Everton 0 - 3 United

DDG

Darmian Smalling Jones Rojo

Schneiderlin Schweinsteiger(Carrick)

Mata(Lingard) Herrera(Fellaini) Martial

Rooney

Chris Smalling The Great

That was simply our best performance this season. 

It's been a while since we last beat Everton at Goodison Park. They treat our yearly fixture at Goodison as their cup final and we haven't really been getting much joy at their stadium. Since the day I've started this blog, we've played eight PL games at Goodison and only won twice. We've lost four and drawn the remainder. It's definitely not our favorite ground and you cannot blame me for not being that optimistic before today's game. 

LVG deployed his men perfectly and I think some of Everton's plans had to be thrown out the window as I'm sure their coach didn't anticipate Martial playing on the wing. Our Frenchman was unlucky to be played out wide as he no doubt prefers to play up front, however, his work ethic was second to none and put Everton's bombing full-back - Seamus Coleman - out of the game. He managed to cause some problems on the wing as well and could have scored a goal or two but had his efforts blocked on both occasions. 

All our players had a good game. DDG kept Everton at bay with two good saves. Darmian and Rojo were solid, the latter assisted Herrera brilliantly with an inch perfect cross that put us two goals up. Jones cleared everything that came his way. It wouldn't be Jones if he didn't injure himself while doing something and he duly obliged in today's game. Thankfully, this week's injury was just a nosebleed. Hopefully he'll manage to keep himself fit as his performance today was very promising.

Schneiderlin put in a controlled display and also bagged his first goal for Manchester United. His partner, Schweinsteiger, returned to his calm self after having been run ragged against Arsenal a fortnight ago. Mata should have been more effective against a side that simply didn't turn up today. His replacement, Lingard, had a good game. Rooney finally broke his away goal drought as he scored one and had a decent performance overall. I'm sure he can do better though.

That brings us to Herrera and Smalling; our best two players. Smalling was a beast at the back and managed to put both Lukaku and Kone out of the game. Nullifying the effect of the former is not easy given his physicality. I can't believe how good Smalling has become. Let's hope he can develop a great understanding with Phil Jones. They're both very young and have their best years ahead of them.

Herrera looked super fresh. It's great for Man Utd that he never gets selected to play for Spain. I have absolutely no idea why he gets overlooked all the time but he's shown today what a great footballer he is. He scored a good header and managed to assist Rooney for our third. His distribution is really good and he's simply a player you'd hate to play against. Why? He's a pest. He chases every ball and manages to disrupt the opposition's play brilliantly. What's even better is that he looks like he's loving life as a Manchester United player. My man of the match. 

Our next PL game is vs City. The good news for us is that Silva and Aguero are injured. The bad news is that City scored 11 goals in their last two PL games. It will be a great test for our players. A loss will show that we're not ready yet to challenge seriously for the title. A win will send out a message that we mean business. I'm somewhat optimistic. 

Till that game, we've got a game against CSKA Moscow in the CL. We can't get out of Russia without a point. Come on United!