UNITED SURVIVE A TURF TEST IN RUSSIA

THIS was everything Jose Mourinho dislikes about the Europa League. Thursday nights, pokey stadiums in Eastern Europe, a dodgy pitch. But on an evening when a cold wind gusted around the stadium and no one knew which way the ball was going to bounce, he was happy to settle for the draw. Plus an away goal to take back to Old Trafford in a week which should see Manchester United secure a place in the quarter-finals. It’s just as well the Europa League offers a direct route into next season’s Champions League. A European campaign that has already taken them to Istanbul and Odessa this season continued here 2,000 miles from home in south-west Russia. And Mourinho’s pre-match concerns about the state of a threadbare pitch proved well founded. No one was injured, but the ball skipped about on the hard, uneven surface. By the end, players were complaining the grit from the pitch was blowing in their eyes. Yet Mourinho didn’t mind too much as he boarded the team flight back home. ‘In these circumstances, this is a positive result,’ he said. ‘An away goal is always positive. ‘It’s better 1-1 than 0-0, obviously, but the game is open. With this Rostov team, they have experience of playing big matches and big stadiums. I don’t think it’s a problem for them to compete against us.’ Henrikh Mkhitaryan was recalled after missing the last two games with a hamstring injury and opened the scoring in the first half. Zlatan Ibrahimovic prodded the ball across the six-yard box for Mkhitaryan to sweep it past goalkeeper Nikita Medvedev. The scorer had already put Vladimir Granat out of the game with a shoulder injury when he was booked for flattening Fyodor Kudryashov, as well. Aleksandr Gatskan retaliated, leaving Ibrahimovic in a heap clutching his right ankle with a late challenge that earned the Rostov skipper the second yellow card of the night and a suspension for the second leg. Rostov equalised in the 53rd minute when Aleksandr Bukharov took the ball on his chest and rifled home a shot from eight yards.