{"id":238053,"date":"2023-10-07T19:13:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T19:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=238053"},"modified":"2023-10-07T19:13:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T19:13:05","slug":"man-utd-2-brentford-1-mctominay-the-hero-as-he-comes-off-bench-to-score-twice-and-relieve-pressure-on-ten-hag-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/lifestyle\/man-utd-2-brentford-1-mctominay-the-hero-as-he-comes-off-bench-to-score-twice-and-relieve-pressure-on-ten-hag-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd 2 Brentford 1: McTominay the hero as he comes off bench to score twice and relieve pressure on Ten Hag | The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"
IT was hardly Barcelona 99, but for Erik ten Hag\u2019s under-fire Red Devils, it certainly felt like it.<\/p>\n
Stoppage time, one goal down, and a third home league defeat on the bounce staring them in the face.<\/p>\n
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Step forward Scott McTominay like some kind of modern-day Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, to climb from the bench with two save-the-day strikes<\/span>.<\/p>\n Goalscoring heroes don\u2019t come unlikelier than the Scottish midfielder, for all he has been finding the net with some regularity for his country.<\/p>\n He was only chucked on, in increasing desperation, with three of the regulation 90 minutes to go.<\/p>\n Seven minutes later he was buckling under the joyous and jumping celebrations of his team-mates. Pulling it out of the fire doesn\u2019t come more dramatic than this.<\/p>\n Actually, with United, we all know it does. It was clearly not in the same bracket as that \u201cSolskjaer has won it\u201d treble-winning Champions League final stab 24 years ago.<\/p>\n Not in terms of silverware, standing or status, at least. It was Brentford, not Bayern Munich, after all.<\/p>\n Yet when you have sunk as deep into the you-know-what as United, somehow yesterday it felt like it.<\/p>\n Ten Hag doesn\u2019t need telling what lay in wait should Brentford have clung onto a lead given them by Mathias Jensen before the Red Devils had even managed a shot on target<\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n FREE BETS – BEST BETTING OFFERS AND BONUSES NEW CUSTOMERS<\/strong><\/p>\n His job may not exactly have been on the line, but questions would have been murmured, if not yet bellowed.<\/p>\n It would have been three home league losses in a row for the first time since 1977. It would have been a defeat in six of the last eight games.<\/p>\n It would have been an international break filled with inquests into United\u2019s stumbling and shocking performances.<\/p>\n And, as much as anyone in Old Trafford\u2019s corridors of power<\/span> would obviously deny this, it could \u2013 just could \u2013 have been the beginning of the end for this latest regime.<\/p>\n Thank Heavens, then, for McTominay. A man who, remember, could well have been pulling on a West Ham<\/span> shirt if a deal could have been agreed in the summer<\/span>.<\/p>\n He had already had a goal disallowed \u2013 quite correctly, too for Anthony<\/span> Martial\u2019s offside before Super Scott headed in \u2013 by the time he pounced again.<\/p>\n This time there was no doubting, as Alejandro Garnacho just about managed to keep the ball in, before McTominay ended the penalty box pinballing by hammering into the roof.<\/p>\n Even then, for all it rescued a point, it would not have silenced the critics. Nor should it, either.<\/p>\n When a draw at home to the Bees gives United fans a buzz, you know times are hard. Fortunately it didn\u2019t come to that.<\/p>\n For as we ticked into the seventh minute of stoppage time and Bruno<\/span> Fernandes sent one final, hopeful free-kick into the box, Harry Maguire got his head to it.<\/p>\n Yes, THAT<\/strong> Harry Maguire. Starting his first game of the season thanks to Rafa Varane\u2019s injury \u2013 in electric blue boots<\/span> \u2013 and making an impact as eye-catching as his footwear.<\/p>\n For when it looped up, McTominay shrugged off the attention of Ethan Pinnock and sent a header arcing over keeper Thomas Strakosha. Game over and United improbably, undeservedly, out of jail.<\/p>\n While that spelt heartbreak for one keeper, for Andre Onana it was salvation\u2026of a kind, at least.<\/p>\n Up to that point, United\u2019s Cameroonian dropper of clangers had been guilty of yet another, in a Brentford opener that was a catalogue of calamities for the men in red.<\/p>\n It came on 27 minutes from the boot of midfielder Jensen after THREE<\/strong> cock-ups in the build-up made it an embarrassment for United.<\/p>\n Chiefly Onana, of course, whose flapped hand attempt to keep out a shot which was more of a trickle than a tornado<\/span> was frankly embarrassing.<\/p>\n But then again, so, too, were Casemiro\u2019s TWO powder puff challenges with Bryan Mbeumo<\/span> on halfway. He lost out to the Brentford striker<\/span> on both occasions.<\/p>\n And what on earth<\/span> Victor Lindelof hoped to achieve with his cement-footed stab across his own box in playing an inadvertent one-two with Yoane Wissa<\/span>, God only knows.<\/p>\n Maybe the Swede thought helping tee up the Bees forward for the killer pass to team-mate Jensen would earn him an assist.<\/p>\n All it earned was a face as red as his shirt\u2026although not as much as Onana, who is running up a pretty impressive CV of goal-costing clangers since replacing David de Gea.<\/p>\n No wonder he covered his face with his shirt afterwards. He must have wanted to dig a bloody big hole to hide in as well.<\/p>\n To their credit, United did hammer away at the Brentford backline for virtually the entire second half, and you couldn\u2019t fault them for spirit and energy<\/span>.<\/p>\n But for the most part, it was desperation rather than direction. The Bees were hardly pinned to the floor. Keeper Strakosha hardly needed to produce a string of worldies.<\/p>\n The best stop of all, in fact, came when Onana saved from Neal Maupay<\/span> late on, when it was still 1-0. In that respect he did at least perform some heroics.<\/p>\n Yet nothing like McTominay, a man who thought days like this were a thing of the past for him at Old Trafford<\/span>.<\/p>\n MAN UTD NEWS LIVE: Stay up to date with all of the latest transfer and takeover news from Old Trafford<\/strong><\/p>\nREAD MORE IN FOOTBALL<\/h2>\n
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