On Sunday afternoon, Manchester United easily defeated Nottingham Forest at the City Ground despite a number of injury concerns. Erik ten Hag’s team stood out for their noticeable stability despite using a somewhat improvised backline.

Raphael Varane, Luke Shaw, Tyrell Malacia, and Lisandro Martinez, who is out for the season, were all unavailable for the match against the relegation candidates, putting the former Ajax manager’s squad’s resources to the ultimate test. Diogo Dalot was notably forced to start at left-back.

There is no denying that the latter man has had a difficult time since returning from World Cup duty. Colin Millar of The Mirror reports that the 24-year-old has “regressed in quality” recently after appearing “a bit off it” when representing his country in Qatar.

Prior to Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s resurgence and his own injury problems, the former Porto player had started the first 15 Premier League games of the season in his usual right-back position. However, the resurgence of Wan-Bissaka and his own injury problems have caused the former Porto player to flit in and out of the side. He was famously hooked at halftime in the Carabao Cup final victory over Newcastle United after being given a “torrid”

Dalot appeared to pass that important test with flying colors, despite the recent, underwhelming run making it a big call for Ten Hag to trust the £25k per week machine in an unnatural position against Steve Cooper’s team.

How did Dalot fare when compared to Forest?
The 6-foot sensation was simply “superb” in Sunday’s resounding victory, in the words of former Manchester Evening News writer Hesham Bilal-Hafiz, having hardly looked like a mere makeshift replacement for the injured duo of Shaw and Malacia.

The full-back’s talent stood out in particular as he completed two crucial passes out of 74 touches on the day and demonstrated his defensive prowess by winning four of his six total duels.

The 11-cap defender’s errant touch gave opposition striker Taiwo Awoniyi a chance, but other than that, Dalot’s performance was flawless, as evidenced by his exceptional 7.9 match rating on Sofascore.

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The former AC Milan loanee’s most significant contribution in that excellent performance came toward the end when he pounced on Antony’s threaded pass and calmly slid the ball past the impressive Keylor Navas. This was a fine reward for having been “incisive and ambitious in attack,” according to Richard Martin of GOAL.com.

It wasn’t the Portuguese’s first Premier League goal for the team, despite having been at Old Trafford for less than five years, as may have been implied by the variety of celebrations that Dalot was eager to produce after that coolly finished.

The £27 million player gave a respectable performance in what could have been a difficult starting position, demonstrating to everyone—most notably Ten Hag—that they can depend on him going forward. That rare effort was the performance’s high point.