Man Utd find no moments of magic against a team with a plan

Manchester United are out of the Champions League after an evening that started with promise ended up deflating in front of a tetchy crowd.

Nights like these are supposed to be the point of Manchester United. Old Trafford may be breaking to the point at which they are considering pulling it down, but when a Champions League knockout game comes around, the old place comes to life. And the team, usually categorised as a malfunctioning collection of expensively-assembled parts, can give hints and flashes as to why they belong in this particular theatre of dreams in the first place. But on this occasion, and despite the fact that they knew it was going to be there, Manchester United ran head-first into a brick wall.

There were changes from the team which beat Spurs at the weekend. Marcus Rashford, who’s been out of sorts for a while, was replaced by Anthony Elanga. Bruno Fernandes returned from illness. Paul Pogba was replaced by Scott McTominay. In the time since the two sides last met, Atletico had continued their improvement after a brief slip-up in La Liga, and with the first leg having ended in a 1-1 draw, the tie couldn’t have been more finely poised.

Both teams had cause to consider the thin margins between success and failure in a taut, occasionally nervy first half. At one end of the pitch, a Bruno Fernandes cross from the right found Elanga, only for his shot to ricochet off Jan Oblak’s forehead. The commentary team spent the rest of the first half discussing how lucky he was and that he surely didn’t know anything about it. But doesn’t that apply to all reactions saves, regardless of which part of the goalkeeper the ball bounces off? The skill is in being in that position in the first place.

INMENSO OBLAK.

— Invictos (@InvictosSomos) March 15, 2022

At the other end, it was David De Gea’s turn to shine barely two minutes later, when an angled shot from Rodrigo de Paul – who spent the first half playing the shithouse to perfection and who earned himself a completely inevitable yellow card five minutes from the break – was brilliantly palmed away. On the replay, it became clear that the balled had clipped off a defender’s ankle. De Gea had seen the deflection and that the ball wasn’t moving too quickly, thus he had the time to adjust his footing, make his jump and push the ball to safety.

But as the half progressed, the early nervy atmosphere morphed into a tetchier, more febrile noise. Ten minutes before the break, ‘We want the Glazers out’ was clearly audible. And with five minutes left, Atletico scored.

No-one could say the hosts hadn’t been warned. Six minutes earlier, an offside flag during the build-up had ruled out Joao Felix’s header at the far post from close range. The goal followed a familiar pattern. Elanga was shoved off the ball with a tackle that fell squarely into the middle of the ‘I’ve seen them given as fouls’ category. Atletico broke, another cross to the far post, another header into the Manchester United goal, this time by Renan Lodi. United complained with righteous anger about the tackle on Elanga. I’ve seen them given. On this occasion, it wasn’t. The brief outburst of booing that met the half-time whistle was probably reserved for the officials, but you couldn’t be completely sure.

There are few teams in Europe that you’d want to be playing in this position than Atletico Madrid. They defended in packs, constantly shutting down and forcing United sideways, backwards or into making mistakes. But for all Atletico’s expertise in this area, a one-goal lead is by its very nature vulnerable, as Jadon Sancho found when he fired narrowly high and wide from an angle. Rashford was brought on six minutes later. If he wanted game-time, here it was. Pogba and Nemanja Matic entered for a predictably sullen-looking Fernandes and McTominay.

The clock ran down. Every tackle on an Atletico player resulted in an injury that required a little extra stoppage. Play was disrupted every time. The United players were distracted every time. Every visiting foul was a tactical one. And when they needed a moment of inspiration, they could find one. Oblak had put in an accomplished performance all evening but he excelled with 14 minutes to play, diving to push away Raphael Varane’s flying header.

This close shave did at least galvanise the crowd again, inviting one final push forward as Atletico attempted to run down the clock. At one point, they seemed to waste almost three minutes over a free-kick that they didn’t even particularly seem to be disputing. Juan Mata was introduced for Harry Maguire. For all the possession United had, Atletico hunkered down and let the hosts come at them, snapping shut 20 to 30 yards from goal.

Ultimately, with these substitutions Manchester United had completely lost their shape. They were too ponderous and predictable when they did get into anything like an attacking position, to the point that it looked as though they were simply unprepared for playing Atletico, in spite of their long-established reputation for precisely this performance in this sort of match.

As the clock ticked over 90 minutes, the commentator implored a “moment of genius” to emerge; this is a huge part of the problem. There was no Roy Race point for Cristiano Ronaldo. Manchester United came up against a team that was beatable but which had a system that required guile to get past. When push came to shove, they didn’t have that guile. At the full-time whistle, Diego Simeone had to sprint to the tunnel under a rain of bottles and glasses thrown the crowd.

So that’s that for Manchester United in this year’s Champions League. It’s probably over for next year as well, considering Arsenal are a point ahead, in good form and with three games in hand. It would be easy to blame Ralf Rangnick, but considering that this keeps on happening through manager after manager, might it be that the problems at the club run somewhat deeper than just one person?

And it should be pointed out that Atletico Madrid are superb at what they do. They’re the current champions of La Liga, a club with decades of European experience behind them. But they’re also Madrid’s second team at present, just as Manchester United are currently Manchester’s second club. And fixing that is going to require considerably more than hoping among hope for someone to pull something out of the bag yet again to rescue results.