Manchester United picked up a draw from the first leg of their Europa League last 32 clash against Club Brugge last night.
Anthony Martial secured a crucial away goal for the Reds on a rainy night in Belgium.
The match threw up plenty of questions for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and with another game on the horizon against Watford on Sunday, we’ve picked out three of the most pressing.
What happened before Martial’s goal?
United should have been full of confidence after the game against Chelsea but came out so timidly in the opening stages here.
There was no conviction in the tackle, a real lack of creativity and movement along with defensive instability.
The opening goal was one a Sunday league side would have been embarrassed to concede, with one long ball from Simon Mignolet perplexing the entire backline before Sergio Romero’s rush of blood to the head.
Martial’s equaliser was a gift and United did largely settle down thereafter, but the performance up to that point had been incredibly poor.
Why didn’t Fernandes come on sooner?
United were utterly transformed by the introduction of Bruno Fernandes in the closing stages.
His four shots were more than any United player, and he was only on the pitch for ten minutes.
If Solskjaer was serious about chasing a winner, he should have had the playmaker on the pitch far earlier.
That’s especially true in light of another poor night from both Andreas Pereira and Jesse Lingard.
Why did Martial try and square it?
United’s best chance to grab a winner came early in the second half, when Martial was slipped in with a chance of netting a second.
Instead, he elected to try and pass it inside to Juan Mata, but the ball was intercepted and the chance was missed.
Martial showed impressive ruthlessness to level the scores in the first half and if he had done the same in the second, United could have taken a 2-1 win back to England.
That said, Solskjaer was fortunate to see Odilon Kossounou put a golden chance wide later in the second half so a draw was a fair result.
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