The Times - UK (2020-10-20)

66 2GM Tuesday October 20 2020 | the times

SportChampions League

It is the morning of March 7, 2019, and

Ed Woodward is chatting to an

acquaintance in Charles de Gaulle

airport as he waits to board his flight to

Boston.

A number of Manchester United fans,

still basking in the glory of their team’s

momentous victory over Paris Saint-

Germain the night before, approach

Woodward and ask him for a picture. He

gladly accepts and spends the next

couple of minutes chatting to the group.

He politely refuses to divulge whe-

ther Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the then

caretaker, will be appointed full-time

manager, but the conversation is

cordial, and why wouldn’t it be? After

all, they had just witnessed United

mount one of their greatest European

comebacks, winning 3-1 to progress to

the quarter-finals of the Champions

League, and they did it with a half-fit

squad. Ashley Young played on the

right wing and Solskjaer handed a

debut to a 17-year-old Mason Green-

wood off the bench as they searched for

an improbable winner — one they

found thanks to a 94th-minute penalty

from Marcus Rashford.

It felt like the start of a new dawn for

a club steeped in European success, but

19 months on, that sense of euphoria has

disappeared. One wonders how many

fingernails have been chewed and how

many hairlines have receded among

United fans since that night in Paris. It

has certainly been a rollercoaster ride of

emotions for the club’s supporters.

After Paris came a bruising run of

two wins in 12 which ended United’s

Champions League qualification

hopes. The first half of last season was

so poor that a handful of fans respond-

ed with an act of senseless vandalism on

Woodward’s house, but the signing of

Bruno Fernandes in February gave

hope. A third-placed finish raised spir-

its but the limp exits from the FA Cup

and Europa League left a bitter taste in

the mouth. A shoddy transfer window

and a poor start to this season has done

little to appease the fanbase.

Another improbable win in France

may just help kickstart United’s

campaign, but Solskjaer scuppered any

nostalgic suggestion that a return to the

scene of his biggest victory would

inspire him or his players.

“That’s history for us,” Solskjaer said.

“It’s in the past. It was a great game, but

it has no impact on this game.

“We’re a different team, they’re a

different team. It’s a different stage of

the competition and without fans it’s

going to be a different game. Last time,

when we got the first goal early on, that

impacted the crowd, so it’s a completely

new situation.”

Solskjaer seemed uneasy at times

during his media appearance yesterday,

perhaps because a number of technical

issues with the wifi prevented the

virtual press conference from running

smoothly.

The truth is that little is going right

for the Norwegian at the moment.

Saturday’s away win over Newcastle

United was impressive, but there has

been little reason for Solskjaer to be

cheerful of late.

He was let down by his superiors,

who failed to land his top transfer

targets such as Jadon Sancho and Jack

Grealish, and now he faces the prospect

of taking on last season’s Champions

League finalists without his best

finisher, Greenwood. To make matters

worse he has only two fit centre backs

available in Victor Lindelof and Axel

Tuanzebe. There is a chance that

Solskjaer will play Luke Shaw alongside

the pair in a three-man defence, which

Harry Maguire and Eric Bailly have

been ruled out of tonight’s Champions

League game against Paris Saint-

Germain.

Axel Tuanzebe, 22, who has not

played for ten months, and Victor

Lindelof, 26, are set to deputise against

the likes of Kylian Mbappé, Neymar

and Ángel Di María in the Parc des

Princes. Maguire, the United captain,

picked up a slight muscle injury on

Tuanzebe faces stiff test after Maguire injury

international duty while Bailly still has

a hamstring problem he suffered

playing for Ivory Coast a fortnight ago.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has selection

problems in attack too. The United

manager left Mason Greenwood out of

his squad even though he trained

yesterday, and Edinson Cavani is not fit

enough to take on his old club.

Solskjaer had left Greenwood, 19, out

of the squad for the win over Newcastle

United on Saturday but insisted that it

was for injury, not disciplinary, reasons.

Greenwood was sent home from the

England camp last month along with

Phil Foden after they brought two local

women into the team hotel.

Possible teams

PSG (4-3-3): K Navas — A Florenzi, Marquinhos,

P Kimpembe, L Kurzawa — I Gueye, A Herrera,

Rafinha — A Di María, Neymar, K Mbappé

Manchester United (3-4-1-2): D De Gea —

A Tuanzebe, V Lindelof, L Shaw — A Wan-Bissaka,

N Matic, P Pogba, A Telles — B Fernandes

— M Rashford A Martial.

Referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz (Sp).

Covid forces Uefa to cut prize money for five seasons

Prize money in European club

competitions will be cut for the next

five years because of the losses caused

by the Covid-19 pandemic (Martyn

Ziegler writes).

Uefa has told its 55 member

associations that £514 million has

been lost from the Champions League

and the Europa League last season

because of the reduction in TV and

sponsorship income. Ties were

reduced to one-leg quarter-finals and

semi-finals, with compensation paid

to broadcasters and sponsors for the

delays caused by the virus.

The cuts are to be shared over five

years rather than the expected three.

For English clubs in Europe, it will

mean their TV and prize money

falling by about 4 per cent over five

seasons. The loss reported by Uefa is

22 per cent of its total prize money

fund for the two competitions,

£2.31 billion, of which £1.85 billion goes

to clubs in the Champions League.

Manchester City were set to earn

about £88 million from the

Champions League, according to the

finance analyst Swiss Ramble, so their

earnings will drop to £84.5 million.

would give Alex Telles a chance to

make his debut as a left wing back.

Given that PSG have Neymar, Ángel

Di María and Kylian Mbappé in their

team, you would expect them to score

this evening, so Solskjaer needs

Anthony Martial and Rashford to fire.

“Super rapide,” was the verdict of

United’s attackers from Thomas

Tuchel, the PSG head coach. He is not

wrong, but they need service, of course.

They will get that from the excellent

Fernandes, who was named captain in

the absence of Harry Maguire last

night, but Paul Pogba also needs to

deliver if recalled from the bench.

Pogba, 27, could do nothing about the

fact that he came to Old Trafford with

a world-record £89 million price tag on

his back, but it is fair to say that he has

done very little to justify his fee since

joining four years ago.

Pogba has gone missing far too often

for United in big games and Solskjaer

needs his star midfielder to shine in his

hometown tonight. Ander Herrera,

who played alongside Pogba before

joining PSG last summer, knows the

Frenchman is capable of great things.

“He has got everything,” Herrera, 31,

said. “There is just no other like him.

Pogba can play one-on-one, box-to-

box, he can play low, high. He definitely

has it all. He has the talent to be one of

the best. If United are capable of

fighting for every trophy, he will be on

the Ballon d’Or list.”

Solskjaer hopes to

repeat his finest

win as a manager

Paul Hirst

What happened to the United team that shocked PSG?

David de Gea

Games played since: 58 (out of 79)

Eric

Bailly

16

Chris

Smalling

(left Aug 2019)

16

Victor

Lindelof

60

Luke

Shaw

45

Ashley

Young

(left Jan 2020)

16

Fred

60

Scott

McTominay

49

Andreas

Pereira

(left Oct 2020)

48

Romelu

Lukaku

(left Aug 2019)

8

Marcus

Rashford

61

Substitutes: Diogo Dalot 21; Mason

Greenwood 56; Tahith Chong 13

How Solskjaer has fared since

Most minutes since PSG

Win

39

Draw

18

Lose

22

Played

79

H Maguire

V Lindelof

D de Gea

M Rashford

Fred

A Wan-Bissaka

A Martial

L Shaw

S McTominay

N Matic

5,412

5,271

5,220

4,738

4,416

4,408

4,292

3,605

3,276

3,276

ce to

k.

Ángel

their

score

needs

o fire.

ct of

omas

s not

urse.

llent

in in

last

ds to

ut the

with

ag on

e has

since

raw

8

ose

2

12

71

20

8

Three key clashes that

could decide the match

season. His opposite

man, Wan-Bissaka, made

more tackles (129) than

any Premier League

defender last season

any Ligue 1 player last

season and he faces a

United defence that has

conceded 12 goals in

four league games this

1

Neymar v Aaron

Wan-Bissaka

Neymar both attempted

(160) and completed

(90) more dribbles than

PSG v

Man Utd

Champions League,

group H. Tonight, 8pm.

TV: Live on BT Sport 2

from 7pm.

Radio: BBC 5 live

Neymar

Paul Hirst