Don't just blame it on the goalie
This failure had three fathers. But it was also, in its way, quite encouraging
FIVE ASIDES Champions League: Galatasaray 3, United 3
Success, they say, has many fathers – well, so does failure. And so, in this case, does a weird mixture of the two. At the end of every match report in The Times, the players get marked out of ten. Next to André Onana’s name this morning, after that comedy-thriller, is a 3 – about as low as these marks ever go. Next to Bruno Fernandes, there’s an 8. Yet they were both equally to blame for the gifts that United presented to their Turkish hosts. Yes, Onana (who had been almost impeccable since his mortifying moment in Munich) was guilty of two howlers; but both came from free kicks that were given away, fecklessly, by Fernandes. You cannot do that when you’re the captain. You can’t let the red mist get to you, even on a stormy night in a place called Hell. You have to be the one keeping calm, managing your team, managing the ref, avoiding a yellow card, rising above the fouls and the taunts. You have to be the one keeping the ball when you’re two goals up: instead Fernandes misplaced 17 passes in the match, the most by a United player. He may be the most scattergun leader since Boris Johnson.
To be fair, Fernandes’ flaws go hand in glove with his strengths. He regularly tops United’s chart for shot-creating actions and he did so again last night, with no fewer than eight. And if this overheated kitchen brought out the worst in Bruno, it also brought out the best. He chalked up an assist early on with a crisp pass for Alejandro Garnacho’s crucial opening goal. He soon scored himself with a screamer, the sort of shot he’s been skying for the past six months. And he showed his usual stamina to keep on running and hit the post in the 86th minute with a shot that was about four inches from perfection. He is United’s most valuable player, always busting a gut yet seldom straining a muscle. But the only time he has looked like a captain recently was at Everton, when he delegated that penalty to Marcus Rashford.
The third villain of the piece was someone who got off Scot-free in the match reports: Erik ten Hag. He sent United out for a decisive game in a hostile environment with only one defensive midfielder. The shape was not their familiar 4-2-3-1, but 4-1-2-3. The one in the middle was Sofyan Amrabat, who is very defensive, and the two in front of him were Fernandes and Scott McTominay, who are very attacking. The consequence was all too predictable. Amrabat sat super-deep: his average position in the first half was not between the centre-backs, it was behind them. The other two bombed forward, leaving acres of space for Lucas Torreira, the poor man’s Pirlo, to take a walk in the middle of the park. Ten Hag called the strategy ‘brave’. Early on, it was, and it worked. But once they went 2-0 up, United surely had to send Kobbie Mainoo on to join Amrabat and zip up their leaky raincoat. Even more so by half-time, when 2-0 had turned into 2-1. As it was, Ten Hag only saw the need for Mainoo in the 58th minute, and it was Amrabat who was hauled off. Both men used the ball well, misplacing only one pass apiece, but struggled to hold the fort – because it was an impossible job.
Chaotic as it was, this performance was also quite heartening. It was United’s first draw of the season, in a situation where they’ve tended to lose. For the second time in five days their spirit was strong. The players coped in two cauldrons, even with most of their elders missing, from Casemiro and Varane to Eriksen and Evans: United’s average age last night was 26, while Galatasaray’s was 30. Garnacho, after a lean spell, has shown that he can rise to the big occasion. Mainoo has shown that he can treat the big occasion like an Under-21 game at Salford City. Ten Hag has shown that he can resort to the Solskjaer back four – Wan-Bissaka, Maguire, Lindelof, Shaw – and get a tune out of them (they weren’t at fault for any of Galatasaray’s goals). And the strikers have shown that they still know how to deliver. Even Antony managed to be quite decent.
United don't actually need to stay in the Champions League. They would only get knocked out in the next round, where - as the rules bar them from meeting Man City, Arsenal or Bayern - they would probably face one of the four well-organised Spanish teams currently topping their groups. A team that can lose 4-3 in Copenhagen might well lose 8-3 at the Bernabeu. What they do need to do is qualify for the Europa League, the only trophy they can realistically win this season apart from the FA Cup. So they have to finish third in the group. They can manage it even if they draw with Bayern on 12 December, as long as Copenhagen lose at home to Galatasaray. That would leave both United and Copenhagen on five points, with United squeezing into third because they scored more away goals in the meetings between the two. Even chaotic defeats have their uses.
Tim de Lisle, a United fan since the days when European nights were a distant memory, is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter at The Guardian. If you’re still on Twitter, do follow Tim and United Writing.