Paul Pogba shines as slick Manchester United cruise past Bournemouth to raise FA Cup hopes
Bournemouth 0 Manchester United 2: Jose Mourinho made seven changes, meaning United will head to Wembley with a much more settled mindset, but not necessarily a settled team
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Your support makes all the difference.Manchester United’s season has been a constant case of one step forward, one stutter back, and this 2-0 win over Bournemouth fittingly ensured they are now striding towards Wembley ahead of the one scheduled match left that could actually give that campaign meaning.
Jose Mourinho’s side recovered from the dismal flatness of Sunday’s defeat to West Brom to buoyantly weave their way through Bournemouth, with some promising individual displays. Not least from Paul Pogba.
In that, it was another extreme to another extreme. You wouldn’t have figured this was the side that had left their manager seething for all of this week, but then you wouldn’t really have figured he would come up with the team he did here either. Mourinho made seven changes from the side that lost so disapprovingly at the weekend.
That is one extra element to ponder from this game, ahead of the FA Cup semi-final with Tottenham Hotspur. United will go into that juncture match with a much more settled mindset, but not necessarily a settled team. This win would actually have left Mourinho with a lot to dwell on, but they’re at least all positives, given how much more positive the team looked.
Mourinho’s comments before the game had made the starting line-up as interesting as the end result, especially given how it related to the future as much as Saturday’s semi-final.
With Luke Shaw in and Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez out, it felt a combination of a core of players getting rested and another group who were being tested. As to where Pogba lay is anyone’s guess – as was the target of the pass he tried to play in the 12th minute.
Such inefficiency and inaccuracy is exactly what has drawn Mourinho’s ire, even if the wider argument around Pogba is that such risk-taking - and a connected occasional waywardness - needs to be indulged in the long-term to really get the best out of him and make him feel comfortable.
Pogba did play one of the more measured passes that the manager seems to expect of him in the 28th minute and, for Mourinho’s part, it was part of a flowing move that led to a fine goal.
This really was the kind of football that United should be all about. Pogba fed Lingard, who played it back out to Ander Herrera, with the Basque then slipping through a supreme slide-rule return for the England international. Lingard squared for Chris Smalling and the defender - who does seem on excellent goalscoring form right now - again notched like a penalty-box poacher.
It was a touch harsh on Bournemouth, given some of the vibrancy they’ve shown. They just didn’t have the chances to show for it, let alone the goal.
One pointed question from this was whether the more vibrant fluid play from United came from the specific identity of the attackers. Without the physicality of Lukaku and - perhaps much more relevantly - the staccato individuality of Sanchez, and with the sleekness of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, the line-up was just much more conducive to slick football.
The lead of course further helped.
Even more promisingly, there were a number of little link-ups, and a few signs of good understanding, between all of Pogba, Lingard, Martial and Rashford.
In one minute, Pogba was finding Martial with a clever pass after a trick. In the next, Lingard was slipping Rashford through with another neat ball. In another, Rashford was being set up by Martial.
The cost - and eternal compromise for Mourinho - is that it did leave United more open, and that was almost punished on the hour when Joshua King flashed a ball across the box that was just about cleared. Bournemouth however thought they might have had a penalty for a perceived Luke Shaw pull on Callum Wilson.
It was conspicuous that Mourinho almost immediately introduced Lukaku, and for the lively Lingard.
Lukaku then went and quickly did the most conspicuous thing of all, by putting the ball in the back of the net. It was a fine finish, but made so easy because of a supreme pass. That came from Pogba, doing what he does best.
The French midfielder did eventually come off to a chorus of boos towards the end, but that was only because of what the Bournemouth crowd perceived as a dive in the second half.
United were looking happy again. And much livelier. They go to Wembley with a bounce, rather than a bump.
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