Solskjaer’s youthful United are caught cold in Kazakhstan
Astana 2 Manchester United 1
OLE GUNNAR SOLSKJAER was upbeat despite Manchester United’s youngest ever European side falling to defeat in faraway Kazakhstan.
While the 6,000-mile round trip to face Astana is the furthest the club have travelled for a continental match, they had also never before had to contend with the kind of cold experienced around Nur-Sultan. It was far warmer inside the Astana Arena due to the roof under which United’s young side started the Europa League tie brightly, with stand-in captain Jesse Lingard opening the scoring with a fizzing low finish.
But already eliminated and pointless, Astana grew into the Group L encounter, with Dmitri Shomko’s strike and an own goal from United debutant Di’Shon Bernard sealing a surprise win for the hosts.
“Definitely [there are positives],” manager Solskjaer said. “Of course we’re disappointed with the end result but I thought we started the game fantastically, the boys took control of the game, scored a fantastic goal.
“The response after they scored two was also good. Of course we are disappointed with that 10-minute spell, you could feel pressure was coming. We couldn’t get on the ball.
“But there were some fantastic performances by the three young lads who made their debuts.
“I think some of these [young players] might benefit from going out on loan because they need men’s football and today they got the taste of it. But some are also knocking on the door for us. You could see the way we dominated midfield.
“Di’Shon was so composed. Ethan [Laird], especially first half, was marauding down the right-hand side, so some of these have done themselves a good favour.”
Debutants Levitt, Laird and
Bernard were part of an outfield line-up with an average age of just 20 years and 221 days. Even with 36-year-old goalkeeper Lee Grant making his first start, the overall average was 22 years and 26 days.
D’Mani Bughail-Mellor, Largie Ramazani and Ethan Galbraith made their first appearances as second-half substitutes, while Solskjaer wants Bernard to remember the positives after his own goal.
“He was disappointed, of course,” he said. “He’ll remember that from his debut, but I want him to remember the other 92 minutes or every other touch he had because he defended well. I thought he did excellent.”