Erik ten Hag got his important win over a man who could still potentially replace him in Thomas Frank and his Bees.
United's 2-1 triumph was their first in five after three draws and a loss which left the MUFC manager in a very sticky situation regarding his future.
While he may not be out of the woods yet, this win over Brentford will certainly calm things down especially since it was seen as a potential decider when it comes to him remaining as manager or not.
There were also a lot more positives to take from this win than negatives.
A good afternoon all round.
1. Poor from crosses
However, I did one to start on a negative and that is how we defend crosses whether from set plays or open play.
United have had an issue with this for many years and still has yet to be properly addressed as every time a ball comes into the box, admittedly, a little poo comes out.
Luckily we did manage to keep Brentford out in the opening 2 minutes but 2-and-a-half minutes in, the Bees perhaps should've taken the lead, somewhat later than in their recent past.
A cross into the box from the left-wing was narrowly missed by Kevin Schade who should've done better with a splendid ball into the box.
That was United's first warning. A warning that we didn't heed.
During the last action of the first half, Ethan Pinnock got his head onto the ball from a corner as he was left unmarked by Diogo Dalot in the box. He gave Brentford the halftime lead which left United fuming because of the whole Matthijs De Ligt situation which I think was more our fault than anyone else's as we should've patched him up properly the first time.
But that Pinnock header was the 10th goal United have conceded from a cross this season whether from a corner, free-kick or open play.
That is 10 conceded out of 13 total goals let in this season, a percentage of 77%. Almost 80% of all our goals conceded is coming from crosses.
Clearly, we need to work on how we defend them and Andreas Georgson really needs to figure out a way to prevent these from happening in the future.
It is a clear weakness.
2. Right flank
Moving into the positives and I thought that we looked particularly good down the right flank.
Usually, it's United's left that causes most of the trouble and is the side we prefer to go down and while Garnacho was quite a handful for Brentford, the overall game from us was better down the right.
A lot of this probably had to do with Dalot being in his preferred right-back position while Martinez covered at left-back in the absence of an actual one and Mazraoui still not having fully recovered from his recent operation.
Dalot looked a lot more at home as his work going forward in particular was a standout. The Portuguese got in behind the Brentford defence on a couple of occasions and aught to have done better with one of his chances.
That would've also given me some good FPL points, but we move on.
I'm sure you noticed as well that whichever full-back position he plays in, Dalot is always the one who inverts, which he did again quite a lot.
But we also saw Rashford play down the right which isn't what we see at all.
Yet I thought that this was the best and most complete Rashford performance we've seen in a long time, one so good that he was my man of the match.
What he did was give me the quinteseential winger performance. Rashford was up and down the wing, he took defenders on, he put in a lot more crosses, he played some great crossfield passes, did take a shot here and there (which is an improvement as he usually shoots A LOT), but perhaps his most impressive aspect of his game was his defensive work.
There were several instances where he tracked back and even covered for Dalot whenever the full-back ventured forward. This is definitely something that we don't see often enough from the number 10.
The only thing missing from his game was the goal although he got the assist for Garnacho's equalizer.
That's more like it Doctor Rashford 👌.
Maybe he and Dalot down the right could be something to look forward to in the future?
3. More crosses
While we do have a problem with defending crosses, we also have one when it comes to putting them in our own box during attacks.
Not so against Brentford though. The stats would suggest that we put in around the same number every game (20) but as we know, United can be quite selfish especially with Garnacho and Rashford in the lineup.
However, the pair didn't display this selfishness as they did try to cross the ball more often than not.
This is a part of their game that I feel needs more improvement because they can be very head down, take 10 players on, cut in and look for the shot. This leads to frustration for all and the striker (in this case Hojlund) being left with scraps up top when it comes to chances created for him.
Maybe putting Rashford on the right cut out that urge to cut in and shoot because it would mean him having to use his left-foot which he isn't so strong with and so, resulted in him deciding to go down the line a bit more and cross the ball.
As we moved the ball to the right a lot, we created an overload on that flank leaving the left a little more free. We saw multiple crossfield passes and particularly from Rashford to seek out Garnacho.
At times, I thought Paul Scholes had returned!
4. Game management
If ever there was (and still is) an area of our game that needed drastic improvement, it is in-game management both from the team and manager.
United can often switch off and do stupid things which can allow opposition's back into a game that they really aught not be.
We've seen this from MUFC before. We get into the lead whether coming from being or not, and let off to allow the other team back into it, often straight away.
Other than the first 20 minutes, United actually controlled the game and dictated the play in a way that looked like they actually knew what they were doing. It was very constructive how we played from that point on, with a lot of patterns which allowed us to control the game.
Brentford were never really in it after that despite their late first half goal. Once we got the equalizer, there was only one team winning it.
After Hojlund's winner, we managed to see the game out but there was never really any worry that Brentford would come back into it, something else we don't often associate with United as we can often have some very squeaky bum moments.
I also feel that Erik ten Hag deserves credit as he managed the game perfectly and made the right substitutions even if they were a little later than most would've liked. To be fair to him though, the team were playing pretty well and if it ain't broke...
This type of game management needs to be something we see regularly because we do find ourselves in these situations a lot but don't see games out.
5. High team spirit
After what has been a very difficult last few games for United which led us to believe that this could be the end of ten Hag, we really needed to see a performance where the players displayed fight and determination to get the win and play good football.
Again, other than the opening 20 minutes in which we all probably thought 'here we go again' given our slow start, United did actually show that fight.
There seemed to be a cohesiveness to the performance, something that was lacking in recent games where the team looked very disjointed and out of sorts. We also saw a lot of passion and energy particularly in that second half.
That's what we want to see more of.
However, post-match, Erik ten Hag did come out and say that he and United were 'angry' at the concession of the Brentford goal and De Ligt having to come off which left us with 10 men to defend that corner.
This anger caused them to come out of the blocks like a house on fire for the second 45 which is why we saw that incredible performance.
While it was great, I just wanted to know, why do we need something to get us going? Shouldn't we be playing like this from the start anyway?
This is one of the next challenges for this side. We have to start off flying from the beginning of matches all the way through.
But what we also saw was a team that was behind the manager and fought for him. This could (for now) quieten the thoughts that maybe these players are getting to that point where they could down tools again.
In spite of this though, this performance - particularly in the second half - is something for ten Hag and co to build upon. Consistency is key as more displays like this are warranted which would make us all truly believe again.
Background Image: Alejandro Garnacho scores against Brentofrd in Man Utd's 2-1 win | Creator: OLI SCARFF | Credit: AFP via Getty Images Copyright: AFP or licensors via Goal