Winning is the only cast-iron way to control the message in Football. So after Ruben Amorim’s recent various rhetorical wrong turns this added-time, sixth victory of a chequered 16-game Manchester United reign was needed.
On 88 minutes it seemed very far from on as Harry Maguire missed a header, Cyriel Dessers stole in, and he equalised with aplomb.
But, then, Bruno Fernandes late strike grabbed the points, his winner following Jack Butland’s odd, back-fisted punch for an own-goal opener that will haunt the No 1 for a long time.
Yet United were again a muted bunch and Scotland’s second ranked team (13 points behind Celtic) should have departed with a famous draw with England’s record 20-times champions.
Amorim’s men remain unbeaten in the competition and are in prime position to qualify automatically but his gargantuan task remains. The Portuguese’s side are fragile at the back, lack thrust and patterns in midfield, and the attack is phantom-like.
We will next see them at Fulham, on Sunday, for a 7pm kick-off, where Marco Silva’s men may expose all these faultlines.
A repeated Amorim ill-advised offering is how nervous his players have been performing here. This had to play as sweet music to Rangers’ ears who soon profited from hard evidence of this.
In a first start in Europe for United (and only a third for the club) Toby Collyer flapped in midfield, lost possession, Hamza Igamane ran forward, and Altay Bayindir’s goal was threatened by Ridvan Yilmaz. Other losses of United cool had Matthijs de Ligt booting the ball straight out, and, later, plumb to a blue shirt, and when Yilmaz volleyed James Tavernier’s cross Bayindir’s save was sharper than his teammates showed.
Speculative shots from Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes and an impotent Amad Diallo corner, from the right, were “best” United’s offerings until a slick Joshua Zirkzee control and spin and rove along the left. Suddenly Rangers were turned but when the No 9 crossed no colleague ghosted in to meet this.
The same route – United’s left – splayed the Scots a second time, via Diogo Dalot, a Garnacho effort was deflected out, and Diallo’s next corner created the opener – or so Amorim’s men thought.
De Ligt rose and headed home but Leny Yory was adjudged – harshly – by the referee, Erik Lambrechts, to have felled Robin Pröpper, so the contest remained all-square.
A kind analysis of United would say they were patient, measuring their foe as part of a ploy to dismantle them at an apt moment. A less benevolent one would point to a lack of tempo, flair, and anyone – Diallo apart, in flashes – able to wrest the game the home team’s way.
That was until a cunning Fernandes shimmy that wrong-footed the visiting rearguard was followed by a pass that sprang Diallo and his attempt caused Jack Butland to save. Here, a rare chance for the United congregation to stretch their vocal chords.
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The 3,000-plus in the away end had far more to cheer – as when Tavernier, their captain, flighted in two corners, in succession, which tested Bayindir and his defence.
At the other end, a rare Lisandro Martínez blaze at goal had Butland flying into the air to tip away. It claimed a corner. Diallo’s delivery, again, yielded nothing, which was the story, in microcosm, of United’s first half, and so the players jogged off for the break and Amorim, somehow, needed to inject some fantasy, an X-factor into a unit proving tepid yet again.
A Dalot hoof from near the centre circle that went out for a corner was a second half curtain raiser that raised scant hope of an upping of quality. Rangers did not punish the Portuguese from this and neither did Bailey Rice, one of two Philippe Clement changes, when blasting high when roving in seconds later.
Harry Maguire was Amorim’s change – for De Ligt – for the second 45 and a first act was to wander into Rangers’ area for a Christian Eriksen corner and witness Butland’s hapless fist backwards, and in, that gave United the lead.
Those in red shirts raced to the Dane to congratulate him on a dipping, menacing parabola, while Butland was a portrait of abashment. Amorim greeted the goal with the removal of Yoro for Tyrell Malacia.
To do so the smartest way was to operate deep in the foe’s final third. They did, for a passage, and when an Eriksen free-kick from the left dropped on Maguire’s head he should have beaten Butland at close range, but the ball bounced wide.
To stiffen United up Amorim introduced Manuel Ugarte and Kobbie Mainoo – for Eriksen and Collyer – but, then, came Dessers finish before Fernandes’s blow.
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