Atalanta 2-2 Manchester United: Cristiano Ronaldo double salvage sloppy Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side from Atalanta defeat
They remain a desperate, disparate bunch this Manchester United team but they also have Cristiano Ronaldo and no one is doing more to keep Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in a job at the moment than the indefatigable Portuguese. The argument about Ronaldo causing more problems for United’s beleaguered manager than he solves rings rather hollow on nights such as these.
While team-mates were crashing and burning all around him as sloppiness and individual errors gave way to more desperation and chaos, it was Ronaldo who twice rescued his side at the end of each half with his eighth and ninth goals of the campaign to claim a scarcely merited point for Solskjaer. Paul Scholes suggested the Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp would have been rubbing his hands together after watching United’s performance in the 3-2 win over Atalanta at Old Trafford last month and you could easily argue that Pep Guardiola will be doing the same as he dissects this display ahead of Saturday’s derby.
United may be on the end of a hiding similar to the 5-0 humiliation Liverpool inflicted if they defend this poorly against their derby rivals but then Guardiola must doubtless also fear that the man he tried and failed to sign in the summer could leave his nose out of joint once again.
You certainly would not put it past Ronaldo conjuring something special again at the weekend but United collectively will have to be so much better than this. Duvan Zapata must have thought he had won it for Atalanta only for Ronaldo to pop up to drill home a shot low into the corner in the first minute of stoppage time and again spare his manager.
For 38 minutes, this was a classic example of what happens when a team rigorously drilled in the arts of a back three come up against a side who have dusted the system off a shelf in the hope it can help to paper over the cracks. Behind, out played, unsure what to do with the outstanding Tuen Koopmeiners and fortunate the damage was not worse than a solitary Josip Ilicic goal. If Solskjaer had wanted, he could have stuck with the formation when Raphael Varane was forced off with an injury by moving Luke Shaw into central defence and bringing on Alex Telles at left wing back.
But the United manager could see the experiment was patently not working and abandoned it altogether. So on came Mason Greenwood, with United switching to a more familiar 4-2-3-1, and by the end of a first half in which a bright start had given way to the same old failings they were level and with a spring in their step.
They can veer almost seamlessly between the ridiculous and the sublime this United and their goal, a wonderfully slick piece of rapid fire interplay started and finished by Ronaldo, served as a direct counterpart to the confusion that had reigned for the preceding half an hour.
United had started well, with Jose Luis Palomino deflecting Scott McTominay’s shot on to a post and Solskjaer’s side pressing high, but the mood changed when Atalanta took advantage of more passive defending and an individual blunder from David De Gea to lead after 12 minutes.
Naturally, there will be a focus on De Gea’s error and there is little doubt the goalkeeper should have saved Ilicic’s shot but the way United backed off Remo Freuler who, having dropped deep to pick up the ball, was allowed to drift forward under no pressure from the inside left channel typified their approach to defending this season.
Freuler’s pass was inadvertently deflected by McTominay into the path of Duvan Zapata who checked his run, cut back inside Aaron Wan-Bissaka and played a pinpoint pass across goal into the path of Ilic.
His shot was hit straight at De Gea yet the goalkeeper, perhaps marginally unsighted, succeeded only in pushing the ball into his own net. This was the eighth time in 15 games this season that United have found themselves behind. Control can be hard to assert when you are routinely chasing games.
This was Paul Pogba’s first shot in four matches and Gian Piero Gasperini had clearly pinpointed the midfielder as one of United’s weak points defensively. Koopmeiners’ quality on the ball was bettered only by his work off it and he hounded Pogba whenever the Frenchman was in possession, most notably when he dislodged Pogba on the 18-yard box and only a fine recovery block from Eric Bailly to deny Zapata spared his team-mate’s blushes.
This was a masterclass in indifference and sluggishness from Pogba, who was lucky to start and subsequently illustrated why he should not have done. If he was busting a gut to try to get back after a sloppy pass was intercepted by Marten De Roon then he had a funny way of showing it. There are managers who would have removed Pogba long before he was finally put out of his misery in the 68th minute when Nemanja Matic was introduced but Solskjaer has been fudging the Pogba question for far too long now.
For Koopmeiners here, think Dani Parejo for Villarreal at Old Trafford in September. Like then, United were much too slow to establish a plan to neuter the Dutchman, who is 10 months his compatriot Donny van de Beek’s junior and clearly revelling under Gasperini’s tutelage.
Koopmeiners has a lovely range of passing, short and long, and it was a thumped ball over the top, which Harry Maguire misjudged, that sent Zapata clear. The Atalanta striker shot wide but it would not be the last time his pace and movement hurt United on the night.
For all of United’s fault lines and shortcomings, they are capable of producing moments of genuine class. With such a glittering arsenal of attacking players to call upon, it would be a worry if they could not but their equaliser was a minor classic.
Ronaldo played the ball square to Greenwood, who drilled a first time pass into Bruno Fernandes ghosting into the penalty area. Fernandes then had the awareness to flick a back heel into the path of Ronaldo, who had surged into the space created by United’s stealth before steadying himself and finishing with characteristic cool. If Ronaldo was a club, he would be the 21st highest scoring team in Champions League history.
