A needlessly conservative performance from Manchester United was punished with embarrassing Champions League elimination as Jose Mourinho’s side fell to a sloppy 2-1 defeat against Sevilla at Old Trafford on Tuesday night.
After a similarly unambitious, shackled first leg finished goalless in Andalusia, Mourinho once again set out to win by a single goal and, once again, found his side usurped by opponents who could scarcely believe the lack of attacking gumption on display.
Once again, United were the square root of dreadful, mustering a total of four efforts on target over 180 minutes against a Sevilla side who have conceded the second highest amount of goals (42) of all the clubs in the top half of La Liga this season.
The opening goal came in the 74th minute when Wissam Ben Yedder breached the United back-line little over a minute after coming on as a substitute…
Just four minutes later, Ben Yedder doubled both his and Sevilla’s tally when he forced a scrambled header past David De Gea from an acute angle…
United then finally got their backsides in gear when Romelu Lukaku muscled in to lash home Marcus Rashford’s 84th-minute corner…
And that’s how it ended, with United meekly turned over in front of their own fans.
Unsurprisingly, Mourinho was unwilling to accept any blame after the final whistle, instead reminding United supporters that they’d been knocked out of Europe before on at least two other occasions in the recent past:
I’ve sat in this chair twice before, with Porto – Man Utd out, and with Real Madrid – Man Utd out, so this is nothing new for this football club.
Wow. You can almost smell the Teflon from here. We’re sure that little self-serving trip down memory will be warmly received by those forced to sit through 180 minutes of spiritless pap.
Pies will never understand Mourinho’s insistence on stifling any and all opponents in big matches, regardless of how vastly superior his squad is. Never.
This time, he got exactly what he deserved.