Manchester United v Newcastle, Getty Images December 27, 2025, 00:02

The tradition of holding Boxing day is characteristic of the English Premier League, when the day after Christmas everyone gathers to watch a certain number of football matches of the next round of the national championship. But in 2025, the organizers decided that the teams already had quite a busy schedule, so they did their best, and the eighteenth round started late on Friday night with a match at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Newcastle. They say that next year everything will be the same as before. But this is not accurate.

Meanwhile, we had the teams of Ruben Amorim and Eddy Gow in conditions of certain personnel troubles, and if the “Red Devils” lost players in the attack, then the “forties” had problems with the rotation in defense. And Newcastle were playing away, and this season it looks like too important a factor for this club to turn a blind eye to. Performances in the Gau team outside their own home, accordingly, are also not the best.

This match will definitely add to their list. Because it was impossible to accurately call the “40s” an interesting game, while Manchester United, in front of their own fans, tried to control the course of events as carefully as the circumstances allowed. And the hosts really allowed the guests too much. Especially when it came to playing at the second pace of quick attacks.

In fact, this is how Amorim’s team opened the scoring in the middle of the first half, when a kick from Dalot from the left wing was transferred to a shot by Dorgu at the central entrance to the penalty area, and he took off and aimed at the near post and thus scored only his first goal in the Premier League. The event is undoubtedly important in the career of the defender of the club from Manchester, but it is still unknown how much time was left to play and it was expected that some kind of response from the Gau team would come.

However, as we have already mentioned, the “magpies” were too inconspicuous in positional attacks in front of the foreign penalty area, and only during the standard period did their players have a certain advantage in size, so moments arose under such conditions steadily in the second half. There was some luck in the case of Shear’s shot from the right-hand corner of the keeper early on that ricocheted past the post from Dorg’s body, and later Hall tested the crossbar with a long-range shot from the left over the head of Lammens in a quick attack.

However, before that, Amorim’s team was also distinguished by a similar caliber shot by Sheshko from the left edge of the penalty area, which became a rare case of danger from the hosts in the other half after the break. Yes, Manchester United played with an emphasis on defense and were not always flawless in this regard, but they still held on even when Newcastle openly started to push at the end.

Manchester United: Lammens — Martinez (Fredrickson, 88), Geven, Shaw (Malasia, 87) — Dalot, Casemiro (Yoro, 60), Ugarte, Dorgu — Cunha, Mount (J. Fletcher, 46) — Szesko (Zierkze, 61).