Marouane Fellaini struck a goal in the stoppage time against Young Boys to get Manchester United through to the knockout stages of the Champions League. With Juventus beating Valencia, Mourinho knew that a victory would get his side to the next round. And now that qualification is secured, he will have no pressure to face Valencia at Mestalla in their next Champions League fixture.
The Portuguese manager was ecstatic when Fellaini scored the winning goal in the stoppage time. The 55-year-old boss’ reaction was something to behold as he threw a crate of bottles to the ground.
Arrive.
Raise hell.
Leave.Mourinho 3:16 pic.twitter.com/6KoQosEUfm
— International Champions Cup (@IntChampionsCup) November 28, 2018
After the draw against Crystal Palace, six changes were to the squad that faced the Eagles which saw Alexis Sanchez entirely dropped while Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku were both on the bench (though the pair were brought into the games at half time). The likes of Marcus Rashford, Fred, Marouane Fellaini, Luke Shaw, Phil Jones, and Antonio Valencia were featured for this Champions League fixture.
Despite the victory, the performance of Manchester United was certainly not commendable. The Red Devils couldn’t get a goal in 90 minutes against a team who haven’t won a European away game since 2014. Even Paul Scholes criticized the team’s performance afterward as he said in BT Sport via the Evening Standard:
“I thought they were awful tonight.
“I thought they were terrible, second half especially.
“I think if they play against a half decent team there, they get beat tonight.
“They huffed and puffed and the quality was really lacking in every area of the pitch.
“I feel really sorry for Young Boys, I thought they were excellent second half and if they had a little bit of quality about them, they win that game.”
Manchester United made many goalscoring attempts but the lack of quality denied them any goals. Just five minutes into the game, Marcus Rashford had the brilliant opportunity to get a goal for his team. He only had the goalkeeper to beat but he shot the ball over the crossbar to miss the superb chance. Mourinho on the sidelines was shaking his head on this missed opportunity which could have served as a perfect platform for the team to build on. More chances came along the way, but United failed to utilize any of them.
And when the match was heading towards a certain draw, Fellaini came up with a late goal by shooting the ball into the far corner after collecting Lukaku’s flick. With this victory, United qualified for the second round of the Champions League. Hopefully, this victory serves to get their form back and they perform well against Southampton in their next Premier League match at St. Mary’s Stadium.