Man Utd Still Need to Prove the Last Two PSG Wins Were No Fluke
It seems odd to suggest it after winning each of the last two meetings between the sides – away from home, no less – but Manchester United go into Wednesday night’s Champions League contest against Paris Saint-Germain with something still to prove.
Nobody seriously expected United to emerge victorious in Paris when Marcus Rashford’s ice cold stoppage time penalty sealed a 3-1 win and an historic aggregate comeback.
PSG were leading 2-0 from the first leg at Old Trafford. No team had ever overturned that kind of deficit in the second leg away from home.
To make matters worse, United were missing a lot of key players. There was no Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial, Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic, Jesse Lingard or Ander Herrera, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer forced to name four teenagers on the bench.
What United at least did have going for them was the feelgood factor of Solskjaer’s interim period. The Norwegian’s only defeat in 16 games had been the first leg of the PSG tie and his team had beaten Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea in that time, as well as drawing with Liverpool.
It didn’t seem enough, though, and PSG were heavy favourites to go through. That they were missing Neymar hardly seemed to matter because he hadn’t featured in the first leg either.
What happened was a genuine shock. It was a coming of age performance for Scott McTominay, who at that point was still just trying to establish himself and hadn’t played in the Champions League at all that season. It was similarly a turning point for Fred, having previously struggled.
Romelu Lukaku put United firmly back in the tie with two first half goals either side of one from Juan Bernat. But PSG had one foot in the quarter-finals when the ball struck the arm of Presnel Kimpembe in stoppage time. The penalty was awarded after a VAR review and Rashford converted.
Make no mistake about it, United had done the seemingly impossible by pulling it off.
Fast forward 18 months to the 2020/21 campaign and United pulled off another shock in Paris.
Solskjaer’s team had started the season poorly, and a porous defence that conceded 12 goals in the fist four Premier League games against Crystal Palace, Brighton, Tottenham and Newcastle looked like it could be ripped apart by Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Angel Di Maria.
United were without captain Harry Maguire, while Axel Tuanzebe was tasked with keeping Mbappe quiet 10 months on from his last first-team appearance against Colchester. But rather like McTominay had done previously, Tuanzebe instead announced himself at the highest level.
United went ahead in the first half through Bruno Fernandes, with Rashford again going on to win the game late on after an own goal had erased the initial lead.
It was another shock because it was so far removed from the previous encounter and the circumstances beforehand again appeared to be stacked against United.
Now, with two wins in consecutive games against PSG under their belt, the dynamic is different ahead of this week’s fixture and there is suddenly an expectation United will get another positive result because they have already done it twice before.
With a place in the Champions League last 16 for only the third time in seven years within touching distance, there is more pressure on Solskjaer’s team where was none before and the time has come to prove that those last two wins against PSG were no flukes.
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