‘Doesn’t do anything’: United frontman berated by Schmeichel for making no impact in crucial UCL clash

Former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel had his say on the side’s disheartening 3-3 draw with Galatasaray on Wednesday evening, which took the Reds’ Champions League fate out of their hands. 

It was a tumultuous night from start to finish for United, who were greeted at Rams Park with a ‘welcome to Hell’ banner and hostile atmosphere from the second they stepped foot on the sodden pitch.

Initially, it seemed as though the players were taking the volatile reception in their stride, with every second they had on the ball being instantly met by loud whistles and jeers from the home supporters.

Still reeling off the high of his worldie versus Everton, Alejandro Garnacho opened the scoring in just the 11th minute and celebrated with a Cristiano Ronaldo-esque ‘calm’ gesture to the crowd before cupping his ear – provoking behaviour that saw him quickly cautioned by his captain, Bruno Fernandes.

Fernandes was able to extend United’s lead to 2-0 just seven minutes later, subsequently sending the travelling Reds into hysterics, but a needless foul from the goalscorer on Lucas Torreira led to Galatasaray pulling one back through Hakim Ziyech.

It was from then that United slowly began to lose their heads; in the fear of not wanting to sustain defeat, they seemingly went all-out for a convincing victory, leaving gaps for the Turkish side to capitalise on.

Rasmus Hojlund entered the game with five European goals in his account, though he was unable to add to the tally during his 58-minute cameo. Anthony Martial, who found the back of the net last weekend, replaced him and went on to offer very little in the No.9 role.

Schmeichel unimpressed by Martial’s cameo

Speaking post-match to CBS Sports (cited by The Mirror), Schmeichel cherry-picked Martial as one particularly underwhelming squad member on the night.

“When you’re 2-0 up – and it’s not the first time we’re 2-0 up in this tournament – you kill the game. You make sure the other team can’t get into it. You keep the ball, you make sure you don’t make mistakes – and a lot of mistakes were made today,” the Dane said.

“And of course, you also have to look at players like when Hojlund came off, a lot of the pressure from the very, very front disappeared. The guy [Martial] he [Ten Hag] put in doesn’t do anything, where you had before someone who works really, really hard for the team up front all of a sudden you don’t have that pressure.

“And that gives the other team a lot of opportunities to pass the ball around. So there are many, many things you can look at, but, again, if you score this amount of goals you expect to have more than one point.”