OLE CLIMBS OUT OF A HOLE
Relief for United as Ronaldo completes dramatic fightback
WELL they did it again, thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo. It’s hardly unjust, however, to ask how a club that can bring on Paul Pogba, Jadon Sancho and Edinson Cavani ends up chasing a home game against Atalanta.
The resilience is always to be admired, but why does Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team need it so often? Manchester United came back from 2-0 down at half-time here because of that tried and tested strategy: moments.
They created moments of great pressure because they had to, having afforded Atalanta an enormous advantage.
When a team has so many fine players at its disposal, throwing the kitchen sink at it produces results.
So two down after 52 minutes somehow became 3-2 up in the 81st because Ronaldo is one of the finest goalscorers the world has seen, Marcus Rashford is a superb striker and Atalanta will not face a team with such a concentration of players like this in Serie A all season. United went from bottom of the group to top in the space of six minutes.
But their next two games are away to Atalanta and Villarreal and they can’t keep relying on secondhalf fightbacks. Eventually one will not go their way.
United were brilliant in the second half, though, when they frightened the life out of Atalanta, scored three and could have had more.
Often the Italians had no answer to their offensive marauding. And three United goals were scored in a 28-minute spell that was probably the high point of their season so far.
It began on 53 minutes with a moment of good fortune, a poor pass from Josip Ilicic straight to Bruno Fernandes. His flick sent Rashford clear and, having missed a couple in the first half, he hit his second goal in two games since returning from injury.
Scott McTominay hit the post, Ronaldo forced a wonderful save from Juan Musso and Atalanta looked rattled.
Harry Maguire stayed up after a corner was cleared and was rewarded when Cavani ducked under Fernandes’ cross, finding the captain unmarked to equalise. The winner came from, well, who else? Another set-piece recycled, this time a cross from Luke Shaw and there was Ronaldo, rising higher than anyone to power the ball home.
This was why he came here. One imagines, however, he didn’t expect to do so much of the work himself.
Quite the turnaround from when the visitors were leading by two goals at half-time, without even playing exceptionally well. Coach Gian Piero Gasperini appeared to be under the impression they were stinking the place out.
Every misplaced pass, every inch of space unwisely afforded, sent him spinning back towards his own bench in fury. It’s fair to say he is hard to please.
The odd error aside, Atalanta were excellent in defence initially and every time they attacked looked like scoring.
This was as much United’s doing as theirs. For a club that has spent an awful lot of money on defence, what the hell is going on back there?
The goal that gave Atalanta the lead looked eerily familiar to the three Roberto Firmino put past Watford last Saturday. Firmino and Liverpool are due here in four days’ time. It was a good goal, quick and well-taken, but United were dozing. McTominay failed to pick up Davide Zappacosta’s overlap on the right and Mario Pasalic was alert to the threat in a way United’s central defenders were not. He converted having got to the ball first towards the near post.
If anything, the second was worse for United. A straightforward set-piece from a right-sided corner.
Solskjaer has talked of not conceding this way, but this was going into the goal from the moment it swung in.
The scorer, centre-half Merih Demiral, wanted it more than McTominay, who he bustled out of the way to make a path. He wanted it more than Shaw, who he got in front of, and he wanted it more than
Maguire, who he rose above. Atalanta were two clear and 30 minutes hadn’t yet gone. In the other group game Villarreal were leading 2-0, too.
In real time, Manchester United were bottom of Group F.
And it is not a group that contains a Juventus, like Chelsea’s, or a Paris Saint-Germain, like Manchester City’s. It does not contain Atletico Madrid or AC Milan like Liverpool’s either.
United have a few cussed opponents but none that boast a squad of their strength. Yet few could claim Atalanta’s lead was a surprise.
From the third minute when Rashford missed the target when one-on-one — he was flagged offside but didn’t know that when he took his shot — there was
always the danger of another night of strife.
When keeper Musso cleared under pressure from Ronaldo five minutes later, the ball fell again to Rashford.
To have delivered his volley from 35 yards out would have been a special goal, but he sliced his shot completely.
Ronaldo had a shot tipped over on 20 minutes and there was a fruitless appeal for handball against Jose Luis Palomino soon after, but it was only in the minutes before half-time United began to put Atalanta under pressure.
Fred played a fine one-two with Fernandes, bursting into the box before shooting wide.
Then, in added time, a hopeful upfield hoof by Fernandes was sloppily missed by Demiral, falling to Rashford, again one-on-one.
A cavalry charge was required in the second half. And United duly delivered. But how long can they keep it up?
MANCHESTER UNITED (4-2-3-1): De Gea 8; Wan-Bissaka 5, Lindelof 6, Maguire 7, Shaw 6; McTominay 5 (Pogba 66), Fred 5 (Matic 88); Greenwood 5 (Sancho 73), Fernandes 6, Rashford 6 (Cavani 66); Ronaldo 7. Subs not used: Telles, Elanga, Henderson, Dalot, Van de Beek, Bailly, Lingard, Mata. Booked: Shaw, Matic, Cavani. ATALANTA (3-4-1-2): Musso 7; De Roon 6, Demiral 7 (Lovato 46), Palomino 6; Zappacosta 6, Freuler 6, Koopmeiners 6 (Pezzella 80), Maehle 6; Pasalic 7 (Malinovskyi 68); Ilicic 6 (Miranchuk 68), Muriel 7 (Zapata 56). Subs not used: Rossi, Scalvini, Sportiello, Piccoli. Booked: Lovato, Pasalic, De Roon, Palomino. Man of the match: David de Gea. Referee: Szymon Marciniak (Pol). Att: 73,000.