Manchester United trialled it against Everton on the first day of March, without much success. But lots has changed since then.
That 1-1 draw at Goodison Park feels like a lifetime ago, so much so that it’s difficult to believe it’s United’s most recent Premier League away fixture. Back then, coronavirus was a distant problem for many in the United Kingdom; something you saw as a distant news item on social media rather than a very real concern, which has brought the advent of social-distancing.
Normality, just like football, is getting closer to a return even if United’s next Premier League away game – likely to be at Tottenham Hotspur on June 20th or 21st – will be a very different affair.
The simmering, snarling atmosphere that hampered United’s progress against Everton on Merseyside will become a thing of the past, though hopefully only temporarily. Tottenham’s shiny new stadium will be empty, bar for the odd cameraman, medic or linesman.
The positives for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are on the purely footballing side of things. United could very realistically have a fully-fit squad to choose from, with Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford to join a side that was flying before the suspension of football.
So although Solskjaer tried a diamond formation at Everton three months ago, he now has the players to make it a triumph. Mason Greenwood was asked to play up front alongside Anthony Martial that day at Goodison but it wasn’t the teenager’s afternoon. Nor did Scott McTominay look particularly comfortable on the right side of the diamond, with Nemanja Matic holding the fort in the middle.
The situation is rosier now. Pogba’s return has given his manager a nice dilemma: how to fit both him and Bruno Fernandes into the same side.
The diamond would appear the most obvious solution, with Pogba and Fred to fill the shuttling midfield roles either side of McTominay (or Matic) and Fernandes ahead of them in his favourite No.10 role.