Leicester City 0, Manchester United 1
Marcus Rashford scored the early goal that won this tricky game against Leicester City but David De Gea ensured Manchester United took all three points at the King Power Stadium.
Rashford was celebrating his 100th Premier League appearance for the Reds with his 10th goal of the season – his 6th under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Embed from Getty ImagesReds boss Solskjaer seems to be going through the old Manchester United playbook – last week it was coming back from 2 goals down to equalise against Burnley.
This week, in contrast to free scoring United of recent weeks, it was scoring early and grinding out a result against a feisty opponent.
Once again, they had Rashford to thank for scoring early and also David De Gea for maintaining the slender lead with saves from Jamie Vardy, Rachid Ghezzal, and Harvey Barnes.
Solskjaer made four changes to the team that fought back to draw with Burnley for his 10th game in change of the Reds.
Phil Jones, Juan Mata, Andreas Pereira, and Romelu Lukaku dropped out, with Eric Bailly, Ander Herrera, Jesse Lingard, and Alexis Sanchez starting in their place.
Luck remained on Solskjaer’s side too, as Nemanja Matic was lucky to survive the game after several bookable offences went unpunished.
Rashford had already headed over from Luke Shaw’s early cross as the game tentatively started.
Ricardo’s poor clearance fell to Paul Pogba who immediately lobbed the ball to Rashford who drilled the ball in past Kasper Schmeichel from 11 yards out after 9 minutes.
Leicester went looking for the equaliser and James Maddison was thwarted by block by Shaw while shaping to shoot.
Johnny Evans’ header from a Foxes corner went wide before Rashford almost capitalised on more slack possession by Leicester but he shot tamely at Schmeichel after Herrera robbed Nampalys Mendy and put him through.
Maddison tried his luck again in the second half and hit the side netting while Harvey Barnes couldn’t find anyone to convert his cut back.
De Gea saved on his line from Jamie Vardy’s overhead kick after Maddison’s free kick had deflected off the wall.
The Spaniard also saved a dipping long free kick by Rachid Ghezzal.
Anthony Martial came on for the ineffective Sanchez who had not made the most of his first Premier League start under Solskjaer while Lukaku came on for Rashford in the closing stages.
Lukaku could have doubled United’s lead but Schmeichel palmed his shot from the edge of the box away.
It was De Gea who made another important save from Barnes while Harry Maguire shot wide in injury time with the Foxes desperate to draw the game but failing.