Positives for Ole on bitter night for his young Reds 2 1
OLE GUNNAR Solskjaer was upbeat despite Manchester United’s youngest ever European side falling to defeat in faraway Kazakhstan.
The 6,000-mile round trip to face Astana is the furthest the club have ever travelled for a European game, just as they have never had to contend with the kind of freezing temperatures 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 the already eliminated previously pointless Astana grew into the game, with Dmitri Shomko’s strike and an own goal from United debutant Di’Shon Bernard sealing a 2-1 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 disappointed with that ten-minute spell, you could feel pressure was coming. We couldn’t get on the ball as we did. I think some of these (young players I brought to Kazakhstan) 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. I thought Dylan [Levitt] and Jimmy [James Garner] playing together... it’s nice to see midfielders dominating the game.
‘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 favour.’
United’s line-up, with an average age of 22 years and 26 days, was their youngest in a major European competition.
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’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,’ he said.