Three away wins in a row, in three different competitions, finally had Manchester United fans dreaming of better days.
Victories against Partizan in the Europa League, against Norwich in the Premier League and Chelsea in the Carabao Cup had helped realign the season for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side but on a windy, miserable day on the south coast their recent away-day revival came crashing down.
The fatal blow was delivered by a former United player. Josh King played twice for the first team and more than that under Solskjaer for the reserves but could never quite carve out a place for himself at Old Trafford as a young player.
He is now well established as a Premier League player with Bournemouth, his goal here was his 45th in the English top flight, and has just as good a goal and assist record to the much-vaunted Marcus Rashford at the other end.
It’s no wonder there have been rumours that his former club might like to welcome him back one day as he provides the solid centre forward play that Rashford and Anthony Martial simply do not offer.
The extent of Bournemouth’s goalscoring issues have been well documented – their goal here against United was their first in around 600 minutes – but the visitors’ struggles are causing plenty of problems of their own.
Rashford and Martial are combination players; they don’t do the kind of work that King and Callum Wilson do. United’s decision to part with Romelu Lukaku looks more foolish by the week and they only possess teenage talent in Mason Greenwood as any sort of alternative.
That win last week at Norwich was welcome but again has proven a false dawn. It was the first time they’d scored more than one goal in any Premier League game since the opening weekend against Chelsea and came at a time when Norwich were there for the taking.
But there was no sense here that they could capitalise on that positive momentum, nor the win at Stamford Bridge midweek.
Instead of troubling the top end of the table – and the top four positions in particular – they are again looking the other way.
Bournemouth surpassed the United points tally with this win and add the Vitality Stadium to the list of away grounds from which United have emerged potless in recent weeks.
They rallied in the second half and knocked on the Bournemouth door late on. Greenwood, Scott McTominay and Fred all had decent efforts on Aaron Ramsdale’s goal but it came to nothing.
Bournemouth had played United expertly, in the knowledge that they prefer hitting on the break rather than settling into possession. Dan James and the rest of the United front line did not get the kind of space they need to work their magic.
The goal, when it came, was avoidable. King seemingly had an eternity to take the ball down, turn and fire past David de Gea inside the United box. Aaron Wan-Bissaka made the error on the goal, jumping in to try and win the ball when he would have been well advised to stand off and wait for the striker to make a decision.
That could well be a consequence of being a converted winger and having limited experience in defensive positions, but United would have been well aware of that when they paid £50 million to Crystal Palace for him in the summer.
Regardless, United’s attack was one-paced and easily repelled by Nathan Ake and company.
United are seven points behind their tally at this time last year; their worst start to a top-flight season for 34 years. This time last season, Jose Mourinho was wobbling and would be sacked within only a few weeks.
It’s one step forward and one step back for Solskjaer at the moment, with increasing scepticism over whether he can sort it out.
