On Saturday, Manchester United’s predicament was resolved with a much-needed win against Brentford by the score of 2-1. Two goals scored by Scott McTominay in the last minute of play provided the decisive edge for Manchester United.
when Mathias Jensen scored the first goal for the Bees, and with some more mediocre goalkeeping from Andre Onana, the Bees seemed to be on the brink of breaking their own losing streak of seven games when Andre Onana assisted Mathias Jensen with the assist.
The team was on the approach of suffering its third defeat at home in a period of eight days until the unexpected heroics of United’s substitute McTominay.
Despite the fact that Erik ten Hag waited until there were just three minutes remaining in the game to put the Scotland midfielder into the game, he has been in good form in terms of scoring goals for the international level.
McTominay was successful in finding the back of the net three times, but his first goal was ruled out because he was playing from the wrong side of the pitch. He scored twice in the extra six minutes of play to alleviate some of the strain that was being placed on his manager.
Following the victory, United has moved up to the ninth position and is now just four points away from the top four.
A growing injury list in defence did not make Ten Hag’s work any easier, as the absence of Raphael Varane was added to the absences of Lisandro Martinez, Luke Shaw, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Tyrell Malacia, and Sergio Reguilon. Ten Hag’s job did not get any easier as the list of injured defenders grew. Because of this, Ten Hag’s work became much more challenging.
As a direct result of this, the underutilised defender Harry Maguire was paired up with the veteran defender Jonny Evans, who is 35 years old.
However, the custodian for United, who has been under a lot of fire as of late, was to fault for the first goal scored in the game.
Casemiro was partly to responsible for the incident since he was the one who recklessly passed the ball on to Yoane Wissa, who then made his way into the penalty area for United.
The effort at clearing the way made by Victor Lindelof was thwarted by Wissa and led right into the path used by Jensen.
Onana should have been able to keep the ball out of the goal despite the lack of effort put forward by the Dane even if it got past the right hand he was using to defend the goal.
The Cameroonian custodian, who was purchased from Inter Milan in July for a transfer cost of £47 million (about $57 million), has made some egregious errors, and as a direct consequence, Manchester United has lost both of its opening Champions League group games for the first time in its history.
This lack of self-assurance was reflected in United’s play in the Premier League, and the team seemed to be heading for a defeat comparable to the 1-0 defeat they had at the hands of Crystal Palace the previous weekend as they battled to find an equaliser in the match.
Thomas Strakosha, who was filling in as the starting custodian for the Bees, made a save from Marcus Rashford’s effort when he was stationed at the near post.
However, Rashford still seemed to be a ghost of the guy who scored 30 goals during the previous season, and the home supporters celebrated when Alejandro Garnacho replaced him soon after the hour mark. Garnacho came on to replace Rashford shortly after the hour mark. Rashford had not shown himself as the kind of player who would go on to score 30 goals in the previous season.
In addition, Ten Hag sent a message by making a substitution during the second period for Casemiro, who was not doing very well.
Antony made his debut in the Premier League for the first time in the contest’s last thirty minutes after returning from a leave of absence to answer allegations of domestic abuse and playing for the first time in the match overall. Since he had returned from his leave of absence, this was his first appearance in the league.
However, it was another substitute that ended up being the most important factor in United’s comeback during this season.
McTominay was under the belief that his moment of glory had been snatched away from him when Anthony Martial was called for offside after touching Garnacho’s cross into the path of McTominay. Garnacho’s cross had been headed for McTominay.
Strakosha was making his debut in the Premier League, and the former custodian for Lazio did not do himself any favours. As a result, all of the great work that Brentford had done in the latter stages of the game was undone.
First, he botched a shot that was taken by Diogo Dalot, and then McTominay skillfully controlled and blasted home the loose ball that was left behind after the first attempt was blocked.
When Strakosha failed to claw out McTominay’s header from Maguire’s flick-on, which provoked frenetic scenes of ecstasy among the home fans, he should have done a better job with the winner. Strakosha had the potential to improve their performance with the victory as well.