Manchester United were dreadful on Thursday night as they lost 2-1 to Fenerbahce. Everything that could be wrong was wrong, and Jose Mourinho didn’t seem in the mood to change his approach and formation despite it obviously not working.
Towards the end of the match the Fenerbache fans did the Iceland clap, which was appropriate given that Manchester United performed on a level similar to England’s Euro 2016 exit.
Wayne Rooney made things look more reasonable with a wonderful strike, but in all honesty Fenerbahce probably should have scored more.
The Turkish newspapers weren’t impressed with Manchester United. Fenerbahce aren’t having a good season, as they displayed at Old Trafford, so the result was certainly a surprise.
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet rated Manchester United’s players out of 5, and Morgan Schneiderlin, Ander Herrera, Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan all got a 1.
Jose Mourinho was rated 2 out of 5, and maybe the manager was fortunate to get that much.
Sabah newspaper was much kinder, handing out marks ranging from four to six to the Manchester United players, whilst Fenerbahce’s got 6 and 7, which would partly show that the Turkish side didn’t really need to play that well to push past their Premier League opponents.
Milliyet have a huge double page spread on Fenerbahce’s victory and the controversies within the game, some of it focusing on Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
They also rate the players, with Henrik Mkhitaryan the standout bad performer for them, getting 3 out of 10. That seems rather harsh, other players were worse for a much longer period of time, perhaps the Turkish media aren’t fond of their Armenian neighbours.
Vatan newspaper were much kinder with their marks, oddly so.
Several Manchester United players got a 7 and captain Wayne Rooney was awarded an eight. Rooney was one of his team’s better performers on the night, which wasn’t hard, but an eight is laughable, unless they’re just judging his goal.
Perhaps Vatan gave Manchester United players high marks so they could give even higher ones to Fenerbahce, with eights and nines being handed out, and Sunderland reject Jeremain Lens somehow managing to bag himself a 10 of ten.
Haber Turk seem to have put the most thought into proceedings, and their ratings are more varied, although Manchester United fans may be annoyed that Marcus Rashford was rated as the worst player on the pitch and given just 3 out of ten.
Luke Shaw got just a 4, and like several other Turkish newspapers, Haber Turk thought skipper Rooney was the best of a bad Manchester United bunch and gave him a reasonable 7.
The marks vary around Turkey, and with the exception of one newspaper inflating Manchester United’s marks so they could further praise Fenerbahce, it’s pretty clear the Turkish consensus is Jose Mourinho’s men were poor.
