A tale of two halves

It was going so right and then it went very wrong for Manchester United

The phrase "Dicen que nunca se rinde” (they say never give up) from Sevilla’s anthem came to life yesterday against Manchester United who themselves are defined by the never give up mantra - from the Busby Babes to Fergie’s Fledgelings to even under Ole and now Erik Ten Hag, United are known for rising from the ashes.

United should have put the Europa League quarter-final tie to bed at Old Trafford but instead scored two goals at both ends to make a tie competitive when it should not have been so.

Sevilla once again proved why they are the kings of the Europa League (they have won this competition 6 times since it got renamed to Europa League in 2009). They just have a different kind of belief when playing in this competition, so what if they have the highest number of ‘goals allowed’ in La Liga across all competitions? And it is now four without a win for United against Sevilla. It’s going to be a very tough away leg at the loud Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium next week on April 20 (more on that later in the blog).

And yet, we had them on the ropes for the entire first half. Bruno Fernandes in the 8 and Marcel Sabitzer in the 10, along with Anthony Martial up front wreaked havoc as Sevilla’s high line was rightly punished. Sabitzer scored both goals as Bruno and Martial provided such great assists that the players congratulated the assist providers before the goal scorer.

Then, Ten Hag misread the situation completely and it all started with a series of refereeing decisions which did not go our way.

First, VAR decided that Erik Lamela should not be sent off for a clear stamp on Casemiro (who himself came back after a 4 game break thanks to a red card for an offense quite similar to this one).

Then, the referee (the infamous Felix Zwayer who got banned for match-fixing in 2018 and then in December 2021 took a break after he was heavily criticized for not awarding Borussia Dortmund a penalty and sending off coach Marco Rose during a game against Bayern Munich) gave Bruno Fernandes a yellow card in the 41st minute for having arms. I’m not sure how Bruno could have avoided his arm hitting the ball when he was on the floor trying to take the ball off someone’s feet. This meant Bruno will miss the away leg (one of the reasons it will become tougher for us).

And at the same time, Raphael Varane had a niggle which meant he would come off at halftime, with club captain Harry Maguire replacing him (don’t know why he gets the armband as a sub), but not before managing an unbelievably good clearance from a corner in stoppage time.

Ten Hag misjudged the tie completely as the first hour passed without any incident. He decided to do a triple substitution to rotate this knackered squad that has been playing a game every 3 days. He brought on Christian Eriksen for Bruno (no idea why as Bruno anyway misses the next leg and he is one of the few players who can play 90 minutes week in and week out), Anthony Elanga for Jadon Sancho (terrible call as it should have been Pellistri) and Wout Weghorst for Martial (again no reason to do that as Wout does not possess half the skill set required for the strategy we had been executing flawlessly so far). And the nightmare began.

Sevilla started dominating as Elanga and Wout could not replicate what Martial was doing up front and without Bruno’s energy, we could not handle their press. Casemiro’s performance showed a lack of game time (it was his first game since March 16) as he kept giving the ball away and we missed McTominay for a change.

To keep things simple, Tyrell Malacia had a brain fade and let in an own goal from Jesus Navas’s cross (allowed by Elanga to run free on the right side) to make it 2-1 to Sevilla. Then Lisandro Martinez (Licha as fans call him) hurt himself as his boot got stuck into the ground (the second reason we might suffer in the return leg) and had to be carried off by his Argentinean teammates from Sevilla. And Maguire, who had a decent game so far, got hit by a header from Youssef En-Nesyri and the heavy deflection went into the net (his luck is so bad that he always becomes a meme). Thus, a game that United should have won 3-0 or 4-0 ended 2-2.

Now coming to the return leg next week and why we might struggle to win and proceed to the semi-finals. One, Marcus Rashford (injured) and Bruno Fernandes (suspended) will miss the tie which means our top 2 goalscorers won’t be there and we have not exactly been scoring loads. Two, Luke Shaw and McTominay might still not be fit for the 2nd leg (fingers crossed). Three, the extent of Varane’s niggle is unknown. And the most important reason is Licha went off with an injury that looked bad. Let’s pray it’s not his Achilles, or else he is going to be out for 5-6 months and that might be the end of United’s good season so far.

So, we might be without Rashfrod, Bruno, Licha, Varane, Shaw, and McTominay for a return leg which is now open for both teams (still can’t believe we did not win).

Update: Luke Shaw and McTominay might return for the game at the weekend so they should be available for Sevilla. Varane is out for a couple of weeks until the end of April 😢 and Martinez has been “ruled out for the remainder of the season after fracturing a metatarsal bone in his foot” 😭.

I will be flying to Goa (will write about it too) a day after that game and I hope we win just because I want us to end our win drought against a team that is in the worst form in a decade. To be honest though, even if we drop out of Europa, it’s okay as we can focus on winning the FA Cup (to make sure Manchester City doesn’t have any chance of winning the treble) and consolidating our top 4 position in the Premier League.

Let me know what you thought of the game, my writing, or anything else that you want me to write about in the comments.

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