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MOTD: FC Midtjylland 2-1 Manchester United

By on February 18, 2016

If there’s one overarching rule that can be applied to Manchester United’s chaotic and dreadful season, it is Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Louis van Gaal deferred to the adage after United lost a 2-1 Europa League Round of 32 match at Danish side FC Midtjylland as the Dutchman’s reputation took yet another battering.

Midtjylland hadn’t played for two months due to the Danish winter break, and United should never have let the League champions back into the match after Memphis Depay’s first-half go-ahead goal. The away fans, who spent £71 on tickets, were justified to chant “we’re f****** s***” upon the final whistle, said Van Gaal.

“The fans can criticise. They can do because when you see the second half maybe they are right,” he said, per The Guardian. “They are disappointed, like we are. I’m very grateful for the fans who supported us but we wanted to win and we have to win at Old Trafford and then we are in the next round. We have to do it but it’s not easy.”

United were utterly unconvincing and only part of their inconsistency can be attributed to their mounting list of injuries. Wayne Rooney was sidelined due to injury and the Red Devils also lost David de Gea in the warm-ups.

The two teams broke even after Pione Sisto’’s goal on the brink of the half. In the second period, however, Midtjylland took a step forward and dominated the game.

“In the second half I have to say that Midtjylland were winning every ball and that is very disappointing because you know in advance that is the key of this game,” said Van Gaal.

Midtjylland’s advantage is hardly insurmountable for United heading back to the opposite leg at Old Trafford, but the result was nevertheless an historic win for the seventeen-year-old club.

They showed promising signs early on, with Kian Hansen forcing Sergio Romero into an excellent stop early on, rising up to power a header towards goal from a corner. In the thirty-seventh minute, Vaclav Kadlec was put through on goal and Sergio Romero was quick off his line to block the angle. The stop changed the complexion of the match as United went down the other end and bagged the opener less than a minute later.

Jesse Lingard whipped a cross into the middle from the right and Depay, making his first start of 2016, recovered from a slip to volley the ball home. For a moment, it looked as if things might just be all right for United, but Sisto punished Michael Carrick’s slip-up just before half time, driving a twenty yard effort into the bottom corner of the net with the help of a small deflection off of Chris Smalling’s shin.

“It’s not acceptable,” said Carrick of United’s performance. “The performance and the result are just not good enough – it’s got to be a lot better. We scored a good goal and then it’s just not good enough, we haven’t played well enough, we didn’t really kick on.

“They were there for us to win the game, we should have won that. With a performance and a result like that we’re going home very disappointed.”

Although Lingard hit the bar with a volley on the other side of the half, Paul Onuachu completed the comeback for Midtjylland in the seventy-seventh minute, having been allowed far too much space on the edge of the area to arrow a shot into the bottom left corner of the net. The Nigerian forward also forced Romero into a superb save from a curling effort destined for the top corner as the home side finished on a strong note.

Man of the Match: Paul Onuachu

Homepage photo credit: EUpdates (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.