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Swansea City 0-4 Manchester United (Eric Bailly 45', Romelu Lukaku 80', Paul Pogba 82', Anthony Martial 84')
Well, Well, Well.
8-0 at the end of the opening two gameweeks (against admittedly shoddy opposition) and Jose Mourinho's men are sitting pretty.
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They seem to have started the season with a verve that was only seen on their player's social media accounts last season and if they continue in this vein, they will take some stopping.
1. Manchester United seem to have found their most settled starting XI since Sir Alex Ferguson
Here's one stat to get things going: Manchester United have won back-to-back Premier League games by 4+ goals for the first time since 2011.
Jose Mourinho seems to have hit on a winning formula with his starting XIs for the two matches: Valencia, Bailly, Jones, Blind protecting De Gea while ahead of them Matic gives Pogba, Mata, Mkhitaryan, Rashford, and Lukaku to do as they will. A number of United fans - and neutrals - will complain that Martial ought to start but the Frenchman seems to be thriving on running at the tired and haggard defenders that Rashford leaves in his wake and this might just be the way forward for United.
Fellaini, Herrera, Martial, Lingard, Lindelof is some bench - and it's hard to see this sort of quality in squad depth anywhere else in the League.
Mourinho will try to keep expectations low - and suggest this is all just because the team's a happy one saying "Last season we had six points after two matches, and we finished sixth." - but a couple more such results and even he may find that a tough ask.
Just maybe, eh, Gary?
2. Swansea need to at least try and replace Jack Cork and Gylfi Sigurdsson
Jack Cork left to Burnley and Gylfi Sigurdsson left to Everton and took with them the spine of the spunky Welsh outfit. Without the quality on the ball that Cork and Sigurdsson provided, Swansea's default plan of seeing off the opposition before trying to sneak in a couple looks like falling on its face. Roque Mesa is the solid addition to the squad, but his best work happens deeper in the park, and with time running out in the transfer window they need to do some seriously good business with the windfall that the Icelandic midfielder, especially, left while on his way out.
They had a couple of sniffs of goal today - Jordan Ayew's audacious chip springs to mind - and his and Tammy Abraham's pace troubled a solid United defence at times, but they desperately missed the hulking presence of Fernando Llorente up front and they need their Basque talisman to shake off his niggles and get back to 100% as soon as possible.
While it's hard for anyone to stop Manchester United when they step on the gas like that - Clement will also be concerned at how open his team looked the moment he loosened the strings a little.
A bit of encouragement, though? His vastly inferior on paper Swans stood toe-for-toe with their fancied opponents in their 3-5-2 formation... that's probably the way forward for the Welsh side this season.
3. Manchester United have found the one thing they lacked last season - ruthlessness; for now at least
For large parts of the first half and even the second half, United looked like they were going to be afflicted by the same ailment that had derailed any momentum they'd been building up last season - play well until the final third, create a bucket-load of chances and finish none of them. But this time, they have Romelu Lukaku.
The big Belgian is often maligned for his inability to take on big sides, but there is no questioning his credentials against the Premier League's lesser-known sides - and he underlined them with his third goal of the season (in two matches, of course). His hold-up play has been excellent so far and Mata, Mkhitaryan, Pogba, and Rashford seemed to enjoy bouncing the ball off him and running into space.
His ruthlessness in front of goal is promising, and United as a collective unit seem to have gotten out of their shell and have relearned how to kill-off teams with the swagger of the fabled Ferguson teams of yore. Like Thierry Henry said, "If you go 1-0 down against this team, they are going to punish you."
How long this will last is anybody's guess, but boy are they a joy to behold at the moment.
Oh, and Tony Martial seems to be Mourinho's answer to Fergie's Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
4. Paul Clement's side will be in the relegation battle for the vast majority of this season
It's tough to see the Swans do anything but struggle to remain afloat (no pun intended) all season long. Federico Fernandez's heroic performance kept them in the game today, till Martial, Mkhitaryan, and Pogba turned it on, and the Argentine will have his work cut-out this season.
The Argentine will be hoping Clement sticks to the three-man backline (that included Alfie Mawson and Kyle Bartley) that shut out United for large periods of time, and that may well be their only route for survival - park the bus, as it were, and hope that the pace of Abraham and Ayew along with the ruthlessness of Llorente (when he gets back) gains them points.
They will also need to ensure that when the big boys come to town they don't get hammered - there's nothing that saps confidence like a 4-0 humiliation.
5. Paul Pogba seems free of the massive burden that his price-tag carried last season
"We're more confident, we know each other, we work for each other and that makes it easier for us." - Paul Pogba spoke with that breezy confidence of his as he handed the broadcaster's man of the match award to the excellent Henrikh Mkhitaryan... but much of the emphatic nature of this win owes it to the athletic brilliance of Paul Pogba.
The arrival of Nemanja Matic appears to have freed him up to do as he will (as 2 assists and 2 goals in 2 games tells you) - and his non-stop running from box-to-box is paying the dividends United expected off him when they shelled out £89.6 million for their former Academy trainee. Like one twitter user summer it up:
He shares an easy relationship with his fellow central midfielder while his off-field relationship with Lukaku seems to have transcribed itself onto the field. Add to that his increasingly good reading of Mkhitaryan's and Mata's game (and vice-versa) and it's adding to the lethality of United's attack.
This is the Pogba that everyone wanted to see, and this just may be his year. Just check out the audacity of this finish:
