Mason Greenwood's cool head and knack for shooting early make him a rare talent

Ian Wright used to sit down fairly regularly after training with David Seaman and Arsenal’s goalkeeping coach at the time, Bob Wilson, and, in his words, “we’d talk for ages because I wanted to know what would be going on in the minds of the goalkeepers when I was facing them”.

More specifically, Wright would list different positions in and around the penalty area and, in each instance, want to know where was the one place Seaman would not want him to put the ball. Seaman used to study opponents in great detail to establish their strengths and weaknesses - before that sort of thing became a given - and, even when presented with a two-footed opponent, the former England No. 1 would explain to Wright the importance of not allowing the goalkeeper to set himself.

“Dave told me that goalkeepers have to, at some stage, make a little jump, just to get themselves ready,” Wright recalled in his autobiography, A Life In Football. “If you take your shot early, you could catch them when they’re off the ground, which is when they can’t make a move”.

Tottenham’s Harry Kane has always been very good at that - getting his shot off early, not allowing a goalkeeper time to set - and now another English striker is emerging with that same devilish knack of momentarily catching the man between the posts off guard.

Mason Greenwood’s goal against Brighton & Hove Albion on Tuesday evening was one of several highlights from Manchester United’s rapidly maturing teenage forward but it stood out because it showcased a level of technical excellence and positional awareness and understanding that points to a rare potential.

Comparisons have already been drawn with Robin van Persie and, in terms of posture, build and the way Greenwood moves, feints and strikes the ball, the likeness with the former Arsenal and United striker is uncanny. But that ability to take his shot early, and hit with great power, is right out of Kane’s playbook and is a skill many strikers, even very good ones, covet but never master.

It has yielded the Spurs and England captain plenty of goals for club and country and the same is likely to happen for Greenwood who, still only 18, now has 13 goals to his name in his first full season in United’s first team.

Just watch Mat Ryan at that precise moment Greenwood elects to shoot. He is in the process of making one of those little jumps, those tiny adjustments, that Seaman talked about in conversation with Wright and cannot recover in time, with Greenwood letting rip that split second quicker than others might have done, and with tremendous force.

In truth, it is not just the timing of Greenwood’s shot that makes life difficult for the Brighton goalkeeper. Greenwood also manages to direct his shot between the legs of Lewis Dunk, slightly clouding Ryan’s view in the process. And that is another skill many strikers seek to perfect, and one Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - Greenwood’s manager at United and someone who knows plenty about the art of goalscoring - has worked with the youngster on. Pulling off one trick goalkeepers hate is one thing but two? That is quite something.

There are other weapons as well. Greenwood has that ability to get the ball tight to the posts, beyond the reach of a goalkeeper even at full stretch - his visualisation of the goal is excellent - and, for defenders, there is the nightmare of being unable to push him towards a weaker foot. Greenwood is completely comfortable, and supremely confident, using either - “51 per cent left footed, 49 per cent right” according to Solskjaer - and it gives him a balance that, coupled with a quick mind and feet, makes him very hard to read.

He is not someone who gets too high or too low, either. Michael Owen once said: “If you’re a goalscorer, you have to have a certain attitude. I’m very serious. I’m cold. I don’t have many emotions.” Greenwood is not like that but he is single-minded and ruthless on the pitch and not prone to great shows of emotion off it: a cool, calm head.

Solskjaer had thrown down something of a challenge to his young strikeforce on the eve of the Brighton game by hinting at a move for another striker and warning Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Greenwood that if they do not keep improving “we might have to look somewhere else to get better because we have to be better”. If Solskjaer was after a reaction, he certainly got that from Greenwood. Almost as good as his goal was his electrifying burst down the left and beautifully weighted, clipped cross to Bruno Fernandes to thunder home for United’s show-stopping third, a case study in how to counter-attack with pace, power and panache.

It was a reminder that Greenwood creates goals as well as scores them although it was telling that Solskjaer also drew attention to the teenager’s hold up and link up play, both of which were impressive. The player returned from lockdown noticeably bigger - he is said to have added 3kg in muscle - and that stronger frame has given opponents who might have fancied knocking him around an added quandary.

Against Brighton, Solskjaer kept faith with the team that stuck three past Sheffield United in their previous Premier League outing and was rewarded with another display of exciting attacking football and the same number of goals. Greenwood has dislodged Daniel James from the starting XI and, on this evidence, the Wales winger will have to get used to warming the bench.

The recent fuss around Fernandes, Paul Pogba, Rashford and Martial, scorer of a hat-trick against Sheffield United, may have diverted attention away from Greenwood but the teenager’s talent is simply impossible to ignore.