It all started at the top with Manager Jose Mourinho, who spent a good deal of the press availabilities leading up to the match talking about how this tournament was not the one that MUFC wanted.
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While Feyenoord basked in the warm glow of a memorable win and two former Liverpool players, Brad Jones and Dirk Kuyt, celebrated as hard as anyone while “You’ll Never Walk Alone” reverberated around the ground, Mourinho trudged to the tunnel, pausing only to hold a hand out to the 1,200 United fans who had made the trip to Rotterdam, nearly in apology at the limp nature of his team’s performance.
Keane said: “We’ve seen City have good starts before and they take their foot off the gas a little bit, but I don’t think it will happen under this guy”. “We were double unlucky because it’s a clear offside”.
Arguably the game of the night involved another Israeli outfit as Maccabi Tel Aviv led Zenit St Petersburg 3-0 with 13 minutes left in Group D only to lose 4-3 as the Russians scored a 91st-minute victor.
The hosts had appeared to be on easy street as two goals by Haris Medunjanin either side of a Vidar Orn Kjartansson header had them 3-0 in front.
Zenit capitalized nearly immediately when substitute Mauricio scored, then two minutes later Giuliano equalized.
Another Israeli team. Another shock.
Jose Mourinho’s appointment and some marquee signings helped bring a feelgood factor back to Old Trafford after the prosaic reign of Louis van Gaal.
Few of the Red Devils did themselves justice with Paul Pogba largely anonymous and Anthony Martial shooting wide in the only chance of an insipid first-half. Charlie Austin tucked away the spot-kick after just five minutes and then the striker headed in from a delicious outside-of-the boot cross from Cuco Martina to give the Saints a 2-0 half-time lead.
“It’s a tough loss”, defender Andrea Ranocchia said.
“We make sure that we stand up and be counted on Sunday because we’ve got a big result to get”.
Qarabag kicked off, Sykora ran onto a loose ball in open space, and slotted a low shot past goalkeeper Ibrahim Sehic from the edge of the penalty area.
The performance of the night came in the other game in the group as former UEFA Cup winners Zenit St Petersburg stormed back from three goals down with less than a quarter of an hour remaining to beat Maccabi Tel-Aviv 4-3 in Israel. Ajax midfielder Hakim Ziyech, making his European debut for the Amsterdam club, got his marching orders in the 79th.
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“I am here not to let them be in a negative mood or in a negative because we lost two matches in four days”.
