Manchester United stumbled upon a heavy defeat against Leicester City and have slipped further behind in the race for the title. A 4-2 defeat at the King Power Stadium doesn’t fail to justify the fact that Manchester United has now won only one point in their past three PL games.
From being at the top of the table, a month back to being even below Brighton and Hove Albion right now, Solskjaer and his team are losing the grip slowly. The match against Leicester started very well for Manchester United as they were bright in the opening 20 mins and got their reward in the 19th minute.
Mason Greenwood’s thunderous striker from outside the box had stunned the Leicester City fans and the entire stadium went numb. A precise touch, a well-analyzed target, and then a smashing shot, looked easy on paper but not on grass.
Mason Greenwood has now scored five Premier League goals from outside the box for Manchester United.
That was definitely the best of the bunch. 😍 pic.twitter.com/9S1EwD8zRB
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) October 16, 2021
Youri Tielemans had a perfect answer to that goal as he scored a beautiful curler in the 31st minute. David De Gea played out a pass to Harry Maguire from the back and the English center-back failed to collect it.
He lost too much time on the ball and Iheanacho grabbed the ball from his foot played it out to Tielemans who then curled the ball into the top corner leaving De Gea with no chance of stopping that.
Manchester United then started dropping deep and fouled Leicester players numerous times as they were counter-attacking. This led to numerous fouls from the United side and Leicester was enjoying the possession before half-time. Maddison and Tielemans came close to scoring but were unable to finish it off.
We must say that Manchester United was very lucky in the first half. In the second half, their luck went off as Leicester attackers didn’t gave them even a single minute to breathe.
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Till the 75th minute, both the teams were creating chances and were squeezing for their second goal. Mason Greenwood came close as he hit the post, we can say that this young lad was the only player with whom we were impressed.
Leicester City then scored their second through their center-back Caglar Soyuncu. Man United failed to deal with the corner and Patson Daka received the cross, hit a low shot which was saved by De Gea. It ultimately bounced off Perez and came in the path of Soyuncu at the center who then smashed the ball into the net.
Manchester United replied quickly and within a span of five minutes, they had the leveller. Victor Lindelof providing a wonderful cross to Marcus Rashford from the back. The English attacker ran through the middle and managed to stay onside. He shreds off two Leicester defenders who were unable to control him.
Rashford then lifted the ball over Schmeichel and into the back of the net. It was a well-taken goal and United had a good goal to talk about.
But the leveller didn’t last even a minute as Leicester counter-attacked Man United from the first touch. Castagne took up the run and was fouled by Wan-Bissaka. Perez then quickly collected the ball and ran towards the goal. He expertly passed the ball to Jamie Vardy who smashed a wonderful volley past De Gea to make it 3-2 to Leicester.
Jamie Vardy has now scored 5+ Premier League goals against five of the ‘Big Six’ sides:
⚽ 11 vs Arsenal
⚽ 8 vs Man City
⚽ 8 vs Liverpool
⚽ 8 vs Spurs
⚽ 5 vs Man UtdHe just needs two against Chelsea to complete the set. 😁 pic.twitter.com/iwILbhFi0M
— William Hill (@WilliamHill) October 16, 2021
It was an advantage to the home team and they then sealed the game through Patson Daka, who scored his first League goal for Leicester City. United again fails to deal with a corner and Daka receives the cross at the far post and rolls it into an empty net to make it 4-2.
With that Manchester United ultimately lost another chance to grab all three points. As the team enters a very hectic schedule in the upcoming weeks, it will be interesting to see how they deal with the pressure.
Here are the three points that we observed from the match:
Manchester United’s unbeaten away run comes to an end:
The defeat by the hands of Leicester City ended Man United’s 29 games unbeaten away record. It was also the first time that Leicester has won back-to-back matches against Man United.
Leicester have recorded back-to-back Premier League wins over Manchester United for the first time in their history:
✅ 2-1
✅ 4-2And they've broken Manchester United's 29 game unbeaten away record in the process. 🦊 pic.twitter.com/86QSUIomZe
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) October 16, 2021
Leicester City was also responsible for our FA Cup exit back in the month of March. It will be a record that will be hard to beat and will give the fans something to feel proud of.
Harry Maguire’s dismaying performance for Man United:
The absence of Raphael Varen brought in more responsibility for Harry Maguire to perform well. He was also given the captain’s armband but he failed to justify that decision.
An absolutely poor performance by the English center-back and we bet you that he wouldn’t have even received a 2/10 rating. With Victor Lindelof, he was constantly staying deep into the box and was very slow in counter-attacks.
He was at fault for the Tielemans goal and made numerous faulty passes from the back-line. Failed to command the United players during set-pieced and showed poor man-marking skills.
It was one of his worst performances in the United shirt and his former team Leicester will be happier to see their former player helping them out.
Solskjaer looking short of ideas:
With the more compact schedule coming up in the coming weeks, teams like Atalanta in the UCL group stage and Liverpool and Tottenham in the Premier League will be waiting to host Man United.
The team’s poor run of form will be a good sign for their rivals and Solskjaer needs to lift the team’s performances if he wants to grab all those vital points.
In the month of November. teams like Manchester City, Chelsea, and Arsenal will also be playing against Man United and if Solskjaer and his team perform in this manner, they will be dismantled by the top-class teams.
Solskjare needs to answer, his team needs to answer and the next match brings in a perfect base for that.
