Marcus Rashford doubles down on Omonia to spare Manchester United

Erik ten Hag applied a desperately required change to save Manchester United from a second humiliation in four days. Losing at the interval, the Dutchman brought on Marcus Rashford then and Anthony Martial a little later and they scored the goals that turned embarrassing defeat into Group E victory.

Nothing, though, can hide the faultlines in Ten Hag’s team which are hardly news: no discernible possession-based attack patterns and a defence that is amateurish as illustrated by Karim Ansarifard’s breakaway opener.

For a while – from 33 to 53 minutes and Rashford’s equaliser – Neil Lennon’s men could dream of handing Ten Hag the type of seismic loss suffered by three of his four post-Sir Alex Ferguson predecessors.

Omonia, who had won only once in their last 26 European games before tonight, threatened to emulate Olympiakos, in 2014, who beat David Moyes’s United 2-0; MK Dons (2015) – 4-0 over Louis van Gaal’s side – and Istanbul Basaksehir, 2-1 against Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s team, two years ago.

In Bruno Felipe’s 40-yard free run at David De Gea’s goal that set up Ansarifard – after Tyrell Malacia ceded possession from a Jadon Sancho pass following Christian Eriksen’s free-kick – was an unwanted echo of how Demba Ba did similarly when scoring for Basaksehir following a United corner in November 2020.

Yet despite Omonia giving United a further scare at the end when making it 3-2, United escaped following Sunday’s 6-3 trouncing at Manchester City without a further confidence-draining result. Here, unlike at the Etihad Stadium, they showed courage though against this level of opposition it should never have been as close as it was.

Until falling behind United hogged possession. One sequence had Casemiro, Eriksen, Bruno