Besaksehir – the sequel
Wan-Bissaka and Lingard weren't the only ones making bad decisions at Young Boys
FIVE ASIDES Champions League: Young Boys 2, United 1
Silly kit? Check. Modest opposition? Check. Bizarre howler? Check. After United’s defeat at Besaksehir last November, the one consolation was the thought that it was such a fiasco that it had to be a one-off. Turns out it wasn’t. Bern was Besaksehir 2: Here We Go Again. On their travels this season, just like last, United have been invincible in England, and unspeakable in Europe.
On the field, they made two blunders. Aaron Wan-Bissaka gets those lunges right nine times out of ten, but this was the tenth and off he went – a straight red. It was out of character: he’s a tenacious player but not a dirty one. He hung around for a while, not as a protest but to see if his opponent was OK, which was honourable of him when he must have wanted the ground to swallow him up. He too is a straight Red.
A whole hour later, Jesse Lingard played one of the worst back passes you could wish not to see. That was out of character too. But this is where United’s other blunders came in – all of them made by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. His substitutions were an odd mixture of the shrewd and the feeble. Taking Jadon Sancho off: fine, he’d been slapdash, and Diogo Dalot should have been on from the start anyway, as he’s a natural on the overlap, unlike Wan-Bissaka. Taking Donny van de Beek off: harsh (he’d been crunchy and creative), and puzzling too to replace him with Raphael Varane – yes, he added savoir faire, but do you really want to go to five at the back when it means being down to five on the rest of the pitch?
Taking Ronaldo off: also fine – he’s too old to be much use when everyone has to work 10 per cent harder. Sending Lingard on for Ronaldo: puzzling, when Mason Greenwood would have been just as good at the running, better at the holding up, and more likely to find a shot. Taking Bruno Fernandes off with Ronaldo: bad timing, at best. United’s only hope by then was a free kick, and without those two they didn’t have anybody to take one. Sending Nemanja Matic on to join Fred in the engine room: wise – probably should have happened earlier. Taking Fred off with a few minutes left, and sending on Anthony Martial: incomprehensible. All told, Solskjaer was both too funky (fielding Lingard out of position twice, at centre forward and then in holding midfield) and too passive. As Samuel Luckhurst of the MEN said, he played for 1-0, then played for 1-1, and managed neither.
After being subbed, Ronaldo and Fernandes sat on the bench together like a pair of grumpy old fans, jumping up every so often to remonstrate with the ref. It seemed a long time since they had been on the field, but the defeat doesn’t change the fact that they had combined magnificently. Fernandes, in space on the left, took his time, got his head up, spotted his compatriot, and struck the ball with the outside of his right foot. It was a cross that was also a through ball. Ronaldo, in the inside-right channel, stayed onside, burst into some empty space, kept his balance on the slippery astroturf, hit the ball down, and nutmegged a goalie for the second time in four days. The shot was good enough, the pass phenomenal. It was almost as if Fernandes had heard what Solskjaer said about assists not meaning much. After that, United produced more howlers (two) than shots (one – Ronaldo again). But there was a consolation this time too. Villareal, at home to Atalanta, only managed a draw. It’s early nights.