da stake casino： Manchester United turned things around to rescue a point in their crunch Champions League tie away at CSKA Moscow thanks to that man again, Mr Anthony Martial.
da mrbet： The £36m sensation headed home to level the scores as the Red Devils significantly improved in the second half to gain a valuable point in their quest to make it out of the group stage on their return to the continent’s elite competition.
Louis van Gaal’s side were, at one point, bottom of their group after his defenders failed to react quickly enough following an excellent spot kick save from David De Gea. The Spaniard was only beaten after Seydou Doumbia was the first to react to the rebound and fired home from point blank range.
The visitors looked one paced and out of ideas despite their ineffective possession stats for swathes of the opening period, failing to break down some robust Russian defending.
Things improved after the interval, with the team pressing their opposition more and crating space in wide areas. Valencia was twice afforded room to cross from the right, and after Wayne Rooney nodded straight at Igor Akinveev, Martial made up for giving away the penalty with an excellent headed effort.
A decent point away from home, Eastern Europe is famously not an easy place to go to and win.
Here are THREE THINGS we learned as honours were even in the Russian capital.
UNITED AT SIXES AND SEVENS WHEN THERE’S NO 9
Plodding along at one pace, and without the magical Juan Mata, the Red Devils are often found lacking in ideas when faced with a well organised defence. The passing is functional, not fantastic, and tiring rather than threatening.
Without Martial deployed as a centre-forward, they lack the relevant pace to truly threaten and slice teams open. As a winger, or wide forward, he can be doubled up upon and crowded out of proceedings.
£250M SPENT AND STILL POOR DEFENDING
Despite the quarter of a billion spent on reshaping the side, United are still shaky at the back. Morgan Schniederlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger provide a solid base, but they can’t make up for Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo.
Chris Smalling is excellent and marshalling this defence into a somewhat respectable showing. However, Jones was clearly at fault for allowing Doumbia within point blank range of De Gea’s goal.
Rojo’s positional awareness was all over the place, and almost subjected his side to another penalty with a mind boggling handball.
MATA THE JUAN FOR THE RED DEVILS
Without their silky Spaniard, Manchester United simply don’t look the same. At least the former Chelsea man can unlock a defence, some reprieve to the endless ineffective passes so prevalent in the United engine room.
Martial may grab the headlines, but Mata has established himself as the most important player in the post Sir Alex Ferguson era at Old Trafford.
Relying on Antonio Valencia to get to the byline, or Wayne Rooney to rediscover his form, or lumping Maroune Felliani on at half-time is not enough for a club of this stature.
Granted, resting him for the impending Manchester derby is probably a wise move, but tonight’s first half performance just goes to show how important he is to this fledgling side.
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