Marcus Rashford rampant and Marouane Fellaini reaching hero status as Manchester United beat Crystal Palace

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It was business as usual for Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon as you have come to expect from this Jose Mourinho team and they dominated bottom-of-the-league Crystal Palace.

Juan Mata opened the scoring before two Marouane Fellaini goals either side of half-time saw United well clear. Romelu Lukaku eventually got his goal late on to make sure of the win.

Here are five things we learned from United’s win…

Maybe that now infamous meme was wrong and he did, in fact, know what he was doing all along? No one will have enjoyed Manchester United’s victory over Crystal Palace more than David Moyes. Both Mata and Fellaini have become key parts of Mourinho’s squad and both were on the scoresheet on Saturday.

Mata’s quality has never been doubted but Fellaini looks to finally have also finally been accepted by United fans after so long being the symbol of everything that was wrong with the Moyes era at Old Trafford. The fact he is keeping last season’s player of the year Ander Herrera out of the team in Paul Pogba’s absence tells you all you need to know about what Mourinho thinks of the Belgian – and he repaid that with two goals.

What can Roy Hodgson do? He inherited a squad with no wins, no points, no confidence and no goals, and who does he have to play in three of his first four games? Manchester City, United and, next, Chelsea.

They are already setting the Premier League record for the worst start ever and it looks like by the time it ends it will be a record that may take a while to be beaten. Is it already too late for Palace to survive? Forget Mission Impossible, if they stay in the Premier League it will be more like the Great Escape.

Recently it’s been a long afternoon for whoever has played right-back against Manchester United, not least because they have to face Marcus Rashford for 60-plus minutes before a fresh-legged Anthony Martial enters the fray. But on Saturday it was especially long for Joel Ward after the Englishman tore him apart from as early as the third minute when he left the Palace man for dead before laying on Juan Mata’s opener.

The Englishman looks to have finally settled on the left of that front three with Mourinho admiring his industrious workrate over Martial’s attacking nous. Even Martial’s stunning midweek performance in the Champions League wasn’t enough to dislodge Rashford from this team. His free kick for Fellaini’s second was a thing of beauty.

For all the goals Manchester United have scored so far this season, you can bet Mourinho will be just as, if not more, happy with the fact his side are yet to concede a Premier League goal at home, with the only goal having gone against them this season being a last-minute consolatory one from Burton Albion in the League Cup.

The boss will be particularly pleased given that he changed up his centre backs for the first time this season by bringing in Chris Smalling alongside Phil Jones with Eric Bailly rested for the afternoon. There was just the one heart-in-mouth moment when the Englishmen seemed to sandwich Jeffrey Schlupp between them to give away a penalty but Mike Dean waved it away.

It seems like this season we will finally get the Pep vs Jose II – the sequel to their La Liga battles with Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively. We were expecting it last season when both sides played each other with 100 per cent records after three games but both quickly fell away as Chelsea romped home.

However this season both look like the real deal and although Chelsea and Spurs are looking dangerous too, you get the feeling that something drastic would have to happen for the title not to return to Manchester… but which part of Manchester?