Man Utd: Pundit reveals Romero’s ‘mistake’ against Club Brugge
Manchester United veteran Juan Mata felt Anthony Martial deserved praise for his performance on Thursday night, as the Red Devils mounted a comeback to draw 1-1 against Club Brugge in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 match. United were behind after just 15 minutes when a long ball found Brugge striker Emmanuel Dennis, who then proceeded to cooly lob United keeper, Sergio Romero, who found himself in no-man's land.
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And while United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer felt it wasn’t a game to remember, he praised his players for battling the conditions and a difficult opponent.
"I don't think it was one of the best games anyone's seen," Solskjaer said.
"It was a difficult game against a well-organised team in difficult conditions.
"We got an away goal, we got a draw. We go home next week so hopefully we can finish the job."
The Norweigan's sentiment was echoed by Mata, who admitted that while they wanted to leave Belgium with a win, they found it difficult to break down an organised team in the final third.
Man Utd news: Anthony Martial managed to level to score with a piece of individual brilliance (Image: GETTY)
“Obviously we wanted to win and I think in the second half we pressed better and played more time in their half,” Mata added.
“We had chances to maybe score the second. But they started well, they’re a team that play good with the ball and defend very compact without the ball, they put a lot of bodies in the back. And we couldn’t find the spaces in the first half.
“They scored a goal we shouldn’t concede. We scored a goal from their mistake. So we wanted to win, obviously 1-1 is not a very bad result, but we always want to win.
“We just couldn’t find spaces, they defended very well with five plus four.
“We tried to play a few times through the middle, which we didn’t succeed to do that. Then we scored that goal and from then we played a bit better.
“We had a chance with Brandon, we had a post with Anthony. In the second half we played much better than the first, controlled more of the game. We had some chances or half chances to score the second goal.”