Friday 18 April 2025 00:38
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Manchester United recorded a famous 7-6 aggregate win over Lyon in our Europa League quarter-final meeting at Old Trafford, with five of those goals scored in extra-time.
It was a chaotic affair to say the least, with the Reds slipping from two goals ahead in normal time to two behind in extra-time, before Harry Maguire rose to meet Casemiro’s cross to seal the last-gasp winner.
Manuel Ugarte, Diogo Dalot, Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo all played their role with goals in earlier in the game, and that’s only to mention the men that made it onto the scoresheet.
But who stood out in the busiest of all crowded fields? Keep scrolling to find out…
Pipping his team-mates to the post in Thursday evening’s award was, of course, Maguire, scorer of the all-important goal to clinch our spot in the semi-final, with 39 per cent of the vote.
Ruben Amorim threw the defender up front for the final few minutes, making an impact that will rightly take the lion’s share of the attention, but, in truth, his contribution went much further than that.
Not only did he play a searching ball from deep to pick out Dalot for United’s second goal, he was also a rock at the back, throwing his body in harm’s way at various points to defend the Reds’ lines.
There is no doubting how crucial Maguire was to this miraculous comeback victory, and not only for his winner.
The centre-back wasn’t blinded by the emotional nature of the victory, however, noting there are still lessons to learn from letting the initial lead slip.
He told TNT Sports: “To go 4-2 down in extra-time against 10 men is nowhere near good enough. We opened ourselves up too much, and they are a good team, they’ve got good forwards, they play great football.
“But we dug in and we showed great spirit. And that’s what this stadium does.
“To come back like that, yeah, it’s an incredible performance from everyone in the final minutes.”
There were sizeable votes for Fernandes (32 per cent), who ran himself into the ground for 120 minutes and netted the penalty to kick our extra-time comeback off, and Casemiro (18 per cent) for his two pinpoint assists, and earning the penalty, for the final three goals among all the chaos.
But few had an all-round performance quite like Maguire’s, who richly deserves to top our poll.
Congratulations, Harry! Thank you to all those who voted.
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Friday 18 April 2025 00:38
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