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Player Ratings: AC Milan 0-1 Manchester United

Pogba was immense off the bench, and the centerbacks stood out as well

AC Milan v Manchester United - UEFA Europa League Round Of 16 Leg Two Photo by Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images

Player ratings from a tale of two halves — Manchester United’s second leg Europa League round of 16 win over AC Milan.

Starters

Dean Henderson: 8/10

Made the big save when needed. Brought a very commanding presence to the box.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka: 6/10

Kept the right side quiet as we’d expect him to do.

Victor Lindelöf: 10/10

One of the best games he’s ever played in a red zebra shirt. His reading of the game was phenomenal. Was all over the place to thwart any Milan attack.

Harry Maguire: 9/10

Has quietly been on a fantastic run of form as of late.

Luke Shaw: 6/10

United’s most creative player in the first half, which is almost what you come to expect these days. The problem was he wasn’t that good.

Fred: 3/10 (first half) 6/10 (second half)

First half he couldn’t string a pass together to save his life. Offered no urgency on the ball and everything was very static. Second half he was much better as he found himself having a lot more space. I wonder what changed? Hilariously missed one or two should-have-been tap ins in the melee right before the goal. Dude just can’t buy a goal.

Scott McTominay: 3/10 (first half) 7/10 (second half)

First half. Awful first touch, awful passing. Had a sequence where he dribbled through two or three players only to take an extremely heavy touch and lose the ball. Him and Fred are the engine room and they weren’t driving United forward at all. Second half much better as he too had more space. Great dribble in added time to run out the clock.

Bruno Fernandes: 3/10

Gets an extra point because it’s not his fault he’s completely exhausted. He all of a sudden woke up and started playing when Pogba came on... for about 10 minutes. Then his exhaustion overtook him again. But overall he was awful.

Mason Greenwood: 6/10

Was pretty hard to get into the game considering the midfielders couldn’t pass, Bruno was having an off day, Marcus Rashford was a corpse, and his right winger had no touch. So when you factor all that in, he actually did pretty well!

Marcus Rashford: 2/10

He was basically Weekend at Bernie’s out there. The dude is clearly injured and was barely moving on the pitch. Wasn’t making runs in behind — understandable given he’s hurt and the midfielders wouldn’t make that pass anyway. Too often he dropped deep into midfield restricting everyone else’s space. Obviously he’s clearly injured and shouldn’t have even been on the pitch to begin with but some of that is on him considering we know he’s always going to the boss and telling him ‘he’s fine’ and he’s fit to play.

Dan James: 1/10 (on the ball) 8/10 (off the ball)

On the ball James was bad. So so bad. He messed up that 2v1 with Greenwood that really looked pretty simple. Off the ball though he put in his usual shift. He was United’s best presser and was all over the pitch. Pretty good attributes considering he’s ‘off the ball’ for about 99.5% of the match.

Substitutes

Paul Pogba: 10/10

We’ve seen Pogba make big impacts in a match before but I don’t think he’s ever made this big an impact. It took him just three minutes to score (not a surprise, he almost always scores when he wears the zebra kit) and then he did everything else. He was immense defensively. He was bodying players off the ball in midfield. He was pressing high. He was everywhere and apparently he’s not even fit yet!

Manager

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: 7/10

Did what he had to do and didn’t overcomplicate things. Didn’t have much choice for the starting XI given injuries. You can argue Rashford shouldn’t have been playing but the alternative was probably Alex Telles as Solskjaer clearly doesn’t see Amad being fully ready yet. Didn’t hesitate to make a change at halftime when it was clearly needed and it paid dividends right away. Didn’t really have any options late in the match as James is the best defensive winger and he didn’t want a repeat of last week where he brought on too many defenders and saw the lead slip away. At the end of the day, the team went through.

Now if only he could accidentally give Bruno a slight kick in the ankle that, you know, jussst injures him enough that he’s gotta withdraw from the Portugal side.