Manchester United’s match against Real Madrid on Sunday evening started out excellently for a friendly but, inevitably, trailed off somewhat with both sides making an awful lot of changes.
The Madrid sport media are often kinder to Zinedine Zidane’s men than others, and it’s interesting to see what they’ve made of Manchester United. The love/hate Jose Mourinho situation also comes into play, with the Madrid media at one time swinging between love and hate, and now loving to hate the Portuguese coach.
Marca weighed on the side of Madrid with their player ratings for the match, but nobody on either side was singled out for an especially good or poor performance, it’s obviously hard to keep track when so many players enter the pitch over a 90 minute period in such conditions.
There’s the obligatory Jose dig, with Marca saying ‘each coach is true to his ideas’, with the Spanish newspaper explaining Zidane tried to used quality to control the game from midfield, whereas Mourinho was ‘more direct’.
Anthony Martial is rightly picked out for praise for his ‘extraordinary play’, and the move leading to the first goal will have left many Manchester United fans wondering why the club are so bothered about Ivan Perisic.
Over to AS, who have been slightly harsh on three Manchester United players and given them a – rating. AS work on a system of spade ratings, rather than 1-10, but – is still used to show something of a stinker.
The grading was given to Paul Pogba, Victor Lindelof, who gave away a penalty, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
