Strange occasion, strong result
The talking points from Granada, from Lindelof's delicious assist to the curious case of the underemployed Dutchman
FIVE ASIDES Europa League, quarter-final, first leg: Granada 0, United 2
Some matches are good, others are bad, and a few are just peculiar. This was the biggest game in Granada’s history, yet it had all the fizz of a pre-season friendly on a sultry afternoon in St Louis. The first half unfolded like an early run-through of a difficult play: 22 characters in search of a game plan. Granada never seemed to know if they were pressing or parking the bus. A team that cost less than Dan James froze, as he often does, in front of goal. The task of troubling David de Gea fell to Granada’s deep-lying left-winger, Kenedy, who hit all three of their shots on target but went out of his way to find de Gea’s gloves. United were sluggish and sloppy, yet they still flew home with the best result of the eight teams left in the Europa League.
Every week Victor Lindelof finds another centre-back from La Liga being touted as his replacement. If it’s not Pau Torres of Villareal, it’s Jules Kounde of Sevilla. So it was cool of Lindelof to go to Spain and give a masterclass. He defended adroitly, rescuing Harry Maguire more than once with the minimum of fuss. And he came up with a glorious assist, much like the one at Bramall Lane in December, only even better – a 60-yard backspun lob down the middle, hovering in the air just long enough to allow Marcus Rashford to race in from the left, take a dreamy first touch and find the corner of the net. Are you Toni Kroos in disguise?
United’s first trip abroad this season was back in the mists of October, when they beat PSG with a penalty from Bruno Fernandes and a goal in open play from Rashford. That piece of history repeated itself in Granada, with a lot less fanfare. Fernandes and Rashford have scored nearly half of all United’s goals this season (44 out of 95), and nearly two-thirds of their goals in Europe (15 out of 23). This is why Solskjaer keeps picking them even when they’re knackered or battered. It’s a perilous policy, but it certainly worked last night.
“The penalty had it all: it was wrongly awarded, cursorily checked, poorly taken and farcically fumbled”
Being a manager means dealing with dilemmas – the more the merrier, because they show that you’re spoilt for choice. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, when picking teams or sending on subs, seems to have one golden rule: if in doubt, ignore Donny van de Beek. This game could have been the making of him. Continental, medium-paced and not all that testing, it’s the sort of occasion Solskjaer would have picked him for in the autumn. But something has happened to shake what little faith Solskjaer once had in him. He was brought on only in the 85th minute, as the fourth sub. It was a show of ingratitude after van de Beek’s contributions to Mason Greenwood’s last two goals, the elegant dummy at Leicester and the decoy run that gave Fernandes time and space to cross against Brighton. Given five subs to play with, it would surely have made more sense to put van de Beek on at half-time for Paul Pogba, who had picked up an early yellow card and gone into his shell, playing only one of his piercing long passes. If van de Beek doesn’t start the second leg, he may as well go home. Gary Neville isn’t the only one who finds all this baffling.
The Man of the Match vote was, quite rightly, a landslide for Lindelof, who polled ten times as many votes as the next United defender. But the central figure in the whole non-drama was the ref, Artur Dias Soares. Faced with a game full of niggly little fouls, he kept punishing the team who were more sinned against than sinning. United collected five yellow cards for 12 fouls, whereas Granada got away with just two from 14. After 90 minutes, it suddenly seemed to occur to the ref that he might owe United one. He paid his debt with a penalty, falling for a bit of trickery from Fernandes, who found his legs collapsing under him when he had only been brushed in the face by the nearest defender. That penalty had it all: it was wrongly awarded, cursorily checked, poorly taken and farcically fumbled. Still, the yellow cards will at least ensure that United do some rotation for the second leg, saving Solskjaer from his tendency to flog a tired horse. As Rob Smyth said afterwards, “I was hoping the ref would book Lindelof too.”