Manchester United’s Tuesday evening was an absolute shocker.
Playing like a team without urgency or direction, Jose Mourinho’s team were so bad they made a Sevilla team, which isn’t one of their best in recent years, fill with confidence and snatch a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford.
Mourinho’s tactics failed to work over the two legs and whilst some will accept being bored to tears if they can cheer a victory at the end, questions get more serious when embarrassing football is matched by an embarrassing defeat.
There’s some shock around Europe at how bad Manchester United were, and further shock at Mourinho’s comments about this being nothing new for the club, because he’s inflicted it upon them before.
Player ratings were never going to be pretty, and it’s a mixed bag.
L’Equipe say ‘Mourinho had everything wrong’ and give the manager 2/10 for his own performance. Alexis Sanchez didn’t do much better with 3/10, and five of his teammates got 4/10.
The French newspaper say Sanchez has been ‘swept away by the ambient mediocrity’ at Old Trafford, and they label Mourinho’s post-match comments ‘astonishing’.
Perhaps even worse for Manchester United, L’Equipe don’t even think Sevilla were good collectively.
Marca judge on a star system, with 5 players for the home team and the manager all failing to even get a single mark.
Only Eric Bailly and Jesse Lingard are judged worthy of two stars, and it’s called a ‘historic’ night for Sevilla, who come out much better in the ratings.
Mundo Deportivo hand out a raft of one stars to the team and manager, with only Lingard, Marcus Rashford and Romelu Lukaku managing to get two.
The Catalan newspaper say the lowest point of the match was Mourinho’s approach being so poor it was even booed by his own supporters.
Sport are slightly kinder, giving out a raft of 4/10s, even managing a strange 6/10 for David De Gea, but reserve a 2/10 for Sanchez.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mourinho’s brand of football was much better received in Italy, with Gazzetta dello Sport giving no Manchester United player less than 5/10.
Corriere dello Sport did the same (see above) and even rated Mourinho 5/10.
Maybe a return to Inter Milan could be on the cards.
Bild don’t rate the players, but believe ‘Mourinho mocked Man United’ with his post-match comments.
