View from Dave Kidd in Istanbul
They stepped into ‘Hell’ and came face to face with the old devil himself. But Manchester United escaped from Jose Mourinho’s lair with a point in another night of European mayhem.
Amid the chaos, Mourinho was red-carded, Andre Onana pulled off a ridiculous double save and Erik ten Hag survived another tactical brainstorm despite Youssef En-Nesyri’s header cancelling out Christian Eriksen’s opener
Having conceded 17 goals on their previous five trips overseas, this was actually a pretty respectable effort from Ten Hag’s dysfunctional team – who have now drawn three out of three in the Europa League and face a battle to avoid a humiliating early elimination.
They have now failed to win in European competition for an entire year, since a 1-0 home win over Copenhagen. Istanbul has provided plenty of fire-pit nights for United both here at Fenerbahce, where they were once thumped 3-0 under Sir Alex Ferguson, and at Galatasaray, venue for their original ‘Welcome To Hell’ trip back in the 90s.
So despite Ten Hag fielding a full-back as a ‘false ten’ and dropping Rasmus Hojlund, they ended up relieved to avoid defeat. Mourinho, of course, is never knowingly upstaged and the tantrum he chucked when Bright Osayi-Samuel was denied a second-half penalty earned him a place in the stands.
He speaks plenty of languages, the Special One. And two of them are ‘foul’ and ‘abusive’. With Bruno Fernandes suspended after his red card in Porto, Ten Hag opted to play full-back Mazraoui as his No10 – to the bafflement of many.
And despite his winner against Brentford on Saturday, Hojlund was benched. Ten Hag rarely does the obvious thing. But not in a good way.
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