By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-09-25 17:45:37 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:31:44
4 days ago
Good evening and welcome to live coverage of Manchester United’s first match of their Europa League campaign, at home against Twente, the boyhood club of Erik ten Hag who played 234 games during three spells in Enschede. This being the new Swiss model Champions League, a needlessly complex ruse designed to shoehorn an extra four teams to unbalance an already bloated competition, each of the 36 qualifiers now has eight matches, six before Christmas, two in January, half home and away but against eight different opponents, two from each of four pots of seeds.
All sides are in one league and the top eight at the end of the stage go through to the last 16 while the teams between ninth and 24th then have another two-legged play-off to qualify for the R16. That means to win the tournament, those on the express route will play 15 games, those on the scenic route 17. Player fatigue? Who cares…
The home side return to Old Trafford for the first-time since their 7-0 thrashing of Barnsley in the League Cup washed away about a fifth of the bitter taste of their galling defeat by Liverpool. Since that chastening experience, they have racked up a couple of clean sheets in the league, beating Southampton 3-0 at St Mary’s and taking a point from a scoreless draw with Palace by virtue of their truly dreadful finishing. Norman Vincent Ten Hag has taken numerous positives from those three performances without convincing all that many who were not already favourably disposed to him and his club that they are any more coherent tactically on a sustained basis rather than stringing together a series of one-offs that consist of deceptive great leaps forward and exasperating backward lurches.
Tonight they come up against a Twente side who finished third in the Eredivisie last season and are currently fourth after beating Almere 5-0 away on Sunday. They have the Dutch league’s current top-scorer, Sam Steijn, in their ranks, the former Rangers striker Sam Lammers and are captained by a man who was once Norwich’s record signing, scoring on his debut but never again, Ricky van Wolfswinkel. In seven previous trips to England in Uefa competition, the Tukkers, finalists in the 1974-75 Uefa Cup, have drawn two and lost five.
