Manchester United show signs of life under Darren Fletcher but same old problems remain

Hopefully, Darren Fletcher had said, his team would look like a Manchester United side.

They did. There was much to recognise from the brand of United Fletcher knew in his playing days. A side with a back four and spirit mounted a comeback. There was the sort of attacking football United had hoped to see under Ruben Amorim. There was a big-money signing delivering goals, a United academy product showing promise. There was a soundtrack rooted firmly in history, too, celebrating United’s old heroes.

Unfortunately for Fletcher, the result was rooted in the present, with more points dropped in a winnable fixture. Amorim’s last game was a draw against a promoted club. So was Fletcher’s first. In Amorim’s penultimate match, United drew with the side then on the longest winless run in the division, in Wolves. That mantle has passed to Burnley and they held duly United. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

Not in many respects, actually. Fletcher ripped up the Amorim blueprint, dispensed with his 3-4-3 and was rewarded for giving players new roles in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Not that Fletcher, the interim to the interim, will be the new boss, anyway. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Michael Carrick are in talks and could return, potentially as a double act. United may have three managers in as many league games.

There were choruses for coaching staff, renditions of Solskjaer’s and Carrick’s songs from the United fans in the Barnfield Construction Stand, followed by one of “Darren Fletcher’s a football genius” and, for the latest addition to the backroom team, “Jonny Evans is a Red”. Old favourites retain an appeal.

And United’s nostalgia trip to Turf Moor was an enjoyable affair, if not a particularly productive one. Fletcher lost the perfect record of the old boys turned caretakers. Ryan Giggs, Solskjaer, Carrick and Ruud van Nistelrooy had all won their first games in charge. He did not but after more Old Trafford bloodletting, there was a sense of a fresh start under a familiar face.

Benjamin Sesko benefited. Amorim would rather have signed Viktor Gyokeres than the summer buy. Maybe that lack of faith in him showed. Fletcher had sought out the Slovenian for a conversation at Carrington, wanting to get to know him better. Belatedly, Sesko started to look a £73m forward. Martin Dubravka, briefly a United goalkeeper, had made a terrific save to keep one header out. It only delayed his first goal since October.

A scorer of only two goals for Amorim, Sesko got as many in his first game under Fletcher. Each was a reward for the Scot, made by a man he relocated in his change of shape. The first was an angled finish; the pass came from Bruno Fernandes, liberated to play as a 10 by Fletcher. The second was guided in after a cross by Patrick Dorgu, selected on the left wing. Dorgu rampaged relentlessly, if erratically. Fernandes, who hit the outside of the post, showed the merits of using him in the final third, not deeper in midfield.

He was not alone in hitting the woodwork. No sooner had Fletcher brought Shea Lacey on than the teenager curled a shot against the bar. It almost ranked as a magnificent substitution.

And United can reflect they almost won. They had 30 shots. Dubravka played well. Lisandro Martinez had a goal ruled out for a foul. Burnley twice made brilliant goal-line clearances: first Bashir Humphreys, backtracking to turn Matheus Cunha’s looping header away, then Maxime Esteve, keeping out Dorgu’s dink.

Yet United can rue the fact that, for the first time since 1968, Burnley scored twice in a home game against them. The second got Scott Parker’s team just a third point in 12 matches. Substitute Jaidon Anthony, who had scored in the 66th minute at Old Trafford in August, repeated the feat at Turf Moor, curling a shot into the top corner. Burnley’s second goal came from their first shot on target. They had led courtesy of an own goal from the club capable of shooting themselves in the foot.

Fletcher’s switch to a back four did not bring solidity, in part because of the failings of individuals. Humphreys’ cross looped up off Ayden Heaven and over Senne Lammens. Casemiro had failed to track Humphreys while Heaven, in trying to block the cross, showed the issues with using a left-footed centre-back on the right.

There were other intriguing moves with Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo, Mason Mount and Harry Maguire back in the squad; it meant Tyler Fletcher, son of Darren, did not make the bench. This was an early lesson that managing involves conveying bad news. Mainoo, who may have savoured the regime change, came on for the final 15 minutes. For United midfielders past and present, Amorim’s departure may have been momentous news. But frustration at a lack of wins remains a constant.