Man Utd 1 Everton 1: Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores injury-time penalty to rescue disappointing draw
Jose Mourinho was talking in the most derogatory terms about Luke Shaw on Saturday. On Saturday he had the left back to thank for helping to rescue a point for Manchester United.
With the game entering the final minute of stoppage time, Shaw found himself unmarked in the penalty area and unleashed a shot. Ashley Williams stuck out a hand to save the ball and Robert Madley, the referee, duly pointed to the spot and showed the Everton defender a red card.
Up stepped Zlatan Ibrahimovic to score the penalty and, from the clutches of defeat, came a draw. It was not what United needed going into this game but, in the circumstances, they would take it.
Make that nine draws at Old Trafford this season and 21 points dropped. If the Europa League was not already looking United’s best route into next season’s Champions League, it is now.
As good as Zlatan Ibrahimovic is, it comes to something when a 35-year-old is dictating the terms to United, asking, as the Swede was in the build-up to this match with the club’s official television no less, if they could match his ambition.
Ibrahimovic wants to know that he won’t be “wasting time” by hanging around and seemed to be challenging United to make a statement in the transfer market.
There has been progress at Old Trafford this term but it has been harder to spot in recent weeks when the football has slowed, momentum dropped and results suffered and, like against West Bromwich Albion here on Saturday, there was a whiff in the first half against Everton of the static, pedestrian team that mostly bored supporters witless during the Louis van Gaal era.
The crowd was certainly jumpy, their agitation growing after Everton took the lead midway through the opening period when Marcos Rojo and David De Gea conspired to make a hash of things.
Kevin Mirallas’s out-swinging corner was headed to the far post by Ashley Williams. Rojo was caught in two minds and Phil Jagielka capitalised on the United defender’s hesitation to hook the ball through the legs of David De Gea, whose concentration had lapsed.
Jose Mourinho had rung the changes in a bid to force a reaction after West Brom, with Ibrahimovic and Ander Herrera returning from suspension and Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, two players who had incurred the manager’s wrath after the weekend’s goalless draw, dropped to the substitutes’ bench.
But it was hard to discern United’s game plan. Too often there was no support in attack and the absence of a quicksilver predator was exposed five minutes before the interval when a fine ball from Ashley Young went careering across the six-yard box untouched.
Everton looked comfortable for the most part and, when opportunity did knock for United, the chances – surprise, surprise – were spurned. Herrera, who also had a drive pushed aside, crashed the ball against the crossbar on the rebound from Daley Blind’s saved free-kick and Ibrahimovic was guilty of taking a touch too many before then to give Williams time to block his shot.
In a desperate search for some drive and impetus, Daley Blind was hooked at half-time and Paul Pogba, available again after 2½ weeks out with a hamstring injury, summoned.
Within 10 minutes of the restart, the Frenchman had been reacquainted with that familiar obstacle – the woodwork. Young whipped over a free-kick after Gareth Barry had poleaxed Marcus Rashford and Pogha headed against the crossbar, the eighth time this term he has been denied by the woodwork.
With Pogba in the middle and no Antonio Valencia, rested here, Herrera was shunted to right back and Young moved to the left.
It was unorthodox but Mourinho needed some spark, any spark. Tempers threatened to flare but, beneath the surface, Everton continued to keep their cool.
This was a far cry from their performance in the 3-1 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield three days earlier, their doggedness and discipline epitomised by Williams and Jagielka as well as Mason Holgate, who barely gave Rashford an inch on Everton’s right.
By the 65th minute, Mourinho had even resorted to introducing Luke Shaw, which marked quite the turnaround from Saturday when he questioned the defender’s focus, commitment and ambition and claimed he was a “long way behind” his rival left backs. Shaw’s first touch was good, it was just the feeble cross that followed that pointed to his ring rust.
United thought they had drawn level 19 minutes from time. Herrera, looking very much at home and United’s best performer on the night, stood up a cross. Ibrahimovic attacked it and Joel Robles, despite getting a hand to the ball, could not keep out the header but the United striker was wrongly ruled offside.
Source:telegraph.co.uk
