FIVE MORE ASIDES
Europa League, quarter-final, second leg: United 5, Lyon 4
(after extra time; United win 7-6 on aggregate)
It was a game of four halves. United won the first 2-0 because they managed to stitch some silky passes together for more than just the odd moment. Lyon won the second 2-0 because they kept the faith and took their chances, unlike Alejandro Garnacho, who broke away in the 55th minute and did everything right except put United 3-0 up.
In extra time, Lyon won the first half 1-0, because they played better with ten men than they had with 11, while United were now a mess at the back. And then United won the second half 3-1, because Ruben Amorim abandoned his back five and sent Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire up front, but mainly because this was Old Trafford, and European football, and Fergie time – and United hadn’t lost at home after leading 2-0 for donkeys’ decades.
It was the highest-scoring European game ever held at Old Trafford. (Hat-tip to Samuel Luckhurst, the tireless United correspondent for the Manchester Evening News. And to two friends, Steven Lynch and Martin Ledigo, for correcting my first, dud version of this fact.) But it wasn’t United’s highest-scoring home game in Europe. That was the very first one, back in 1956, when they beat Anderlecht 10-0 in the European Cup preliminary round at Maine Road (because City had floodlights and United didn’t). It sounds pretty boring, like one of those long days in cricket when a batsman scores 300. Better to win 6-2, as United did against Fenerbahce in a Champions League group game in 2004-05. And better still to win 5-4, in a knock-out match, in the 121st minute, as they did 20 years later.
One United starter and one of their subs left the ground at half-time. Noussair Mazraoui and Victor Lindelof both went home to deal with personal issues, unrelated to each other. Let’s hope things settled down in time for them to watch the last seven minutes. They weren’t the only ones leaving: when it was 4-2 to Lyon, a steady stream of United fans were seen heading for the exits. And some were soon seen returning to their seats. They thought it was all over.
In the Europa League, United now have just one problem: their next opponents. Athletic Bilbao are a good team, with one superstar in Nico Williams – the rich man’s Rayan Cherki. And they have a great big incentive as the final is being held at their ground. Opta’s prediction system has United as slight outsiders, with a 46pc chance of reaching the final. (Mind you, it also has Spurs as favourites to lift the trophy.) Being underdogs should suit them, and they could have Amad, their brightest spark in the gloom of December, back on the bench for the first leg on 1 May. The fact remains that United are unbeaten in European games this season, something no other club can say. Or, I suspect, believe.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian. If you get this newsletter by email, please feel free to forward it to a fellow Red.