Playing their youngest ever side which featured seven teenagers and four debutants, Manchester United fell to their first defeat in the Europa League this season as Kazakhstan’s champions Astana came from behind to win 2-1 in front of 28,949 in the Astana Arena.
When Astana visited Old Trafford in September, United’s coaching staff felt that the lack of a breakthrough made the players anxious and tense which fed into a nervy atmosphere. The Europa League is not where one of the three biggest clubs in the world want to be. Doing badly in the Europa League is even worse, but United got a late breakthrough in September.
There were no such worries early in Astana as United’s callow players from a squad with the most ever academy graduates scored after 10 minutes, but their inexperience would ultimately show.
Stand in captain Jesse Lingard gave United the lead after with a low shot across the artificial surface into the bottom corner from 20 yards.
Lingard hasn’t always helped himself in a rough year of little creativity, but he took the goal well and ran to celebrate in front of the 950 United fans who’d travelled to their club’s furthest away European away game.
The 150 fans who’d arrived on a plane from Manchester for free thanks to the club took six hours each way, the rest flew via points all over Europe. Never before has the temperature in the host city been as low as the minus 15 in Astana – though the game was played indoor where it reached a relative balmy plus 15.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is determined to bring young players through from the club’s academy but suspected his extremely young side would find it a challenge against a side experienced in European competition, one which had held out for 75 minutes at Old Trafford.
Nevertheless, those youngsters played better than more exalted names, moving the ball quickly against the Kazakhstani champions with confidence and without the nerves which restricted the first team in September.
Sixteen youth players were in the matchday squad, breaking the record set by two previous occasions when 13 youth players were called up.
These were bred in the club. Full back Ethan Laird was the most impressive of the debutants while Dylan Levitt, number 63, from North Wales, also encouraged. Levitt joined when he was eight and moved to lodgings in Manchester at 14, where he still lives with a local family three miles from the training ground. Astana’s playmaker Runar Mar Sigurjonson, a lifelong United from Iceland, has visited Old Trafford more times than eight of the United players have actually played there.
There was disquiet among Astana fans that they’d paid inflated ticket prices to see visitors shorn of their star names since United have already qualified and have Sunday’s Premier League game against Aston Villa to consider, but they saw enough entertainment and went home happy after their team turned it around.
Tahith Chong should have scored when presented with an open goal from close range after 54 minutes but instead struck the ball over.
Chong has flattered to deceive when given first team minutes and his future at the club is doubtful. That miss especially stung United since Astana went up the other end and scored 38 seconds later through Dmitri Shomko.
It was only Astana’s second goal in five group games. The home crowd were joyous, holding yellow boards and mobile phone lights up. Astana’s players were ascendant and took advantage of the out of position Luke Shaw as Antonio Rukavina’s shot hit Di'Shon Bernard’s head, wrong footing Grant and making it 2-1 after 61 minutes.
United tried to get back level with Mason Greenwood’s 77th minute shot being tipped over by Nenad Eric as close as they got.
The young United players will learn from the experience. The Astana players celebrated in front of their fans long after the final whistle. They’d beaten United-lite, which didn’t look plausible at half-time. United need points against AZ Alkmaar to guarantee winning the group in two weeks at Old Trafford.
