Manchester United’s rounded off their pre-season programme with a thumping 4-0 home win over Everton.
The match saw Old Trafford welcome its biggest crowd since the 2-0 Manchester derby win in March 2020, before the Covid pandemic.
Here is a look at United’s three best players from the match, as Rafael Benitez’s side were easily dispatched…
Donny van de Beek
Van de Beek started alongside Nemanja Matic at the base of midfield. It was his first start of pre-season.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that he’s working his way back from injury as well as trying to move on from his tough first United season.
Here, he was just too good for Everton, keeping it simple with his passing and keeping United on the front foot.
It remains to be seen if the deeper role is a more regular feature, but he couldn’t have done much more with his 45 minutes to stake his claim.
Bruno Fernandes
This was Bruno’s first pre-season action and he didn’t take long to make an impression.
His free-kick to make it 3-0 was absolutely stunning and Old Trafford responded accordingly.
You can tell that Fernandes loved playing in front of the United faithful.
He hasn’t had the chance to do that for a full season yet but hopefully that will change in 2021.
Luke Shaw deserves an honourable mention here but Fernandes’ free-kick swung it his way.
Diogo Dalot
Predictably, the second half saw both managers make plenty of changes and the game slowed down somewhat.
But Diogo Dalot didn’t take that as an opportunity to ease his way through his substitute appearance.
He played like a man with something to prove and his late goal was a deserved reward.
His performance got plenty of praise on Twitter and if United aren’t able to sign Kieran Trippier, that need not be the end of the world provided Dalot builds on this cameo.
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