Manchester United’s 3-3 draw with Galatasaray will certainly go down as one of the Champions League group-stage games for the ages, but for the Reds, they’ve got to take the time to analyse where it all went wrong.
Non-stop attacking football from both sides made it no surprise that six goals were netted across the 90 minutes and like with most draws, one of the teams will be left feeling as though they dropped two points in the process.
Given that they squandered a two-goal lead, in this case, it’s United. Such a feeling will be ringing all too familiar in this European campaign, with results such as the 4-3 loss to Copenhagen and 3-2 defeat to Galatasaray in October all coming after Erik ten Hag’s opened the scoring and had the upper hand for large portions of the games.
Scholes’ assessment
Speaking immediately after the full-time whistle in Istanbul, Paul Scholes, who won two Champions League titles with the Old Trafford outfit, reacted to the clash and attempted to pick apart how the game unfolded.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a game like that… it was complete madness from start to finish,” he began. “They [United] started brilliant going two-nil up and then there’s a lack of discipline. It’s very difficult to win games of football away from home in Europe that way, they were still going for their throat, they were still trying to score goals and conceded one – conceded a bad goal really. Obviously, the ‘keeper had a really tough night tonight but that’s just not the way to win games in Europe.
“I’ve never seen teams go away from home in Europe, throwing everything at teams and win the game – and they need to win the game. You’re 2-0 up, you’re 3-1 up, play your positions. Just relax. [Scott] McTominay’s bombing off everywhere… now look, you’ve got to give him credit for scoring the goal, you’ve got to half give the team credit for wanting to score goals all the time but as a way of winning a big game in Europe, it just wasn’t disciplined enough for me.”
"I'm not sure I've ever seen a game like that… it was madness from start to finish" 🫨
Paul Scholes offers his assessment of a crazy game in Istanbul that sees Man Utd's future in Europe still undecided…@laura_woodsy | #UCL pic.twitter.com/eDAlaO9aRp
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 29, 2023
Footage courtesy of TNT Sports.
