Manchester United were held to a draw by FC Rostov in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie in Russia.
On a challenging pitch at the Olymp-2 Stadium - which was criticised
by United manager Jose Mourinho before the match - midfielder Paul Pogba
miscued from inside the box early on.
But United grabbed a vital
away goal through Henrikh Mkhitaryan's close-range finish following
excellent work by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Swedish striker shot
over the crossbar in the second half, before Rostov forward Aleksandr
Bukharov latched on to Timofei Kalachev's pass for the equaliser.
Aleksandr
Erokhin stabbed a shot wide for the hosts from a promising position and
United's Marouane Fellaini headed straight at the goalkeeper from a
corner.
The return leg takes place at Old Trafford next Thursday (kick-off 19:45 GMT).
Mourinho was unhappy with the state of the pitch at Rostov's Olymp-2 StadiumThe
Red Devils faced a difficult 3,750-mile round trip for the game in
south Russia - and they were cheered on by 238 travelling supporters,
who each had their visas paid for by the club and were given blankets on
entering the ground.
Mourinho set up with three centre-backs and
Ashley Young and Daley Blind acting as wing-backs in a change of
formation for the Premier League side.
The Portuguese manager
spoke before the game about deploying a more "direct" approach because
of the dreadful pitch, but he may also have had Monday's FA Cup
quarter-final against his old club Chelsea in mind.
As well as a
dry and bobbly surface, the stop-start game - which had a total of 38
fouls - made for a poor spectacle. However, Mourinho will surely be
confident his players can go back to Old Trafford and complete the job
next week.
For their goal, Fellaini held off a home defender
before feeding Ibrahimovic, whose quick feet allowed him to poke the
ball into team-mate Mkhitaryan's path and the Armenia international
struck for the third time in this season's competition.
Home comforts
Rostov
entered the Europa League after finishing third in their Champions
League group behind Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich. In fact, they
managed to beat the German champions at home - though that was their
only victory from six games.
A team without any household European
names, they struggled to impose themselves against far superior
opponents in the opening period.
But on 53 minutes, Kalachev's
raking pass sailed between defenders Phil Jones and Chris Smalling and
Bukharov calmly controlled the ball on his chest and slotted in.
Skipper
Aleksandr Gatskan struck a long-range shot straight at Sergio Romero
late on, but the draw meant Rostov have lost just one of their past
eight games at home in Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment