Man Utd won thanks to Young's double and Lingard's masterpiece

Mourinho and his team defeated Watford 4-2, after leading 3-0 from the first half thanks to the brilliant performance of the English players.

Scorers: Deeney 77', Doucoure 84' - Young 19', 25', Martial 32', Lingard 86'

For the first time this season, Man Utd scored three goals in the first half. Jose Mourinho's students played incredibly effectively in a game where the ball possession mainly belonged to Watford.

Ashley Young's double in six minutes was key to the visitors' three points. The veteran Englishman fired home from distance in the 19th minute, before a superb free-kick in the 25th minute put the visitors 2-0 up.

This victory also helps Man Utd maintain second place in the table, while narrowing the gap with Man City to five points, before the top team plays round 14 today.

Lingard celebrates scoring the winning goal in the final minutes of the 4-2 victory.

The margin of victory does not reflect how the two teams started the game.Watford, with home field advantage and confidence from last season's 3-1 victory, took the initiative to attack after the opening whistle.

Man Utd, on the other hand, have been playing cautiously, although they have won 12 of their last 13 meetings with the Vicarage Road team. The tight schedule from now until the end of 2017 has forced Mourinho to calculate and allocate his strength appropriately for each match.

Marco Silva seemed to have anticipated his Portuguese counterpart's intention to play with three defenders, and instructed Watford to constantly exploit the space between the two wide players and the same centre-back. Man Utd were troubled by this way of playing, but Ashley Young's brilliance helped the visitors break the deadlock.

Young's opening shot.

In the 19th minute, Young initiated the attack for Man Utd from home, before receiving the ball back from Jesse Lingard. There were only three players in red shirts surrounded by six defenders in yellow shirts. The former Aston Villa player decided to shoot from the edge of the penalty area, sending the ball low and high into the near corner, leaving the Watford goalkeeper no time to react.

Six minutes later, Heurelho Gomes picked the ball out of the net for the second time. From about 23 meters, right in front of the goal, Young executed a classy free kick, sending the ball over the wall and straight into the top corner.

Not yet recovered from the shock, Watford conceded a third goal after half an hour of play. The Watford defender's poor handling of the ball was costly when Paul Pogba quickly passed the ball to Anthony Martial who finished low into the near corner.

The score could have even been 4-0 if two consecutive shots from Pogba and Lingard at the end of the first half had not been denied by Gomes's brilliant reflexes.

Young's classy free kick.

The big gap made Man Utd play somewhat subjectively in the second half and retreat deeper into their own half. However, the red team still had very clear opportunities. In the 75th minute, substitute player Marcus Rashford stole the ball from a Watford defender and passed it very freely to Romelu Lukaku. In an empty position in the penalty area, the Belgian striker handled it cumbersomely and could not finish the goal.

More than a minute later, Lukaku still missed a golden opportunity when he brought the ball to his left foot and shot hard into the far corner. The ball missed the post by a hair.

On the sidelines, Mourinho calmly waited for victory, not expecting Watford's explosion. In the 77th minute, substitute striker Troy Deeney reduced the score to 1-3 when he successfully converted a penalty after a foul in the penalty area by Marcos Rojo. In the 84th minute, Abdoulaye Doucoure finished with lightning speed after a cross from the right wing, scoring the second goal past David De Gea.

Martial's goal made it 3-0.

Man Utd lost a three-goal lead in just seven minutes, and they were in danger of having to share the points when Watford had nearly 10 minutes left, including stoppage time, to attack.

But Lingard prevented that from happening. Two minutes after Doucoure’s goal, the England midfielder produced a masterpiece reminiscent of Ryan Giggs’s goal against Arsenal. Lingard received the ball from inside the box, evaded four yellow-shirted defenders, and fired a cross into the corner of the box.

According to VNE