Champions League: Manchester United v Rangers full time report
Man Utd 0 Rangers 0
A poor, much-changed Manchester United were held at home by Rangers at Old Trafford, on a night overshadowed by a serious injury to home winger Antonio Valencia.
Ecuadorian winger Valencia suffered a suspected broken ankle in an accidental collision with Gers’ defender Kirk Broadfoot in the second half, an incident that added to the disruption and lack of flow to what was a disappointing game.
A disjointed United failed to create many clear goalscoring opportunities, with their only real threat coming from long range efforts from Irish midfielder Darron Gibson, who went close from distance in each half, and an early Javier Hernandez header that went wide.
A dogged Rangers got men behind the ball and rarely threatened, although they did have claims for a penalty when Broadfoot was tripped by Wes Brown.
Thoughts will be with Valencia, but the United boss should take a fair amount of criticism for the result.
Sir Alex Ferguson made an astonishing 10 changes from the side that let slip their two goal lead so late at Goodison Park on Saturday, with only Darren Fletcher surviving. Hernandez, making his Champions League debut, headed Fabio’s cross narrowly wide after a slow start.
Despite the changes though, it was obvious that Rangers had come to defend, with lone striker Kenny Miller extremely isolated upfront, compared to the home strike partnership of Wayne Rooney and Hernandez at the other end. However, two United heads weren’t necessarily better than one when the former failed to find the latter following a break.
With the home side struggling to break down the Rangers’ defence, they took over half an hour to seriously worry visiting ‘keeper Alan McGregor, who soon saw Gibson’s long range strike flash inches wide, before Irishman Gibson hit a tame effort that McGregor easily saved. Rooney was soon hitting an even weaker effort that McGregor could have thrown a hat on.
It wasn’t working for United, but neither did it change much after the break, when another Gibson shot went narrowly wide, amid little else being created.
Soon though, the football was to take a back seat, as an innocuous challenge between Rangers defender Broadfoot and United’s Valencia resulting in a broken ankle for the winger. After several minutes of treatment, the Ecuadorian was stretchered off to applause around all corners of Old Trafford, as a distraught Broadfoot looked on.
The injury dampened the atmosphere at an already quiet, edgy Old Trafford, and Rangers almost stunned their hosts even more when Broadfoot went over under a challenge from Brown in the penalty area.
Searching for a goal, Ferguson brought on Michael Owen, but if anything it was Rangers who were looking more threatening, and Lee McCulloch saw a deflected effort comfortably saved by the underworked Tomasz Kuszczak.
United only seemed to have one route to goal, and Gibson was soon firing over from range before another effort was blocked, but the hosts were running out of time.
They continued to create very little bar a few goalmouth scrambles, and Rangers held on for a hard-earned, well-deserved point.
As for United, they’ll have to do a whole lot better than this if they want to succeed in the competition.
Their manager will know that this wasn't good enough, but perhaps he has to look at himself before he dishes out the criticism.
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