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Manchester United 2-2 Southampton: substitute scored in the final seconds to deny Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a decisive victory in the Champions League football race
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When the back door to next season’s Champions League ends, it looks like Manchester United has to sneak in after all. Michael Obafemi’s last draw in the most sensible time earned Southampton a 2-2 draw and stopped Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s four-game winning streak, leaving the race to finish in the 4 most sensible open.
Goals from Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial in the first half, scored in the area 3 minutes after Stuart Armstrong gave Southampton the lead, enough for Solskjaer’s appearance to finish a run of Premier League matches in the 4 most sensitive for the first time since September.
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However, with added time for a header between Brandon Williams and Kyle Walker-Peters, Ralph Hasenhuttl’s visiting team tied, with Obafemi crossing the line from a corner. United at least knows he’ll end up in the 4th most sensible if he wins all the games he has left, with a King Power Stadium vacation scheduled for the final day, but it can be a setback that undermines the momentum.
For the first time since 1993, United has named the same starting line-up for the fifth consecutive league match. This is not the only notable result of the team’s chips, which indicated Southampton coach Eddie Howe, who had visited Old Trafford with Bournemouth nine days earlier. Hasenhuttl’s team resembled Howe’s at least one point: take the lead temporarily, stay away temporarily.
The advance was no less than southampton deserved a first quarter of an hour in which they refused to give United an inch of area to operate, even when they were camping in the back of their own half. This relentless superior press nevertheless paid off and stayed with Paul Pogba, who did not see Danny Ings banging over his shoulder when he turned to get a pass from David de Gea. Nathan Redmond picked up the loose ball and cut a center at the time of the pole so Armstrong would end at point-blank range.
United’s resurgence gave the impression that they were at risk from a well-organized opponent, but one facet of its rebirth is the ability to check its luck when it arrives. Martial had already defused a golden opportunity minutes before Armstrong’s first game, having failed to convert a one-on-one with goalkeeper Alex McCarthy. On this occasion, he showed more composure in the dominance of penalties, lowered the ball, controlled it under expanding pressure and then slid it to the left so that Rashford would finish and celebrate his first open play purpose since the reboot.
Three minutes later, Martial was celebrating. After receiving the property to Fernandes’ left, he cut internally and overlooked his marker Kyle Walker-Peters. It was the kind of naivety you would expect from a player with the relative inexperience of Walker-Peters, but at 23 he knew he didn’t give Martial that much room on his right foot. In all honesty, even in this case, I would not have expected the dull blow that left McCarthy hanging in the air.
The game had taken a 180-second turn in the area and Southampton lost much of its initial intensity from there. It only gave the impression in the previews and was not in the right direction. Oriol Romeu’s challenge to Mason Greenwood, if you can call him that, came late, recklessly. Greenwood’s ankle was partly doubled long after the ball left, but Lee Mason, Stockley Park’s VAR, saw no explanation for why to intervene. Your examination of the incident means there can be no retrospective action.
Williams may not simply continue after a headhate and, as Solskjaer had used the 3 replacement “windows”, he also cannot be replaced, leaving United with 10 men to protect a James Ward-Prowse corner. Jan Bednarek jumped and diverted the ball to the post for the time being, which all United Bar players Victor Lindelof had evacuated. Obafemi, a vanquished replacement, won his duel with the Swede, helping Bednarek headlong into an unguarded network. A frustrated Solskjaer hit the seat in front of him, knowing that United had lost two problems that could prove decisive in this tighter race.
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