Manchester United 5 Leicester City 2: We must be mad
3000 brave, or mad, Leicester City fans who trudged up to Old Trafford for the Carabao Cup tie. A lot of these fans will be making the trip again in a couple of weeks for the league game. Were they rewarded for their efforts? Becky Taylor was one of them reporting back.
Manchester United away in the round of 16 of Carabao Cup would have once been a pretty exciting thing, yet now, I saw not one Leicester fan excited at the prospect.
The sensible fans chose to sit this one out, especially with the horrendous matchday pricing of £42-48 per ticket United had thrown at us. Yet somehow, there were still 3000 or so daft enough to make the perilous midweek trip up the M6.
Ignoring the inevitable traffic, the 'fun' really started when the team sheets were announced. 9 personnel changes for us with only 4 for United, the scene was set for a Halloween horror show.
Notable absentees were Edouard and Ricky P, you have to assume Cooper just doesn't fancy either of them if they can't get in to an almost all-changed XI. JJ horrendously out of form and in need of a rest and Ayew usually featuring as one of the wide forwards taking the number 9 role, it looks bleak for both.
The Leicester fans were in decent voice considering the mutual lack of hope for a result. On the pitch we started ok too, Ayew was strong in the corner to win a ball he never should have and we had a couple of good passing sequences resulting in us having the first shot on target! Maybe there was some hope?
Immediately Casemiro burst that bubble, picking up this week's Benteke trophy, (player who hasn't scored or done much in a long time who pops up to score against Leicester) with an absolute rocket.
As soon as the ball rolled out to him you just knew it was hitting the back of the net, unfortunately I had a perfect view of it clipping the underside of the bar and flying into the top corner. I suppose it's easier to hit them when you have Soumare not move in any way to try and close you down.
It was soon 2-0 with a goal from Garnacho, Dalot looked miles offside when running through but the flag stayed down and it was an easy one to finish. Cooper complained so much about that decision that he's earned himself a touchline ban for Ipswich away, some might say that's positive news?
El Khannouss was probably our stand out player on the night, and he got us back into it with a lovely goal after the keeper flapped it out to him. A real sweet hit that took us a while to be sure it was in from the other end with it hitting both posts.
We played a lovely bit of one touch passing but couldn't quite make something of it. In the thick of that passage was Soumare, who was good on the ball all game, but his lack of mobility also left us overrun in midfield all night too.
The first half was just pure carnage and comical at times (if you don't laugh, you'll cry vibes), just as we'd thought we were back in it we let United score 2 more in 4 minutes to make it 4-1.
This game smashed the record of messages I've received saying 'have you left yet?' and that was before half time!
The chaos continued as we pulled another back through Coady, a tap in off Dalot from a decent ball in from Thomas. The guy behind us kept reiterating 4-2 as his prediction, not sure he meant the half-time score though.
No substitutions at the break was an interesting decision, the team was crying out for some changes. Despite that we actually looked pretty threatening early in the second half, if a goal had come I think another would have followed.
It was almost attack Vs defence at times as United didn't need to push, but we went for another brain fart moment to finish ourselves off. Okoli selling Danny Ward short with a back pass, Ward rooted to his spot as Fernandes strolled past to make it 5.
You wouldn't have known United had scored 5 if you were in the ground, it was one of the quietest home atmospheres I've heard in a long time.
The final half hour was pretty irrelevant after that. JJ was getting loads of space down the right hand side but lacked quality, if only we had a RB with quality who is good going forwards to exploit that...
Shout out to Bobby Decordova-Reid who repeated his antics of Southampton by wildly lashing at a shot for it to go so far wide it ended up a pass to the opposite wing. A 3 year deal for this guy seems some terrible business, even on our standards.
Finally the substitutions were made with 20 minutes to go, 5 of them! Will Alves getting some minutes made that something to get excited about, he looked comfortable and made some good little touches, fingers crossed we can see some more of him this season.
Almost every player played pretty well individually, but in their units and as a whole team, it was just painfully easy to create and score chances against us again. Defensively we are a complete shambles, hopefully we got all the conceding out for the week so we can be solid versus Ipswich.
It was made a night to remember by 2 things; Marcus Rashford not scoring his obligatory goal against us and for missing the M6 traffic and getting home for just after midnight, take the small wins where you can!
