Manchester United 1-0 Tottenham | Three thoughts

1. A great start to the season...but there's room for improvement

Kyle Walker's o.g., after a well engineered United move, was enough for the win - one that has seen us gain an early advantage on Arsenal and Chelsea who both dropped points at the weekend. Yet United played pretty poorly at times, with Tottenham threatening the United goal far more than we did there's. As if it wasn't already obvious prior to kick-off that United needed needed strengthening in both defence and attack, then Blind's performance as a make-shift centre-back and Rooney's isolated, often lost, display up-front signaled more evidence for van Gaal and Woodward to get cracking during the remaining days of the transfer window.



"Lucky United / "Unlucky Tottenham" was the general gist of the majority of post-match write-ups following United's season opener at Old Trafford. It took an own-goal to win us a game and indeed we were lucky to come out of the match with a clean sheet and all three point...however at this early stage, is anyone really more concerned by the performance over the great result against one of the league's toughest opponents? I doubt it.

2. Romero

All the talk prior to kick-off was around LVG's admission that de Gea would be left out of the side for the opening game as he would be unable to "manage it". So, after a brief period of shock followed by annoyance, betrayal, disillusionment and hysteria, the thoughts of the fans and media alike turned to his replacement in goal. The candidates included 22-year-old Sam Johnstone, and new signing Sergio Romero. The combined number of United appearances between them? Zero. So back to hysteria it was then.



As expected, Romero started his first game in a United shirt, and he did a mighty fine job. The cynics have immediately highlighted his poor distribution rather than focus on the three decent saves he made, as well as the clean sheet, however I think for his debut (and his first club game since January) he did pretty well. In terms of convincing the world that he's the man to be our new, long-term no.1...he needs a few more games still.



The problem now is that United are used to reliable de Gea with his cool, calm temperament and ability to pull-off the incredible, mind-boggling saves - so if he is to leave United replacing him with someone of equal quality is virtually impossible as the other members of this exclusive club of "worlds best goalies" will never be sold. Strange then that United - one of the best clubs in the world - are currently in the position of losing our best player and are seemingly being bullied into selling him to Real Madrid, unable to put an end to the situation once and for all? But that's a different conversation for another day.

3. Darmian

The new right-back was arguably the best player on the pitch, and certainly the most comfortable of the four newbies that started (the others being Romero, Schneiderlin and Depay; with Schweinsteiger playing 30 minutes).



A natural right-back and proper defender - something we've been devoid of since 2011 when Neville left - so even though he may not be as glamorous a signing as Schweinsteiger or Memphis, he could well turn out to be vital in sorting our defence out.