Swansea 1 Manchester United 4: no longer Fergie's boys - but it was business as usual

 
Ian Herbert17 August 2013

There was a new anthem ("So come on David Moyes, play like Fergie’s boys"), revealing that Manchester United are happy to call on Noddy Holder when they need to – and you imagine that some messages daubed in red on bedsheets will follow in time. Moyes was "giving a wave" in the second half and it was his own "red and white army" they sang about by the end.

Otherwise, there was no real sense that the champions are on the precipice of something new and exciting. No new players, no new team, and Moyes will certainly have taken the quiet walk to victory because he wants it that way. Truth to tell, he’s become a bit embarrassed by all the noise.

The Wayne Rooney noise also felt a little closer to abating. His arrival from the bench just after the hour poignantly saw him assigned the number 10 position which his jersey bears, with none of the central midfield marginalisation of the Ferguson era. He was conspicuous by his absence amid the celebrations of the second goal – United’s third – by the imperious Robin van Persie. But the Rooney chants reveal what has always been suspected: that the supporters will have him back.

There were plenty of familiar aspects about United’s day and very little you would call a novelty. Moyes’s assistant Jimmy Lumsden giving it everything in the keep-ball circle in the warm-up was something new, though Wayne Rooney didn’t share his enthusiasm. Hard to be sunny, perhaps, when the rain is sheeting in from Swansea Bay but Rooney’s body language suggested that Moyes has a job to do – even though the 27-year-old’s competitive soul made him argue the toss with Anderson about which of them should take the bib and go into the circle.

It was a familiar United team, too, and one that looked the more sluggish as Swansea resumed the tempo they have set in the Europa League. The start was feisty – Jose Canas and Antonio Valencia had both been booked inside the first eight minutes as tackles rattled in – but Michael Laudrup’s side were the one who found a way to knock the ball around in a rainstorm and after the summer talk about £40 million strikers, Michu’s £2 million price looked as ridiculous as ever. He almost turned a weak Phil Jones back pass into a calamity – David de Gea cannoned his clearance into the Spaniard – was soon forcing de Gea to palm around the post and soared to deliver his head to the resulting corner. Laudrup’s £5 million in Jonjo Shelvey looked equally smart as the home side pushed United hard and threatened around the edge of the area.

But then United did what the song had asked. So often in the Ferguson era they have scored goals when they look indifferently second-best. There did not look as if there was an immense creative force in their midst and it was easy to see why some momentum from midfield is one of Moyes's priorities and why he likes the thought of Luka Modric at Old Trafford. But with only modest possession they still looked like the ones who would break through and score.

Ryan Giggs looked set to become the first goalscorer of the Moyes era on the quarter-hour mark when the ball was rapidly ferried up to him from United’s own half by Danny Welbeck and Robin van Persie. It looked as if his ageing legs were telling him to lay the ball left when he raced through against the advancing Michel Vorm. Full back Ben Davies blocked off the pass. Then Giggs had a real sight on goal, teeing up the ball with some comfort after Welbeck’s 18th-minute shot had been strongly parried out to him. His angles were miserably bad and Moyes held his head in his hands as the ball sailed wide.

But the struggle for range was only a temporary difficulty. Two goals in two minutes after the half-hour effectively put the game away. Giggs lifted the ball high over the Swansea defence to locate Robin van Persie in a pocket of space, with the technical acumen to lever in a right-foot shot past Vorm, having waited for the ball’s awkward bounce.

Two clinched fists from Moyes displayed the relief and he was punching the air when a cross from the left evaded Ashley Williams and Robin van Persie and reached Antonio Valencia who slid it back across the area for Welbeck to tap it in.

It was a stroll, thereafter. Patrice Evra had an effort cleared off the line and though Wilfried Bony found the net for Laudrup by the end, it was with 20 minutes to play that Van Persie stepped inside Ashley Williams and blasted home the left-footed finish which suggests that not that much has changed for the champions. Welbeck only reinforced that impression when he ran onto a sublime pass from Rooney and lifted the ball expertly and magisterially over Vorm. All in the manner of Fergie's boys.

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