Wayne Rooney’s wayward touch works wonders for Manchester United

Manchester United 1 FC Zorya Luhansk 0

Wayne Rooney came on as a second half substitute and helped Manchester United break down a stubborn Ukrainian defence with his first touch of the ball. Those are the bald facts though they do not quite tell the story.

Rooney’s first touch was actually a terrible one, presented with an opportunity from close to the penalty spot by Timothy Fosu-Mensah’s cut back from the right, he stabbed his shot into the ground and managed to miss the target, yet succeeded in surprising the Zorya defence as well as the Old Trafford crowd. With the goalkeeper off balance and behind his own line Zlatan Ibrahimovic had the presence of mind to nod the loose ball inside the post rather than allowing it to pass outside, and United had a pressure-relieving goal they barely deserved.

This was not the prettiest of wins after the confidence boosting goals at the weekend but United can now claim, and José Mourinho certainly will, to have answered their three-match losing run with three successive victories.

Mourinho was as good as his word when it came to selecting a team strong enough to win the match. He rested his goalkeeper and both full backs and again named Rooney on the bench, but apart from a start for Marouane Fellaini the front half of the side was the same as the one that won so handsomely against Leicester City.

That meant United had the pace on the flanks that Mourinho felt was so important, though with Zorya predictably packing men behind the ball from the outset the home side struggled to find sufficient space to use it.

Almost 20 minutes had passed by the time Jesse Lingard got the chance to run into an empty half, only to fail to find Marcus Rashford with his cross. Rashford did get a chance to open the scoring a couple of minutes later when a half-cleared corner came his way, but a well-struck shot from close range hit the underside of the bar and bounced down on the line without crossing it.

Mourinho is not supposed to be all that keen on this competition yet he is keenly aware United cannot afford to open it with two defeats, and he certainly seemed animated enough midway through the first half when his protests at a perceived dive by Ivan Petryak turned into a brief technical-area spat with opposing coach Yuriy Vernydub.

United were playing patiently and constructively enough but too often failing to find the right final pass, as seen when Rashford played Fosu-Mensah into space on the right for another cross that went straight to a defender.

Paul Pogba initially began with some promising passing from midfield, picking out Rashford on a couple of occasions and generally moving the ball around crisply, though towards the end of the first half there seemed some confusion over where he was meant to be playing. At times he found himself much further forward than Lingard, who kept having to drop deep in search of the ball.

For all that, a decent cross by Pogba five minutes from the interval might have led to an opening goal. Unfortunately it was Juan Mata on the end of it, not Rashford or Ibrahimovic, and his header flew too high.

That was the first of a flurry of chances right at the end of the first half from which United really should have taken the lead. Ibrahimovic teed up Lingard with a headed knockdown only to see the winger produce an air shot. Lingard did much better when Marcos Rojo crossed from the left but saw Rafael Forster fling himself in the way of a goalbound effort, then Ibrahimovic himself missed when scoring looked easier, failing to tap Mata's low cross over the line from a distance of a couple of feet.

Zorya will have felt a sense of achievement at reaching the interval without conceding, United only frustration at creating a succession of clear chances without managing to take any of them.

If goalkeeper Oleksii Shevchenko had been expecting a busy night at Old Trafford it did not quite work out that way. For all United’s possession and passing he did not have a save to make in the first half, and though the crowd remained supportive rather than restless it was all a little too reminiscent of the Louis van Gaal era for comfort.

Zorya were not exactly peppering Sergio Romero's goal either, though on their sporadic attacks they looked to have players capable of being effective on the break. Petryak in particular posed a threat, though when Oleksandr Karavaev sent over an inviting cross five minutes into the second half it was Zeljko Ljubenovic who tried to meet it with an acrobatic volley in the middle. It would have been a spectacular strike, and the United goal was unprotected, though Ljubenovic was unable to make a proper connection and a not-quite-full stadium breathed a sigh of relief.

Rooney began warming up on the sidelines shortly after that, to the evident approval of the home support. After Fellaini dispossessed Dmytro Grechyshkin with unusual neatness and precision Pogba almost played Lingard in with a slick through-ball, the goalkeeper just coming out in time to avert the danger. Minutes after that Romero had to make his first save of the evening, diving to his right to keep out a curling shot from substitute Paulinho.

When Rooney replaced Lingard for the final quarter he was given the warmest of welcomes, though by that stage the crowd was probably prepared to cheer anything. He played his part in breaking the deadlock in any event, even if it was not in quite the way he had intended.

(Guardian service)