Manchester United are out of the Champions League after falling short in the fightback at RB Leipzig on Tuesday. The English Premier League went into the game needing to only avoid defeat, but suffered a 3-2 loss on the road.
There will be a lot of questions asked of the tactics of Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as RB Leipzig outplay the travelers in the opening 45 minutes.
The Red Devils found themselves 3-0 down after 69 minutes after Angelino, Amadou Haidara and Justin Kluivert scored to put RB Leipzig in control.
Bruno Fernandez scored from the penalty spot in the 80th minute and Paul Pogba added a second two minutes, but Solskjaer side left themselves too much to do and was eventually dumped.
“We started the game too slow. It wasn’t good enough, the first 20 minutes. We gave everything in the second half but we gave ourselves too much to do,” United captain Harry Maguire told BT Sport.
“We changed the shape after we went two goals down and we looked more comfortable but it’s not an excuse.”
The defeat was a huge blow to Solskjaer, who will again be under pressure to keep his job, but several football pundits believe he should take the blame.
Tim Sherwood on Sky Sports Soccer Special said: “What went wrong? Team selection in my opinion. When he made changes and went to a back four and threw on more creative players like Van de Beek, got bodies forward, they showed Leipzig up for what they are really.
“The defence was too narrow. They were being exploited by the diagonal pass every time. The third was the killer goal. Why didn’t De Gea come and smother it?
“Credit to them, they kept pushing. And Pogba really did change it. You’re thinking it’s on. Ole will look and learn. For me, get your most attacking, creative players on the pitch.”
Sky Sports’ Paul Merson on Soccer Special added: “This is Manchester United. They need to be in the Champions League, not Thursday night football. That result tonight didn’t show well for Solskjaer.
“If Leipzig had won 3-0 you would have come away and said ‘Leipzig are the better team, they played better’. But when he changed it around, it came back to 3-2 and could have easily been 3-3. That just shows you that he got it horribly, horribly wrong at the start of the game.”
