How Manchester United improved Hannibal Mejbri vs Borussia Dortmund

The Borussia Dortmund players and staff in the dressing room could be heard outside as Neil Wood sidled over to chat. The Manchester United striker Charlie McNeill, scorer in the first-half, denied a penalty in added time and one of the three who failed to convert their spotkick, was 'upset'.

"I don't feel like we got much through that game, so it’s frustrating," Wood said of the referee. The few of us with press passes had managed to find a clip of the tackle on McNeill that not only confirmed it was a patent penalty but that the referee had a perfect view.

Twice the United Under-19s recovered from conceding to draw 2-2 with Dortmund. There is no extra-time in the Uefa Youth League, so it went straight to a penalty shootout. McNeill struck the post while Hannibal Mejbri and Noam Emeran's tame attempts were saved.

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Ralf Rangnick, Chris Armas, Darren Fletcher and Eric Ramsay were all in attendance at Leigh Sports Village. "We’re disappointed to go out," Wood said. "I thought we played quite well, dominated parts of the game, had a lot of possession. We knew their threat was gonna be the counter, so it’s really frustrating to concede, one off our corner, the second one could have been a foul on Will [Fish], but to concede on the counters was really disappointing for us, because we knew that was their biggest threat.

"Credit to the lads for getting back into it. Once we made it 2-2 I thought we were the likelier team to win it. If it went to extra-time I think we won have won the game.

"I thought all of them gave it their all in their own ways. Some through passing, some through tackling, some through working hard, some through running off the ball, some with the