Photograph: Ash Donelon\/Manchester United\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFrank instructed his players to be \u201ccool\u201d and they proved unshaken. Eriksen hit a 20-yard stinger that David de Gea needed two attempts to grab, while Rico Henry\u2019s marauding was scattering United\u2019s flaky defence. One raid had the left wing-back feeding the effervescent Eriksen and when he dropped the ball on to Ivan Toney\u2019s head, a more ruthless finisher might have equalised.<\/p>\n
Midway through the half a verse or three of \u201cstand up if you hate the Glazers\u201d was answered by many supporters getting to their feet, in what has become a familiar sight during the 17 years of the Americans\u2019 ownership. There was, however, a happier vibe around the stadium simply because United were winning and zipping about like players who were far from maligned. Mata was one of the leaders of this gang, his smart play including a one-two with Ronaldo that ended with the Spaniard smacking an effort only marginally wide.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo thought he had doubled United\u2019s lead after he fired home Mata\u2019s cross before half-time but his finish was ruled offside following a VAR check. At the break, this had been a contest of two attractive attacks against two questionable defences.<\/p>\n
Further evidence of this came when Eriksen \u2013 surely worth a look as a summer free transfer for United \u2013 floated a free-kick all the way over a dozing United to Toney, who should have a goal.<\/p>\n
Ten Hag\u2019s work has to start with the players protecting De Gea as, at kick-off, the goals against column showed 52 goals conceded \u2013 the poorest record of the division\u2019s top nine. That number includes goals scored from midfield, of course. A driving Eriksen run from this region forced Nemanja Matic to yank the schemer down. Eriksen\u2019s attempt from the free-kick was one of those wobbly, knuckleball affairs and De Gea had to shift feet and hands smartly to repel this.<\/p>\n
But now came Ronaldo\u2019s moment. Dalot\u2019s ball fanned away from him along the right yet he shoulder-heaved Henry aside and flitted into the area. The defender\u2019s response was to lump Ronaldo over and Christopher Kavanagh pointed to the spot. The Portuguese smashed the penalty in for his 18th league goal of the season and United were cruising.<\/p>\n
Towards the end, Brentford offered the taunt of, \u201cwhere\u2019s your protest gone?\u201d In a lost United campaign this was a backhanded compliment: the home team impressed for once.
\ntheguardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are only two ways Manchester United can ease this miserable season. Win the last three matches and, if not, at least play some sparkling stuff that offers hope for the future along the way. Tonight they achieved the first part of the quest to claim all their available final points, and also the second: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6409],"tags":[7273,11291,11394,7717,7452,10387,1911,8927,7478,8193,1791,7467,167,84,6287,9478,7712,5557,5346,5455,9026,7470,6159,11638,3577,4773,2310,7985,8850,6907,3874,10634,11252,115,507,3361,10481,802,7968,11973,13256,267,5561,11774,5872,114,194,9881,5470,7333,7472,10885,3954,10415,594,7898],"class_list":["post-21132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-anthony","tag-ash","tag-attacks","tag-brentford","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-campaign","tag-champions-league","tag-christian","tag-christian-eriksen","tag-crash","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-dalot","tag-david-de-gea","tag-de-gea","tag-diogo","tag-dropped","tag-english","tag-erik-ten-hag","tag-eriksen","tag-family","tag-fans","tag-fernandes","tag-fire","tag-forced","tag-future","tag-gea","tag-glazer-family","tag-glazers","tag-henry","tag-juan-mata","tag-lead","tag-lost","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-united","tag-marcus-rashford","tag-mata","tag-midfield","tag-nemanja-matic","tag-nine","tag-one","tag-players","tag-premier-league","tag-protest","tag-raid","tag-ralf-rangnick","tag-rashford","tag-ronaldo","tag-smart","tag-space","tag-summer","tag-telles","tag-victory","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who","tag-xi"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51469,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21132\/revisions\/51469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Bruno](\"\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5eea941541fcbef6f04fb57ef50f92660abf05da\/0_142_3637_2182\/master\/3637.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=cae62cccb1f065d990d1374882943e9b\")
<\/a><\/div>