The painful reality for Swansea City is that with ten minutes left on the clock, they were still in this game and then Jose Mourinho’s team went in for the kill in a way that Manchester United sides once did as a matter of course once they detected weakness. Manchester United’s performance against Swansea City perhaps did not quite match the 4-0 score line, but Jose Mourinho’s side have started the season in clinical style.
Goals from Eric Bailly and Romelu Lukaku, a fabulous Paul Pogba dink and a swept finish by substitute Anthony Martial did the job in Wales, and while there were spells in the second half when a better opponent might have punished them, you can’t expect a great deal more from them. The first half was nothing about which to get excited. United had most of the possession but had trouble breaking down a Swansea side who were nominally playing 3-5-2, but in practice had five defenders with debutant Roque Mesa sitting in front of them.
Marcus Rashford was the most prominent figure in the first half. The young forward wasn’t a popular figure at the Liberty Stadium, Swansea’s fans more or less constantly booing him for diving to win a penalty against them last season. All to be expected, but Rashford seemed to take this as a personal challenge, looking desperate to score to prove a point, shooting from every angle possible regardless of his other options. Constant complaints about perceived fouls and miscellaneous other slights were unlikely to thaw relations. Pogba was also perhaps a touch lucky to escape a red card. Having already been booked a few minutes earlier, the French midfielder fouled Martin Olsson as the Swansea wing-back was clearing the ball: it wasn’t a terrible or dangerous foul, but the sort of challenge that probably would have resulted in a yellow card if the player hadn’t already been booked. This time a stern lecture was deemed sufficient.
Just before the break, United took the lead. Pogba was left unmarked from a Daley Blind cross, his header was brilliantly tipped onto the bar then the goal line by Lukasz Fabianski, but the goalkeeper couldn’t recover in time to prevent Bailly from stabbing his first United goal home. After the break, United were not quite so dominant, and Swansea had the best chance of the early stages when Tammy Abraham put a free header over the bar. Both teams changed shape, but the majority of the half was frustrating for both, broadly limited to long-range efforts in search of a goal. But United wrapped up the points with three quick goals with around 10 minutes remaining. First, Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan fashioned a chance for Lukaku, who with time and space in the box had a relatively simple chance which he slotted home with little fuss. Then Mkhitaryan set up another, a couple of minutes later; when a Lukaku lay-off set Pogba free, he fed substitute Martial, who slid home with limited resistance from a Swansea defence who looked as if they knew the game was up.
