Manchester United have announced their team to face Lyon tonight.
In what is the 6000th competitive match in the club’s history, United travel to France for the first leg of this crucial Europa League quarter final. Winning the Europa League will take United through to the group stage of next season’s Champions League, and the financial consequence for that achievement would be transformational for the short term future of the club.
United boss Ruben Amorim has taken Luke Shaw and Kobbie Mainoo, with the England duo having spells of different lengths out with injury recently, but Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs De Ligt remain out.
The match needs little spice, but there was some controversy in this week’s build up when goalkeeper Andre Onana appeared to claim that ‘on paper’ United had a stronger side than Lyon. This prompted an angry response from former United midfielder Nemanja Matic, who described Onana as ‘statistically one of the worst goalkeepers in United history’. Onana then bit back on social media, proudly posting a comment about being able to lift a trophy with the club – something Matic was not able to do during his time at Old Trafford.
Amorim attempted to calm the row in his pre-match conference yesterday.
“It will not matter,” he said. “I think if you see the full quotes of Andre Onana, it’s quite different. The first sentence is Lyon is a very good team. I think sometimes the players and the coaches don’t listen to the full quotes and sometimes it’s a misunderstanding. I know Matic also, and he’s a great guy. So tomorrow is going to be a normal game.”
“If you look to all the quotes, you cannot see the disrespect there, just respect, but trying to show and give confidence to his team, especially in this year. Everyone can talk bad things about Manchester United. Sometimes our group, as players, as a coaching staff, has to show confidence in our team. So I think that’s all. Again, I know really well Nemanja Matic, and how good a guy he is. So he hears some things but half, not the whole story. That for me is clear in this situation.”
United and Lyon kick off at 8pm. The game is live in the UK on TNT Sport.
Team :
Onana
Mazraoui Maguire Yoro
Dalot Casemiro Ugarte Dorgu
Garnacho Hojlund Fernandes
