The script was set beforehand. Arejuvenated Manchester United skippered by Wayne Rooney under themanagerial leadership of Louis Van Gaal would enjoy a triumph startat home by beating Garry Monk's Swansea City. The only problem wasSwansea hadn't read the script. In a stop start match the Welshteam's gameplan saw them come out on top with a 2-1 victory.
Louis Van Gaal sent his Red Devils outin a bold 3-5-2 formation. Young defender Tyler Blackett and youngstriker Jesse Linegard were given starts a left centre back and rightwing back respectively.
A more cautious Garry Monk packed themidfield with a defensive deep sitting 4-2-3-1 formation the onlydébutantes of which were goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski and thereturning hero Gylfi Sigurdsson.
First Half
Things started well for ManchesterUnited as they dominated possession in the opening ten minutes. Forall their control of the game though Manchester United rarelythreatened or got behind the Swansea backline. The first moment ofnote came on 19 minutes when young Jesse Linegard stretched for atackle with Swansea captain Ashley Williams and came off worseinjuring his knee. The youngster tried to run the injury off but wassubstituted on the 23rd minutes with fellow youngsterAdnan Januzaj taking his place at right wing back.
The substitution seemed to invigorateManchester United injecting some much needed pace into their build upplay. The largely anonymous Juan Mata dropped deep laying the balloff to centre back Phil Jones who stormed forward with the ballplaying a quick one two. Getting behind the Swansea defence beforebeing clattered on the edge of the area by Ashley Williams just ashis cross/shot forced a diving save from Fabianski.
Driven on by the crowd, ManchesterUnited won another freekick seconds later, resulting in a Wayne Rooneyheader on target. Then just as Manchester United were getting goingSwansea delivered a sucker punch. The visitors swept down the righthand side of the pitch over-runing the Manchester United midfield andexposing the back three.
Swansea passed the ball across the edge ofthe box into the path of the Ki Sung-Yeung who guided the ball intothe bottom right corner of the net beyond a diving De Gea.
Second Half
The second halfstarted with Swansea leading by a goal to nil. In an effort to bringsome life to his side Louis Van Gaal brought off striker JavierHernandez and brought on Portuguese attacking midfielder Nani.
Van Gaal didn'thave to wait long to see his substitution and half-time words takeeffect. On 51 minutes Manchester United won a corner and the newcaptain Wayne Rooney stepped up with the equaliser. Juan Mata floatedin the corner, a deflection flicked it onto the backpost and Rooneywas there to turn it in.
With forty minutesleft and the scores now level, the expectation was for ManchesterUnited to power on forward for the victory. Things didn't work outthat way though as the well drilled Swansea side set about makinglife difficult for the home side. Whenever the home side began apromising move the offending player would inevitably be fouled by aSwansea player and the movement would grind to halt. A particularlyculprit of this was ex-Liverpool man Jonjo Shelvey whose efforts wererewarded with a booking.
Justas the game seemed to be petering out for a draw though Swanseascored their second of the game. Substitute Jefferson Montero workedhis way into some space and found Gylfi Sigurdsson inside the box andthe Icelandic international drilled the ball home.
Indays of old this would have been when Manchester United showed theirchampionship potential. As it was though Swansea closed out the gamewith little difficulty to start the season with a shock 2-1 win andpose big questions for Manchester United and their new boss Louis VanGaal.
