Man Utd 2
Rangers 1
We nearly gave 2 points away, but we did not…thanks to our captain Bruno Fernandez who popped up to volley home in added time, only 4 minutes after Rangers had thought they had gained a precious point at OT.
As expected, we dominated possession against a side that seemed there for the taking, but as usual we struggled to create chances for our forwards. This is worrying because when you create so few chances, you need to have lethal strikers up front and that is something that we do not have in our squad.
De Ligt had a perfectly valid goal disallowed by an obnoxious VAR decision. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that goal and we should have gone in 1-0 at HT. Less than 10 minutes into the second half and we were 1-0 up thanks to a little help from Butland in the Rangers goal when he bizarrely punched the ball into his own goal. He partially made up for his mistake with a couple of fine saves that kept his team in the match. And then we nearly messed it all up. The Rangers equaliser, 2 minutes from time was essentially a Maguire mistake – he mistimed the flight of the ball and got himself in a pickle. The finish by the Rangers striker was good but the ball should have never got to him.
The Rangers fans at OT were still celebrating and thinking they were going up north with a point when Martinez floated in an inviting ball into the box and Bruno timed his run to perfection. OT exploded – 2-1 and there was no time for Rangers to recover. A precious win for our beloved team that now puts us into the 4th position of the Europe league table. Let us hope we build up on this – we wil need a better performance against Fulham on Sunday…Numquam Moribimur!
