Maguire and Onana save Ten Hag as another Manchester United ‘turning point’ beckons | OneFootball

The problem with turning points is hinted at in the phrase itself. A single “turning point”, as Erik ten Hag forlornly hoped Manchester United’s last-gasp win over Brentford was two and a half weeks ago, denotes a change in direction, a fork in the road, a watershed moment upon which a previously aimless journey is given purpose, structure, order. You were going the wrong way before, but no longer.

Once plurality is introduced to that mix, the route becomes more muddled. Turning once leaves little doubt as to the path you wish to undertake. Turning each time you take a step just creates confusion and leaves you, at best, back where you started.

There might never have been a less convincing run of three consecutive victories than the sequence Manchester United have sandwiched the international break with. Two stoppage-time goals from a player the club openly tried to sell helped vanquish a Brentford side on a five-match run without victory. A 77th-minute winner from a full-back was required to conquer the worst team in the Premier League, Sheffield United. A 72nd-minute winner from a centre-half, coupled with a final-minute penalty save, finally put down Copenhagen, whose last Champions League away points came in the same group as Leicester six years ago.

Not since Andre Onana shouted at Harry Maguire a bit during a pre-season friendly has that particular double act been relevant, but Manchester United damn sure needed it at Old Trafford on Tuesday evening.

Before their interventions, this was as miserable a performance as had been conjured under Ten Hag. In the pantheon of post-Ferguson Manchester United Champions League nights, that first half was not far off Demba Ba breaching the world’s worst offside trap in Turkey, or Nick Powell coming on as the saviour against Wolfsburg. It was that bad. Marco Guida literally blew his whistle with the clock at 44:47 and frankly it is tempting not to discuss the events which occurred before Christian Eriksen’s half-time introduction any further whatsoever.

But we must. Copenhagen hit a post when Sofyan Amrabat and Maguire timed their respective transformations into entirely transparent beings particularly poorly. Rasmus Hojlund did a lot of running. Manchester United were flat, static and any other fancy withering description one might deploy to condemn a borderline offensive display of nothingness.

The best bit was when Onana came out to fetch a loose ball around 10 yards from his halfway line, before shaping to pass about three times and then launching a long ball out directly for a throw-in. It was a perfect visual encapsulation of a half in which any Manchester United possession was restricted to the centre-halves passing idly one another, waiting for any sign of movement, action or even life from the midfield receivers.

Anyway, that was the first half. A classic. Rio Ferdinand sounded broken at half-time and Paul Scholes just kept repeating how desperate he was to feel something, anything. It reduced the usual scathing former Manchester United player-turned-pundit assessment fun to a 48-year-old’s live existential crisis. It was bad.

The introduction of Eriksen sparked an improvement. One lovely move ended in the Dane forcing a fine save from Kamil Grabara. Manchester United players went through a bizarre phase of taking ludicrously heavy touches when played in behind the defence; first Marcus Rashford put his out for a goal kick despite having 30 yards of space to work with, then Alejandro Garnacho ran straight into Grabara, before Hojlund set the tone for the single worst 3-on-2 attack ever committed to the sport when seemingly encountering his own feet for the very first time.

It was Eriksen’s cross which served the decisive goal on a platter for Maguire to display the sort of desire Ten Hag has craved from his players. “In football it is eat or get eaten,” the Dutchman said earlier this month. “Too many times in the first half of this season we got eaten by opponents who are more hungry. This can’t be. It has to go away. Every player has to deliver that in every second he is on the pitch.”

Many things can and have been said of Maguire, but he cannot be accused of anything less on that front. He helped win the corner which led to the header he planted into the ground and past Grabara. A goalless draw would have done nothing to aid Manchester United’s qualification hopes but of considerably more importance, would have hurt the centre-half’s win percentage.

Harry Maguire celebrates scoring a goal.

Maguire’s post-match comments about being “really proud and pleased the way I’ve acted over the last 6 to 12 months” were a wonderfully indulgent self-pat on the back but the bloke has earned it.

As did Onana, who produced one fine save from Lukas Lerager and then kept Jordan Larsson, son of Henrik, out from 12 yards when Manchester United characteristically aimed the gun at their own toes when victory was within grasp. Scott McTominay’s own renaissance is probably over for as long as he insists on being non-existent until conceding penalties roughly as often as he proves an unlikely source of goals, but Maguire and Onana can bask in their personal resurgences for now.

That still leaves Manchester United as a whole, with three straight wins lifting them into the top half of the Premier League table and belatedly launching their Champions League campaign, despite a hat-trick of deeply questionable performances being capped off before the derby on Sunday. Maybe this turning point will be the one that sticks.