So close, and yet so far
Cristiano Ronaldo was chased by a pitch invader after Manchester United’s dramatic victory over Atalanta on Wednesday night.
The Portuguese once again stole the headlines with a trademark late header to secure three crucial points for United and take some of the pressure off Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after a poor run of results.
United had gone 2-0 down in the first half but fought back in the second and eventually their quality shone through, with goals coming from Marcus Rashford, Maguire, and with just 10 minutes to spare, Ronaldo.
United fans were understandably buzzing after full time, and one fan inevitably let that feeling spill over as he ran onto the pitch in an attempt to get close to his hero. Well, let’s assume it was a fan and not a disgruntled rival attempting some sort of attack.
Footage showed the fan got close enough to get a hand on Ronaldo’s jersey, before he was tackled to the ground by numerous stewards.
As shown below, Ronaldo laughed the incident off, so accustomed to this sort of thing happening on a regular basis.
The game itself was the perfect demonstration of United’s flaws and their strengths.
A lacklustre first half exposed their lack of structure in midfield, effectively playing a 4-2-4 and leaving Fred and Scott McTominay to do too much running against a well coached Atalanta side. But their fighting spirit and dazzling quality in attack bailed them out in the second.
Will they get away with the same performance on Sunday against Liverpool? Paul Scholes doesn’t think so.
