players in that early period was central defender Jarrad Branthwaite, but his afternoon soon took a turn for the worse.

He tried to get a block on Rashford’s shot from the edge of the area following a Bruno Fernandes corner, but instead diverted the ball past goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Then, as Everton tried to build from the back, he gave the ball away and left United clean through on goal. Fernandes squared to Zirkzee who had a simple finish.

Everton had not scored in their past three games, so at 2-0 down the chance of them getting anything from this one seemed unlikely.

United wrapped the game up when Rashford scored 20 seconds into the second half following great work from Amad.

It was the excellent Amad who won the ball from James Tarkowski to set up Zirkzee for his second. 

Fans in the away section began to leave, and you couldn’t blame them, but the home fans sang Amorim’s name, and for them, though much tougher tests await, things might be looking up.