Yeovil Town 0 Manchester United 4: Alexis Sanchez does what he does best!
A double FA Cup winner, Sánchez knows this competition as well as any Englishman and, given his route to the top from a small town in northern Chile, there is nothing for him to fear at a League Two stadium on a chilly January night.
Even so, it is clear that the stakes have been raised with his move from Arsenal to United, and he is under greater scrutiny than ever before. He came up with two assists and Darren Way, the Yeovil Town manager, talked in awe of a “world-class performance”.
Jose Mourinho substituted his Chilean with around 19 minutes remaining and Sánchez's patience wearing thin with some of the treatment meted out. Mourinho said that a first-half foul on Sánchez by defender Nathan Smith should have been a red card, but he understood why referee Paul Tierney had been so reluctant to do so early in the game.
Victory was never in doubt for United, even with a team that had 10 changes from the side that beat Burnley last Saturday, and Yeovil struggled to get close.
Marcus Rashford was gifted a goal just before half-time when Thomas James, the Yeovil full-back, simply failed to realise how near the forward was to him and had the ball taken off his toe just yards from his own goal.
Michael Carrick was back for his second performance of the season, captain on the night in this his first game since a procedure to treat an irregular heart rhythm that was diagnosed in November. Luke Shaw was back in the team, and so too the lesser-spotted Victor Lindelof.
But this was about Sánchez, the man who is earning around £600,000-a-week, a remarkable salary anywhere in the game, never mind a team 87 places below United in the league pyramid and fighting relegation to the Conference.
There seems to be a trend these days to boo the recipient of the big-money move, regardless of whether it has had any effect on one’s own club – just ask Raheem Sterling – and there might be more of this hostility to come for Sánchez.
Smith’s challenge was after 30 minutes and might well have been a red card and, by the time Sánchez got more of the same in the second half, Mourinho decided it was time to bring him off.
By then Sánchez had also generously created Ander Herrera’s goal, United’s second, and taken over free-kick duty. He was booed before the game and was booed when he came off and, when the stadium announcer said Sanchez had been voted man of the match, he was booed for that, too. Substitutes Jesse Lingard and Romelu Lukaku both scored late in the game with Yeovil stretched and exhausted, and there was a second senior outing for the 17-year-old Angel Gomes.
For Way, whose side are 21st in League Two, there are greater concerns ahead, but he was delighted with the experience and his interaction with Mourinho. “We gave it everything,” he said. “We couldn’t have done any more. I just needed Sánchez in my team.” The club is under pressure from fans to make signings to keep their league status and Ryan Seager has joined on loan from Southampton.
On Mourinho, Way said: “It’s an absolute honour for me to speak to a manager of that class. He oozes class, and was very humble towards me. He’s done his homework. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew my children’s names.
“To share that moment with him was special. I’ll be interested to ask him what he thought of my team but, by all accounts, he was impressed with what he saw. The guy’s a winner. My players gave everything.”
The greatest Yeovil threat came from set-pieces. The enormous centre-half Omar Sowunmi went forward in search of the ball into the area and he forced an early save out of Sergio Romero. There was also the pace of left winger Jordan Green for United to think about when they did not have the ball, which was seldom during a game in which they enjoyed 74 per cent of the possession.
For United’s first goal, Rashford had skipped through the middle onto Sánchez's pass but was crowded out and James was in possession when Rashford realised the full-back had forgotten about him. James was idly guiding the ball back to goalkeeper Artur Krysiak, unaware of Rashford’s proximity, and the United man nipped back in and tucked a shot into the net.
United’s second started with a long ball cleared out from the back by Shaw and gathered by unlikely target man, Juan Mata, whose touch and awareness of space meant he could turn right and pick out Sánchez breaking forward.
It must have crossed the Chilean’s mind to shoot, but he had Rashford and Herrera holding their runs ahead of him and picked the latter, who finished neatly.
Before at last Sánchez was replaced by Lingard after 71 minutes he was kicked again on his right ankle and spent some time demonstrating his pain on the pitch. It precipitated an aggrieved Sanchez charging towards his own goal to win back possession as Mourinho urged caution and then decided to summon a replacement.
Lingard was given too much space down the right to add a third goal. By the time Lukaku added a fourth, a volley from Marcos Rojo’s cross, the dream was over for Yeovil. For Sánchez, it was just beginning and United would have liked what they saw.
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