Alejandro Garnacho Stars As Manchester United Fall Just Short

For the final thirteen minutes of Manchester United’s 1-0 win over Real Sociedad on Thursday they played with the striking partnership of Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire.

One is arguably the greatest attacking talent the game has ever seen, scorer of an incredible 701 club goals in his career, and the other is a central defender who has the rather more modest total of 28 goals.

But in United’s mounting desperation their manager Erik ten Hag decided to pair them together in the game’s closing stages to find a second goal.

Normally a cultured football man, the Dutchman asked his players to be more direct and play long balls into the penalty area and on to the head of Maguire.

“We needed the goal and then we went more opportune,” Ten Hag said after the game. “With Cristiano and Harry Maguire, you have two good headers and we tried to go more direct into the box and I think we did several times, quicker to get into the box for the opponent.”

On at least two occasions Maguire did get a knock on but the experiment would ultimately fail on a frustrating night in northern Spain.

United triumphed 1-0 but at the final whistle they were the ones wearing crestfallen expressions as the Real Sociedad players and fans celebrated in front of them.

The Spaniards might have lost on the night, but they had still finished top of their Europa League group by a single goal.

The two sides finished level on fifteen points, and were equally matched in their head-to-head record with both beating the other 1-0 in the group.

And so to determine the winner of the group it went to goal difference where the Spanish side had a record of 8+ ahead of United on 7+.

This means Real Sociedad go straight through to the Europa League’s round of sixteen while United must play a two-legged play-off in February next year, where their opponents will be one of the eight teams who have just finished third in their Champions League group, which include Barcelona, Juventus, Sevilla, Sporting Lisbon and Ajax.

The evening had started well for United when they took the lead after 16 minutes through their 18-year-old winger Alejandro Garnacho. The Argentinian raced on to a defence-splitting pass from his idol Ronaldo to score his first senior goal for the club.

United were relieved to score early and now needed just one more goal to finish on top of the group, but it never arrived.

During the rest of the first half United looked comfortable, as though they would score again, but in the second half they lost that and rarely troubled Real Sociedad.

United were already missing the attacking trio of Antony, Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho to leave Ten Hag relying on Ronaldo, who endured another underwhelming game, the spritely Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes playing out of position on the right wing.

Ten Hag began to gamble just before the hour mark when he decided to play with three in defence, and withdrew Victor Lindelof for a midfielder Scott McTominay.

But ultimately this served to make United look unbalanced and confused. The final act of United’s night was for Fernandes to play in a cross that evaded all his team-mates in the penalty area and meekly rolled out for a goal kick.

This allowed the Spaniards to waste more time, which they didn’t need any help with, as they started early in the second half and very effectively ran down the clock.

Real Sociedad had failed to score a goal from open play against United in 180 minutes, and only won at Old Trafford back in September with a very generous penalty decision.

Despite their frustrations, United will be content to have won and to also have extended their unbeaten run to nine games.

“We always want to be number one and when we are not we are disappointed about it,” Ten Hag said. “But, finally, we won tonight, it was a clean sheet, we create some great chances and I think also Donny van de Beek had a decent performance and a really good performance from Garnacho.”

The agony will fade and this night will possibly be best remembered for Garnacho scoring the first of what should be many goals for United.