UEFA U19s: Shakhtar vs. United

THERE IT IS. Wilson, of course. Great run onto a lovely cross from Pereira and the keeper has no chance of saving his thumping header.
 
Harrop has been very good since coming on. Pereira has finally started playing the last few minutes with a couple of great balls into the box
 
Bit harsh on Pereira there. I do like to see him going for those biting tackles, he's got a real talent for them considering he's such a flair attacking player.
 
2-1 Shakhtar. Their subs changed the game and United's been unable to get possession since then.
 
feck it. That cnut with the hair, too. Makes it twice as annoying.
 
could have done better defensively there, gave them a bit too much time when standing off.
 
Hmm, shame about the result but it's the performance which really matters at this level and you have to say we were generally excellent in the second half, and comfortably the better team. Unlucky not to win this one, let alone hold onto that draw.
 
So unnecessary. We would have beaten this - relatively speaking - mediocre side 9 times out of 10. Now we need to make up for it in Leverkusen or against a seemingly brilliant Sociedad side.
 
Very good second half from united but some very naive play and positioning at times although that's not unexpected given how many players were playing out of position. The young lads will learn a lot from this
 
Disappointing result but good performance especially in 2nd half. This is all about performance at this level and identifying those who can make the cut, but a point here would have been vital to progress to knockouts where team can be tested against even better teams. Sociedad look a good u19 team with 2 wins out of 2, so we will have to do well to get 3-4 points out of the double header against them.
 
The Man Himself said:
Disappointing result but good performance especially in 2nd half. This is all about performance at this level and identifying those who can make the cut, but a point here would have been vital to progress to knockouts where team can be tested against even better teams. Sociedad look a good u19 team with 2 wins out of 2, so we will have to do well to get 3-4 points out of the double header against them.
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Yup!
Very good character shown there. A lot not coming off individualy, but kept at it, and turned the game round. Shame about the result.
 
UEFA Youth League, Group A
Olimpiyskiy Stadium
SHAKHTAR DONETSK 2
(Zinchenko 3, Bezuglyy 87)

MANCHESTER UNITED 1
(Wilson 76)
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02/10/2013 14:38, Report by Adam Marshall
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U19: Shakhtar 2 United 1

United were denied a point that their second half display clearly merited during a 2-1 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in the new UEFA Youth League.

Olexandr Zinchenko's early strike was cancelled out by James Wilson's header, his third goal in two games in the competition, but Mykyta Bezuglyy hit a late winner to break the visitors' hearts.

The Reds struggled to make much headway against well-organised opposition in the first half but were unlucky to fall behind in the third minute. Skipper Zinchenko's free-kick from the right appeared to deflect in off Callum Evans to hand the hosts a perfect start.

Pierluigi Gollini was forced to make an outstanding save to thwart Mykyta Adamenko and Nicholas Ioannou cleared off the line from the resulting corner as Nicky Butt's side fought to keep the deficit to a single goal.

Although James Wilson was just unable to get his head to an Evans centre, there were few scares for Donetsk and Denys Arendaruk spurned a chance to add a second before the break. But United improved markedly in the second half and started to show their true selves.

Joe Rothwell skied over and Ben Pearson's cracking effort from distance flew just wide. James Weir was next to try his luck but failed to provide a finish after collecting Pearson's neat pass. After Andreas Pereira had a free-kick beaten out by Bogdan Sarnavskiy, Butt replaced defender Evans with striker Ashley Fletcher.
Wilson benefited from having another forward alongside him and met Andreas Pereira's cross with a firm close-range header to level the scores with 14 minutes remaining.

However, back came the home side and Pearson had to make a good block when Gollini pushed away a cross before Shakhtar were rewarded for some pressure when Ioannou's backheel led to problems in the defence and Bezuglyy found the bottom corner after Gollini had initially saved well.

There will still be plenty of positives for Butt to take from the game, particularly with the dominant second-half display on foreign territory.

United: Gollini; Evans (Fletcher 63), Grimshaw, Ioannou, Goss; Weir, Rothwell, Pearson, Pereira, Byrne (Harrop 14); Wilson. Subs not used: Henderson, Rowley, McConnell, Willock, Barber.
 
A moment of madness, that sometimes happens to the best of players cost us the game. I'm sure the first message given to defenders will be stuck to his bedroom wall tonight... "If in doubt get it out!" Ioannou had had an excellent game up to that moment, and had gone a long way to wiping the memory of his slip for the second Bayer goal a couple of weeks back out of the mind of us all. That back heel was simply crazy and he'll know it.

At times our passing was a little off, but the conditions weren't great again either. Once we figured out that going down the wings instead of the channels was our best form of attack we dominated the game some what. The display was somewhat reminiscent of many a European away game for the first team, which I'm sure they'll learn from hopefully. We cruelly took the points of Bayer late in the game last time and we let at least a point slip ourselves late this time.

Performance wise though it was probably better than against Bayer, it showed they'd learned from that game and played a far more European game plan and didn't want to rush to much. We didn't deserve to lose that's for sure, but we did and we move on and hopefully they learn as they did after the first game. We do need to try and stop collecting bookings though, we don't want to many suspensions if we get past the group stages.
 
I think if anything you're being a little harsh. I didn't catch the first half but in the second half we put in a very good performance on almost all fronts, marred only by a silly defensive mistake. The passing was good and we attacked well centrally and from wide areas.

Perhaps when you average out the two halves we weren't brilliant, but for me it was more a case of a second half in line with what we expect from these players, making up for a slow start to the game.
 
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