Manchester United playing ‘under-10 football’

It beggars belief that a team containing eight internationals and two World Cup winners could leave Demba Ba free when they had a corner.

Demba Ba, challenging United’s Harry Maguire, is not a player to be left unmarked

The flight back from Istanbul to Manchester is a long and arduous one, especially after a painful defeat such as their embarrassing 2-1 Champions League loss to Istanbul Basaksehir. So it may have been wise for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s squad to break up the journey with an informative book.

Football for Dummies is the title that immediately springs to mind. In the chapter on defending, there is no mention — unsurprisingly — of a play that involves leaving a striker completely unmarked on the halfway line when you have a corner of your own.

Those who have played football at any level, whether it be junior, semi-professional or Premier League, know that your last defender should always be goalside of the attacker. It is a pretty basic rule that is drilled into youngsters. Another rudimentary principle of defending is that two men should always be left to mark the lone attacker on the halfway line when you have a corner. If one man slips up, the other is there to tidy up.

It therefore beggars belief that a team containing eight internationals, two World Cup winners and the most expensive defender of all time could leave Demba Ba free in the 12th minute when United had a corner. After a series of passes between Juan Mata, Bruno Fernandes and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Istanbul Basaksehir won the ball and Berkay Özcan launched it downfield for Ba.

Ba’s name has been sung many a time at Old Trafford. He became a cult hero when he took advantage of Steven Gerrard’s slip in 2014 to score for Chelsea at Anfield and virtually deny Liverpool the title.

On this occasion, Ba did not have to rely on the misfortune of an opposition player. This time he had a clear 50m run at goal. Nemanja Matic, the tallest and least mobile of Solskjaer’s team, was the last line of defence. Unbelievably, Matic was 25m inside the away half when the home team broke.

Ba is 35 years old but with that head start nobody was going to stop him. He chested the ball down, pedalled deep into United’s half and rolled the ball past an incandescent Dean Henderson, who had hoped for more protection from his back four on his Champions League debut.

Solskjaer said the performance against the hardworking Turkish side was not good enough.

“They scored two goals like you do in Europe when you do not defend well enough,” he told BT Sport.

“The first one is that we play a short corner and forget about the man up top. That is unforgivable. The second one as well, we are not very well organised to counter the press.” “You don’t turn up and get three points in the Champions League,” he added. “They are a team well organised and we were not good enough. That is it.”

Former Manchester United player Paul Scholes said, in the commentary tudio, called it “under-10s football.”

“Absolutely crazy … embarrassing,” he said.

He was not wrong. Football has a funny way of coming back to bite you in the behind and the comments made by Harry Maguire, the £80 million centre back, before the game, now seem silly.

“For sure there are a lot of leaders in this squad,” Maguire said. If that is the case, where were they in this game? Why did they not see it coming? Perhaps more importantly, why have Solskjaer and his coaches not been able to drill United into defending properly?

The Norwegian is not free from blame. Mike Phelan, the assistant manager, stood on the touchline yelling when Özcan punted the ball downfield, but the damage had already been done.

Solskjaer has received praise for the way his team have attacked in Europe this season, but he has failed to get the best out of his defenders at times. Perhaps he would point out that he was not given the centre back he asked for in the summer.

That said, Barcelona were not the opposition tonight. This is Basaksehir’s first foray into Champions League football. They failed to score in their opening two group games and in their first four domestic matches.

Perhaps the worst thing from United’s perspective is that the shocking defensive lapse did not jolt them into life. Danijel Aleksic sent a free header straight into Henderson’s arms. Axel Tuanzebe was lucky to escape with a booking for pulling Ba back as he went through.

Then more calamitous defending followed for the second. Deniz Turuc muscled Mata off the ball after he failed to control Fernandes’s wayward pass and crossed for Ba. Maguire followed the striker, leaving Edin Visca to beat Henderson.

It says a lot about United that Basaksehir had two men free at the far post and three players in black-and-white shirts were on the line. When the goal went in, Luke Shaw was in the right position and Wan-Bissaka was at left back. United’s defenders were literally all over the place.

United pulled one back. Shaw lifted the ball to Anthony Martial, who had stolen in between the two centre backs, and angled his header into the far corner from an awkward starting point. It was a top-class finish. It should have been the start of the comeback, but it was not.

United managed just one shot on target in the second half, a free kick from Fernandes that Fehmi Mert Günok saved with one eye on the ball and the other on the cameras who tracked his unnecessarily acrobatic dive.

Scott McTominay came on for Tuanzebe and Matic dropped into the centre of defence. Victor Lindelof was on the bench but he could not come on as he was nursing a back injury.

Paul Pogba, Mason Greenwood and Edinson Cavani were also among the five substitutes that Solskjaer made, but none made an impact.

United lacked a defender with the courage and discipline of Rafael. The Brazilian fullback threw himself into every challenge with gusto to frustrate his former club.

Alexandru Epureanu cleared off the line in stoppage time. It was a just intervention. United did not deserve any points from this game.

The Times