Jose Mourinho was forced to sweat when the League Two champs cancelled out Carrick’s opener, but thanks to Marcus Rashford and Herrera they secured a result.
Jose Mourinho and his team of misfits travelled 140 miles in a desperate need of a morale-boosting win, after not 1, not 2 but 3 consecutive defeats. Manchester United desperately needed a win, after 3 defeats which all started with Pepas City beating Joseas United. So they last night they travelled to Sixfields Stadium for their EFL Cup Third Round match with Northampton Town, the league 2 champions after last season.
And while United and more importantly Jose got his win, it wasnat however an easy peasy win. Northampton made them fight for it, and it was hardly the controlled display that Jose would have liked to see.
Like everything, it began well after Michael Carrick comfortably smacked in the ball into the back of the net after Rooneyas freekick got deflected and landed at his feet.
But then Daley Blind decided to foul Hoskins inside the box, which resulted in a penalty for Northampton. Which Alex Revell with some ease put it in the back of the neta
The second half however was a different story. As Mourinho walked off for the half time break, a background score of a?Youare getting sacked in the morninga? followed him, and that perhaps changed things.
He brought on the Zlatan and Marcus Rashford, who proved to be the defining point in the match. He played a beautiful pass to Herrera who made no mistake and scored, and then calmly tapped another one in to finish the match.
What did we learn from all that? Here are 5Athingsa.
- Memphis Depay has flopped out
The 22 year old Dutchman has failed to live up to his 25 million pound mark and having got a rare start, he still failed to shine. Despite Mourinho publicly backing Depay, he has barely featured so far and has even been excluded from the national teamas squad for the World cup qualifiers.
There are few players in that United shirt that actually needed a good performance as badly as Memphis does. He played 58 odd minutes against the League 2 champions and still failed to make any sort of contribution and was eventually subbed off.
