Ronaldo completes memorable comeback to ease the pressure on Solskjaer
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Gory, gory Man United to glory, glory Man United. Football really can be the strangest, most magnificent, most compelling of sports. And it helps when Cristiano Ronaldo is in your side as he capped a memorable comeback from 2-0 down at half-time to keep United’s Champions League hopes alive.
He even accomplished it with a brilliant, trademark, thunderous header.
Viva Ronaldo. Viva, also, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Here was his muddied management distilled into one remarkable match with clear evidence that he is both out of his depth and a counter-argument that he still deserves to be backed. Victory papered over the cracks, but those fissures remain deep.
If the overriding feeling was, yet again, that United are a team crammed with outstanding individuals who they depend upon and lack a discernible style of play and look under-coached and vulnerable, then does that appear churlish after a wonderful evening when the atmosphere crackled inside Old Trafford? Whatever the analysis, it was a great game.
It was summed up by Ronaldo. At half-time he was throwing his arms in the air in impotent frustration; at full time he was dropping to his knees in relief and celebration having harangued the Polish referee to blow the final whistle. At half-time United were bottom of Group F. At full time, they were top. At times the fans did not know what to do. The match started with them chanting “Ole’s at the wheel”, it was followed by boos, there were pleas of “attack, attack, attack” and there were more boos – and at the end Solskjaer was back in control and his name was cheered again.
What a topsy-turvy reliance on moments of brilliance United are, while they were also fortunate that Atalanta had five players out, lost their best defender, Merih Demiral, to injury, had a 21-year-old midfielder at centre-back and another makeshift in Marten de Roon beside him.
But defeat was unthinkable for United. It would have been five losses in eight, their chances of getting through to the last 16 of the Champions League in grave danger and with Liverpool looming large on Sunday. No matter the backing of Solskjaer from the United hierarchy, the pressure would have been fierce – and still might be given the run of games to come.
Jurgen Klopp will have watched this game and seen how vulnerable United are. He will also have seen how they can turn to substitutes such as Paul Pogba, who had been dropped, Edinson Cavani and Jadon Sancho – richly-assembled cavalry. But he will expect Liverpool not to fold in the way Atalanta did even if United were indebted to David de Gea for a fine double save when the score was still 2-1 to the visitors.
It was a shocking first 45 minutes where it appeared United did not have any kind of formation – at times it was 4-2-4 with Bruno Fernandes playing his own game – while the two goals they conceded were the result of awful defending. Solskjaer bizarrely claimed United played well in the first half and talked about “DNA” – but goodness knows what the core structure is.
It was Atalanta playing the football and they profited with an early lead as they easily, painfully easily, cut through United. Luis Muriel found Teun Koopmeiners, who slid the ball through to the overlapping Davide Zappacosta. The former Chelsea wing-back crossed low and there was Mario Pasalic, another former Chelsea player, stealing in ahead of Scott Mctominay to sidefoot home from close range.
United were a defensive shambles – and they conceded again. From Koopmeiners’s corner, Demiral rose unopposed in the six-yard area to powerfully head home. Luke Shaw was nearest to him, but did not get close. Why was the biggest threat in the air from Atalanta being challenged by Shaw? Little wonder it is now just one clean sheet in 20 games.
But the Italians always offer their opponents chances. They attack, they press high and as ill-disciplined as Fernandes was, he started to create. Fred wasted one, Marcus Rashford clipped the crossbar with another and goalkeeper Juan Musso saved well to deny Ronaldo. That was in the second half. United had been sent out early and appeared chastened. They were also transformed and when Fernandes fashioned another chance it was taken. His smart stabbed touch set Rashford through on the left and he calmly side-footed across Musso.
Now there was a discernible swing of momentum and the crowd sensed Atalanta were stretched, collecting cautions and trying to shore things up through substitutions.
But it was wave after wave of attack, with Mctominay striking a post from Mason Greenwood’s cross. But maybe the pivotal incident
occurred at the other end as De Gea beat out Duvan Zapata’s shot, after the substitute easily rolled Victor Lindelof, and reacted quickly to turn over the follow-up by another replacement, Ruslan Malinovskyi.
That could have settled it. Instead United capitalised with Cavani ducking under Fernandes’s cross, the ball ran through to Maguire and the captain finished low into the corner of the goal.
By now there was a sense of destiny and Ronaldo knows all about that. Another cross was swung in, this time by Shaw, and Ronaldo leapt high – with that unnatural hang-time that only he can achieve – to plant a powerful header that both changed everything and confirmed what we already know.
Atalanta (3-4-1-2) Musso 7; De Roon 6, Demiral 7 (Lovato h-t), Palomino 6; Zappacosta 8, Koopmeiners 7 (Pezzella 80), Freuler 6, Maehle 7; Pasalic 8 (Malinovskyi 68); Ilicic 7 (Miranchuk 68), Muriel 7 (Zapata 56).
Subs Pezzella, Rossi (g), Sportiello (g), Scalvini, Piccoli.
Booked Lovato, De Roon, Pasalic, Palomino.
Referee Szymon Marciniak (Poland).