SWANSEA CITY 0 MANCHESTER UNITED 4
Aug 19 (Reuters) – Manchester United continued their perfect start to the Premier League season by crushing Swansea City 4-0 with three late goals in four minutes at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday.
The scoreline matched their opening-day destruction of West Ham United after Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba and substitute Anthony Martial scored between the 80th and 84th minutes to add to Eric Bailly’s first-half opener, his first goal for the club.
Lukaku began the late rout with a neat finish on 80 minutes for his third goal in two games before Pogba surged forward to dink the ball past Lukasz Fabianski and Martial completed the destruction.
Two of the goals came from assists by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was named man of the match.
“It was a tough game, especially in the first half when they had five defenders,” the Armenian said.
“In the second half there was more space as they only played with four.”
Despite raucous home support, Swansea seldom threatened in the absence of the departed Gylfi Sigurdsson the injured Fernando Llorente, always struggling to deal with United’s power and pace and by the end Jose Mourinho’s side were bursting forward almost at will.
“I think we are a more confident side this season,” said Pogba, who gave a strong performance despite playing most of the match with a yellow card after a wild early challenge.
“Last year we still won two trophies but now we all know each other better and are working for each other.”
His words reinforced the feeling that United are a much stronger force this season, not least because of their strength on the bench.
Last week they scored two late goals to finish off West Ham and on Saturday, after injecting Martial into the attack on 75 minutes, they went one better.
