Manchester United’s sense of injustice sparks comeback win for Erik ten Hag

Perhaps it took a sense of injustice to spare Manchester United further ignominy. When the half-time whistle blew, they were losing and losing their rag, Brentford on course for a first win at Old Trafford since 1937, and United set for a third consecutive league defeat at Old Trafford – a fate they had not suffered since 1979. As it stood, they were the joint lowest scorers in the Premier League, their drought stretching past five hours. The class of 2024 were failing, the class of 2004 fuming. Ruud van Nistelrooy was booked. Darren Fletcher ran after the officials in the tunnel.

Ethan Pinnock’s opener – though actually far less controversial than United imagined – had annoyed their past. Their present responded. The temptation was to call it a much-needed win for Erik ten Hag, though perhaps the scarcity of victories means they all are, but ended with a first triumph in six games, just a fourth in 12 outings this season. The outstanding Alejandro Garnacho delivered a wonderful equaliser, Rasmus Hojlund a decider to cap a show of spirit.

United’s king of comebacks was absent, Sir Alex Ferguson watching Aberdeen instead. His reign as an ambassador is ending. Ten Hag’s as manager continues. If a fightback offered echoes of Ferguson’s heyday, this was far from conclusive evidence that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the new hierarchy were right to persevere with Ten Hag when their six-hour meeting in London culminated without a change of management. His United proved unable to defend a corner. They were largely uninspired before the break. There was scarcely the sense this team is primed to go on a winning run.

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But, in a somewhat chaotic way, they prevailed. It was a second time this season Brentford have led in Manchester and lost, a second in as many campaigns when they have gone ahead at Old Trafford and emerged with nothing. This comeback came sooner than Scott McTominay’s injury-time rescue act last year. This was less of a hard-luck story for Thomas Frank’s team.

Yet their breakthrough was further testament to their planning. United navigated the first 76 seconds without conceding – something none of Brentford’s previous four opponents had done. They instead conceded at the end of the half.

It was another goal for Brentford’s setpiece specialists, Pinnock heading in Mikkel Damsgaard’s corner. United were temporarily down to 10 men: Matthijs de Ligt has proved a problem when he is on the pitch, and now provided one when he was not as he got treatment for a head wound. Given how much De Ligt was bleeding, referee Sam Barrott was right to tell him to leave the field.

“Good refereeing, if I am honest,” said Frank. United’s complaints – with Ten Hag also vocal – probably ought to have been directed at the medical staff who had appeared incapable of putting a bandage on the defender’s head when he had twice gone off earlier.

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“It was dry blood,” said Ten Hag. “We were definitely angry at half-time. We felt some injustice and used it is as fuel.” Even if their sense of grievance was misplaced, they were galvanised, roused from their torpor. Only their two Danes had come close to scoring before the break. The ball almost bounced over the line off Hojlund’s back after goalkeeper Mark Flekken spilled Lisandro Martinez’s header. Then the former Brentford midfielder Christian Eriksen skied a shot when a combination of a Bruno Fernandes flick and a Casemiro block afforded him a glorious chance.

They looked a different team after the break, imbued with urgency. The former United coach Benni McCarthy had accused Ten Hag of lacking “fire and passion”. Some was now evident in his team. Garnacho delivered their first goal in 317 minutes of league football and it was a classy one, Marcus Rashford playing a deep cross and the Argentinian sweeping in a far-post volley. Garnacho was deployed in Rashford’s preferred position on the left and starred.

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Relentless and thrillingly direct, he was United’s most menacing attacker even before then. He ended his afternoon with eight shots. Hojlund finished his with a first league goal of the campaign, albeit when its start was delayed by injury. The forward dinked a shot over Flekken after Fernandes, with a deft flick, had diverted Eriksen’s pass into his path.

Even if a United comeback transported them back to a far earlier time, their midfield rewound time to the autumn of 2022. Eriksen and Casemiro were both excellent on the ball, with the Stretford End chorusing the Brazilian’s name. Yet it was an indictment that Manuel Ugarte was one of three of Ten Hag’s summer signings to begin on the bench, as only De Ligt made the starting 11.

But there was at least a buccaneering zeal to United in the second half which, with the exception of parts of the game against Porto, they have rarely shown this season. They ended with 22 shots. They tripled their tally of league goals at Old Trafford. And they won. Such results used to be taken for granted. Not now.