UK Edition
Manchester United given grounds for encouragement but Real Madrid defeat underlined enduring concerns
United are still several players short
The good news for Jose Mourinho and Manchester United is that, domestically at least, they will not face a side as good as Real Madrid all season. The Premier League title race may well turn into a congested scramble but none of this country’s leading lights compare to a team that have won three of the past four European Cups on offer and who ooze strength, quality and character in every position on the pitch.
But what Real’s 2-1 victory in the European Super Cup on Wednesday night reaffirmed, not least for the first hour of a match when the gulf in class was abundantly clear, is that United still need at least a few more players.
For a club that has spent £640 million on 22 senior players since Sir Alex Ferguson retired at the end of the 2012/13 season, that must frustrate plenty of supporters who have seen money wasted on signings that were not up to scratch.
Though while Mourinho has been public about United’s need for a first rate winger - in effect, a player of Gareth Bale’s gifts - to sharpen his attack, he still needs a top class left-back and another pedigree centre-half. Similarly, if Antonio Valencia got injured, there would be serious problems at right-back.
Baptism of fire for Lindelof
It cannot be easy lining up against one of Europe’s most formidable attacks with Chris Smalling and Matteo Darmian as your defensive partners in a three-man back line that had a decidedly underwhelming look to it but Victor Lindelof found the going very tough in Skopje on Tuesday evening.
There are plenty of defenders who need time to find their feet at Old Trafford – United fans need only point to Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra’s first six months at the club to know first impressions can be very misleading – and that would appear to apply to Lindelof after a difficult pre-season following his £30.7 million move from Benfica.
Casemiro may have been a fraction offside for Real’s first goal but, as Paul Scholes argued from his pundit’s chair for BT Sport, the Swede did not exactly seem to know where his opponent was.
“Lindelof has to be looking, he has to be more aware,” the former United midfielder said.
Similarly for Real’s second goal, as good as Isco and Bale are, Lindelof was guilty of ball watching and looked very flat-footed, even if there were others just as, if not more culpable.
Lindelof is good on the ball and will benefit from playing alongside Eric Bailly, whose suspension against Real served only to highlight how crucial he will be to United’s prospects this season, but the early signs are that Lindelof is not the most mobile of defenders and, if that proves the case, it will be imperative his positioning and reading of the game are to a high standard.
United must be more ruthless
Casemiro’s finish bore all the predatory instincts of a striker, not a defensive midfielder, while few doubted Isco would score as he breezed through United’s defence for Real’s second. Indeed, the biggest shock was that Bale found the crossbar rather than the net when presented with a glorious chance to extend Real’s lead. The European champions, though, were 2-0 up by that point and cruising.
Contrast that ruthlessness to the misses in quick succession by Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku before Lukaku did pull a goal back and then Marcus Rashford, who spurned a golden opportunity to unexpectedly draw United level.
Wastefulness in front of goal was United’s enduring failure last season and if they do not start to demonstrate more cutting edge in attack they cannot expect to realistically challenge for the Premier League title, let alone Champions League honours.
In that respect, there was something pleasing about the sight of Lukaku being the first to pounce when Keylor Navas spilled Nemanja Matic’s shot. That was the hallmark of a classic poacher – someone in the right place at the right time. United will need a lot more of that from Lukaku unless others step up and ease the burden.
Grounds for encouragement
It might have got ugly for United had Bale not missed that excellent chance to put Real 3-0 up on the hour mark but Mourinho will take encouragement from his players’ reaction once Lukaku scored. Real did seem to be winding down in the closing stages but there was much more urgency, purpose and conviction to United’s football in the final 25 minutes.
Rashford offered more pace and penetration on the left flank, Henrikh Mkhitaryan came back into the game and teed up the England striker with a lovely through-ball that demanded to be finished and Matic, who had forced the goal, looked especially solid on his competitive debut, which is all the more impressive for a player who has barely had a pre-season.
Matic’s arrival should be key to enabling Mourinho to get the best out of Pogba and Mkhitaryan, and one swift counter-attack early on in the game offered a glimpse of where United may hope to hurt opponents this season.
Pogba, ultimately, made the wrong decision by electing to shoot instead of playing in Mkhitaryan, who was screaming for the ball, but United do have players capable of playing on the break.
One department where United are superior
Watching Navas in goal in Skopje, it is not hard to understand why Real covet David De Gea.
Whereas De Gea oozes authority, Navas cuts an unconventional figure and looks like the sort of goalkeeper who always has a mistake in him. Had De Gea, not Navas, been on the end of Matic’s second half shot, for example, it is doubtful the ball would have spilled to Lukaku to score. Navas cannot be doing too badly, of course. The Costa Rican has just won back-to-back European Cups but it must help enormously having a defence and midfield of that quality in front of him, let alone a free-scoring attack who take so much pressure off the back four.
Indeed, had De Gea joined Real in 2015 and Navas come the other way as Louis van Gaal planned, who knows how much worse United might have fared.
De Gea was named United’s player of the year for a third successive season in Van Gaal’s final campaign in charge when he routinely spared his team-mates more embarrassment. Just as so many of Real’s outfield players are a cut above United’s own, so De Gea is a vastly superior goalkeeper to Navas.