Mason Greenwood was desperate to get his Manchester United side back into the match against Aston Villa and he laid siege onto Emiliano Martinez’s goal.
But the 19-year-old’s efforts were not rewarded and he couldn’t change Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sides fortunes.
Similar to his performance off the bench against West Ham in the Carabao Cup, Greenwood wanted to punish Dean Smith’s side and did everything possible to score his first goal in four games.
Greenwood evolving
Following the game against Villa, we highlighted that Greenwood’s electrifying performance just lacked a tad of composure at crucial moments.
There is no denying, he frightened Vila’s backline and he will continue to do that against every defence he comes up against, because the rate his all-round game is improving is both impressive and encouraging.
He looks to go and impose himself on matches and a number of the impressive positions he found himself in, against Villa, was due to his willingness to run in behind with his blistering pace.
No defender wants to be constantly looking over their shoulder worried about when a forward is going to make a diagonal dart across the line of the defence.
But equally when Greenwood isolates defenders, he can pull them from one side to the other.
Leading the way
Across the sixth Premier League gameweek of the season, Greenwood found himself top of the charts for the number of shots attempted and completed dribbles (WhoScored).
The 19-year-old had eight shots against Villa. Michail Antonio was the second highest with seven shots against Leeds.
No player completed more dribbles than United’s number 11 across the weekend’s matches.
Only Danny Rose and Mateo Kovacic could match Greenwood’s tally of five.
On another day, Greenwood’s performance against Villa could have seen him come off the pitch with a goal and two assists to his name, but it was one of those days for United where it didn’t quite click.
But Greenwood’s influence in this United side is growing and he has so many different ways of punishing teams that he will be the matchwinner on several occasions in this season and many, many years to come.
United’s star boy is evolving and that’s a worrying proposition for any defender.
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