Manchester United have proven they can impact the latter stages of the Premier League title race by beating Newcastle to win the Carabao Cup. After a bright start to the game from the Magpies, United scored twice in the space of six first half minutes through Casemiro and Marcus Rashford before putting on an extremely professional second half performance defensively to win the first domestic trophy of the season.
With both teams away from Premier League duties, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham all took advantage by extending their respective gaps between the two teams. United are now eight points off the top and six away from their Manchester rivals, and a four-point gap has now opened between Newcastle and the top four, although they have two games in hand over Tottenham.
Under Erik ten Hag, the Red Devils have transformed their fortunes from last season with talk of a possible title charge that was unthinkable even at the start of the campaign. United have shown they are capable of impacting what looked to be a straight shootout between City and Arsenal, but Gary Neville has remained pessimistic about his former clubs title chances.
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Via Metro, he said: "This squad will be dangerous with a medal around their neck because you like to think Erik ten Hag is going to improve them again in the next 12 to 18 months. They’re not close to Arsenal or Man City, that’s clear, but where they are and what they’re doing is something I never would have imagined six months ago."
While there is understandable hesitation from some pundits to include United in the title conversation, the mentality within the club seems to be that they can compete for everything. "We want more," Bruno Fernandes admitted after lifting the Carabao Cup. "It is not enough for this club. We need more because our standards want more."
Those standards mentioned by Fernandes were perfectly on display as Fernandes and Casemiro emulated the reactions of Gabriel and William Saliba at full-time after Arsenal had beaten Leicester 1-0 on Saturday. The Portugal international had a chance in the final few minutes and opted to shoot himself rather than passing to Jadon Sancho, who was in acres of space.
With United celebrating at the end of the game, Casemiro approached Fernandes and began gesticulating with the attacking midfielder asking him why he chose not to pass the ball to Sancho in the final moments. Their clash was very similar to what happened between Gabriel and Saliba on Saturday afternoon after the final whistle.
Gabriel jumped on his defensive partner's back, but Saliba was not pleased and subsequently pushed the Brazilian away. Their brief scuffle did not seem off ill-temperament, instead just an indication of the excellence Arsenal are currently striving, for which is also clearly on display at United.
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