Martial and Mkhitaryan dazzle in United win
- Post Match
- Aug 3, 2017
- 2 min read
Man United rounded of #Tour2017 with a 2-1 win over Italian side Sampdoria in Dublin courtesy of Mkhitaryan and Juan Mata's goal at the Aviva Stadium in the Irish capital.
That was the 6th win in 7 pre-season games with a loss coming only against Barcelona in Maryland, USA.
Man Utd's pre-season form:
WWWWLWW
Goals: 15
Conceded: 6
Clean sheets: 2
With new signing, Nemanja Matic making his first stat, the Serbian shone cleverly protecting the back four and as we expected freeing Pogba and Herrera to bomb forward repeatedly.
The opening goal came just after 9 minutes albeit through a moment of 'madness' from Daley Blind. The Dutchman under no pressure attempted a long back-pass to the out-of-position De Gea who rushed scrambling to the goal-line to clear.
An indirect free-kick was awarded to Sampdoria and with all bodies in the goal-line, United cleared with pace and hit the Italians with a sucker-punch counter.
Antonia Valencia piled forwards and combining with Mkhitaryan released the advanced Darmian whose perfect cross was finished off by the Armenian.
Moments later Mkhitaryan was thwarted twice with the Sampdoria stopper denying him what would have been a hat-trick of headers.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored the first goal, his 3rd in pre-season
Just as United pushed for a second goal, Sampdoria hit with a counter of their own to bring the scores level through Danish midfielder Praete.
With Mourinho making four changes and a further 6 in the second half, subsititute Herrera and Lukaku went close again with the former having a goal ruled out for offside.
The winning goal was still to arrive and it was a result of Anthony Martial's run down the left, the Frenchman again showed his classy footwork to square to the waiting Mata who calmly slotted home to ensure United headed home with a win.
The boss afterwards reflected on a good outing and expressed his delight with the entire summer tour.
"Pre-season was good. I’m never tired to repeat how well organised it was. Big co-operation between [tour organizers] Relevent and Manchester United, so everything was really good. Everybody played, we tried many different things and didn’t care about the results – we cared about our evolution. On top of it, we had small injuries but not big ones so everybody is ready. As I was expecting, Sampdoria was perfect – consistent, good tactically. They played for a result, they are clever technically and know how to play.
Here are the match highlights including the beautiful goals from Mata and Mkhitaryan:
Click to view the match highlights or watch on YouTube.
United's attentions now turn to the first competitive match of the season - The Uefa Super Cup where we'll face European Champions Real Madrid in Macedonia on Tuesday with another piece of silverware at stake.
THE LINE-UPS United: De Gea (J.Pereira 76); Lindelof (Jones 76), Smalling (Bailly 77), Blind (Martial 60); Valencia, Matic (Carrick 46), A.Pereira (Fellaini 46), Pogba (Herrera 46), Darmian (Tuanzebe 77); Mkhitaryan (Mata 46), Lukaku (Rashford 60). Sampdoria: Puggioni (Tozzo 86), Jacopo (Bereszynski 76), Silvestre, Regini, Pavlovic (Murru 66), Torreira (Capezzi 86), Barreto (Djuricic 75), Linetty (Alvarez 66), Praet (Verre 75), Quagliarella (Kownacki 86), Caprari (Bonazzoli 76).
Booked: Torreira
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