Manchester United laboured to a 2-1 victory over Austrian team LASK to progress in the Europa League.
Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial scored the goals after the visitors had taken a shock lead, but this was far from an impressive showing from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team.
With that healthy first leg advantage in the bank, one might presume that United could relax and put on a show.
But it seemed quite the opposite.
LASK, with a new manager, saw their players put on a performance that suggested that they were all playing to impress. Five goals was always an impossible mission, but winning was not, and they probably deserved more for their early ambition. As it was, they had three close calls, including one header that bounced off the top of the crossbar.
United’s own performance in the first half was never even enough to suggest it might splutter into life. Instead, all of the usual concerns and more were on show.
Okay, so the reservations about Jesse Lingard are well documented. But here we saw Tim Fosu-Mensah struggle, understandably, some might say. We saw Fred fail to make an impression. Scott McTominay’s most notable contribution in the first half was a wild swing which saw him receive a deserved yellow card in a tackle that would have surely made Solskjaer feel vindicated in his decision to trust the experience of Nemanja Matic as his first pick. Juan Mata seems slower with every game and a player of his intelligence is simply lost in such a disjointed team.
Odion Ighalo and Dan James, meanwhile, continued to put in a shift that made you think they were still banking on first impressions counting a lot.
For all the talk of Jadon Sancho coming in to boost the first team, the chasm that exists between that and this second selection is still a tremendous concern, and the idea of two or three players to bridge that gap seems to be just as important as strengthening the first team.
This may be one of the necessary shortfalls of United’s equally necessary squad overhaul. Even so, you should expect better than what we saw in the first half, which was as weak and unimpressive as anything we’ve seen all season in this competition.
That first half casualness was punished early in the second when Wiesinger hit a fantastic curler from 25 yards. Less than two minutes later he went close again from long range. This was finally enough to sting the hosts into action – Mata put Lingard clear, and the winger scored his second goal in succession.
Mata, despite his poor game, was again the provider 3 minutes from the end when he played in substitute Anthony Martial to win the game. As well as sparing the blushes, this was a significant moment for Martial as he became the outright leading goalscorer for the club this season.
All in all, a pretty forgettable game, but a job done unimpressively is still done.
Selection
Solskjaer named a second string side apart from Williams, who will have to play next week, and Maguire, who was probably the sensible choice as Diogo Dalot is out of favour and Fosu-Mensah is not seen by the manager as a central figure. One might say Maguire playing for so long was unnecessary but a professional should be able to play one full game in two weeks without people being too concerned.
Despite the unflattering performances in the main (and that is a reason I won’t be giving player ratings, as it’s unfair) a word of praise for Tahith Chong. Here is an attacking player more at home playing off the right hand side of the offence, but when Solskjaer needed a player to play at left-back, Chong has clearly said he would be up for the job. He was impressive with his natural balance in attack. Okay, his lack of defensive nous may well have seen United caught out at the end, but that is to be expected. Time will tell if this is a serious mid-term option or just a stop gap but United’s history is littered with players who have done something similar and have made decent careers both long and short, so, his attitude is to be commended.
We were never going to receive sudden cases of the fringe players knocking down a place in the first team but in the case of Lingard we have a player who is probably fairly placed to at least be in the squad and used next week, and in Chong, a player who has shown eagerness and promise enough to play his way into those same plans, so, even though it is a night you might have already forgotten, there are nonetheless some plusses to take.
