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Manchester United might’ve won tonight’s battle, but unfortunately for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his Red Devils still came up slightly short in the war, as despite defeating Manchester City 0-1 at the Etihad, it’s Pep Guardiola’s side who will advance into the EFL Cup final with a 3-2 aggregate win.
Tonight’s second leg was a classic smash-and-grab performance from United, who took the lead late in the first half with their first shot of the match; a free-kick headed away by Bernardo Silva fell to Nemanja Matic, and his left footed shot flew right through City’s defence and into the net.
City – who saw two goals rightfully chalked off for offside – bossed the possession during the game, ending with 61% of it, but in all honesty, despite having 13 shots on goal, they found real chances hard to come by. It was only once Matic was sent off after 76 minutes for a second bookable offence that United’s chances of finding a crucial second goal began to wane.
Still, despite their failure to make the final, Solskjaer should take comfort in tonight’s performance – United were gutsy, defended against a ton of pressure and looked dangerous on the break. It was a big turnaround from their poor first leg defeat 3 weeks ago, and the following players stood out most.
#1 David De Gea
David De Gea has been under fire recently for some below-par performances, and there has even been talk of the Spanish goalkeeper being replaced at Old Trafford by Dean Henderson – currently on loan at Sheffield United – when next season rolls around. Tonight though, De Gea was seemingly back to his best, and particularly in the early going, he kept United in the tie.
First, the Spaniard made impressive saves from Sergio Aguero and Riyad Mahrez, before producing a truly phenomenal stop when an Aguero header appeared to be going into the back of the net. And the second half saw more outstanding work from United’s No.1, as he made another brilliant save from a Kyle Walker drive that appeared to be heading into the top corner.
Overall, De Gea was more than equal to anything City threw at him tonight, outside of a pair of goals that were scored by clearly offside players. Is this a return to form for the Spaniard, or was it merely a one-off? Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be hoping for the former, as this was De Gea’s best game in some time.
#2 Harry Maguire
Due to City’s dominance in possession during this game, United were always going to have to defend doggedly if they wanted to get a positive result. Thankfully, they had Harry Maguire at the centre of their defence, and the new team captain pulled out an excellent performance.
Maguire made more tackles than his fellow central defenders Victor Lindelof and Luke Shaw and had a 100% success rate in them. He also won all of his aerial duels – 4 in total – and was largely impressive in possession, keeping a high pass success rate of 87%.
Was it a perfect showing from the England defender? Not quite; an errant pass across his own box in the second half could’ve gifted David Silva an easy goal, but Maguire was able to make amends with a last-ditch tackle to prevent it. He could also have scored with a couple of offensive headers that he instead sent over the bar – but the fact that he was the man leading United’s late attacks shows how much Solskjaer’s side are beginning to rely on him. Overall, this was a strong showing from the former Leicester man.
#3 Fred
While De Gea and Maguire were obvious picks here, a third outstanding player was a little harder to choose; City’s players all performed decently but huffed and puffed too much and never truly looked like breaking United down, while Brandon Williams and Nemanja Matic – until his red card – were among United’s better players on the night.
Brazilian midfielder Fred, though, had an excellent game by anyone’s standards. Alongside Matic, he was given the role of both screening the defence while helping to begin attacks, and while that proved largely fruitless during the first half – Jesse Lingard, Mason Greenwood, and Anthony Martial were all largely poor – Fred still worked extremely hard.
Seemingly chasing shadows at times, the Brazilian never stopped harrying City’s players when he didn’t have the ball – putting in more tackles than any other player on the pitch and attempting double that amount – and when he did have the ball, he largely put it to good use, coming away with a strong 87% pass success rate as well as 3 key passes.
It was also Fred’s free-kick that eventually found its way to Matic for United’s lone goal, and while another dead-ball with just minutes to go went wrong for the Brazilian, judging by tonight’s showing it’s easy to see why Red Devils fans are beginning to take to him after a testing beginning at Old Trafford.
