A goal and
an assist by Cristiano Ronaldo give life to the under-pressure Ole Gunnar
Solksjaer as Manchester United bounce back from last week’s Liverpool
humiliation to beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 in the Premier League on Saturday.

Ronaldo
scored a great right-foot volley in the first half through a Bruno Fernandes
cross. He had another ball in the net at the start of the second half but it
was disallowed by VAR due to him being offside. The Portuguese carried on and
put Edinson Cavani through, who slotted the ball home for United’s second.

Substitute
Marcus Rashford made it 3-0 late in the second half to lift some pressure off the United manager who was almost sacked last week after arch-rival Liverpool
beat them 5-0 at Old Trafford. Solskjaer gets some breathing space even though the Red Devils are still eight points from first place.

It was
United’s first win in five games and came on the back of two losses, Leicester
and Liverpool, in the span of two weeks.

Now the
pressure is on Spurs manager Nuno Espirito Santo, whose team lost five games in
10 games for the first time since 2009. Spurs did not get any shot on target
for the first time since 2013. That is when Spurs sacked Andre Vilas-Boas.

Rather than
Solskjaer feeling the heat — United fans were back singing “Ole’s at the
wheel” — the Tottenham supporters were booing their team and chanting at Santo: “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“It’s been a difficult week for the players, for the club, for the fans, for me. I’ve stayed away from most of the noise, but you know what’s happening out there. You know that you have to put a performance but for us, we needed this week,” Solskjær said.

“We needed a whole week to work on this, this performance and it’s probably the first or the last time for a while we have a long week to work, so it was an important one, just to work on fitness, mentality, and of course we changed the tactic,” the Norweigian added.

(With AP inputs)