United Briefing: Keep the pressure on

“Funnier things have happened in football,” insists McTominay. “You’ve got to keep putting the pressure on – that’s our sole focus. It’s not about saying ‘We're waiting for a wobble’ or something like that. We just have to keep winning our games; we have to keep pushing ourselves; keep doing what we can do.

While City face Aston Villa on Wednesday, United do not have to fulfil a midweek fixture for the first time in the entirety of 2020/21, and McTominay says the chance to rest and put in some quality training time could be vital in the run-in.

“It’s a really good chance to have one-two days’ rest and recovery,” he says, “and then training for the rest of the week can be intense and we can really nail a few details which we’ve not had the chance to do all year.

“People don’t realise that it’s not easy going game-to-game, and then having two nights’ sleep before the next game. It’s literally back-to-back-to-back. To have a week’s rest will be good. We can really dial in and focus on some things that we need to work on in training for the last part.”

Perhaps that work will entail one or two drills on defending set pieces, following James Tarkowski’s header against us at the weekend, which came from one of Burnley’s infamously awkward corners.

“Set pieces are difficult. It’s not easy. They’ve [Burnley] got big lads coming into the box that flood the right areas and they’re not easy. You have to be so focused and it’s something that we have spoken about a lot:  set pieces, corners, wide free-kicks, lateral free-kicks.

“So for us it’s something that we’ll look at but I’m sure we’ve got to tidy up before the end of the season with big games in the Europa League and stuff like that.”

But despite Burnley’s aerial threat throughout Sunday’s game, McTominay was satisfied with the performance, especially in the second half, where forwards Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford and Edinson Cavani all thrived.