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Ambition. Frequent
Disappointment, frustration.
Glory must be earned.

We had never drawn a home game against a Dutch side; our competitive record was five victories and one defeat. Our highest score was six-one against Willem II in 1963 after we had drawn the away leg in the Cup Winners’ Cup. The goals came from Maurice Setters, Bobby Charlton, Phil Chisnall and a hat trick from Denis Law and we even scored theirs, Noel Cantwell putting in his own net. Our best win was probably the 2-0 against a powerful Ajax side in the UEFA Cup in 1976 after we had lost to a Ruud Krol goal in Amsterdam. Lou Macari and Sammy McIlroy were the scorers in a typically fearless display by Tommy Docherty’s side. We have hosted PSV four times. In the second round of the UEFA Cup in 1984 we prevailed through a Gordon Strachan penalty in extra time. In the group stage of the Champions League in 2000 Teddy Sheringham’s header put us in front but Marc von Bommell equalised with only thirteen minutes left. In those days that was a signal for us to turn it on, Paul Scholes and a fine Dwight Yorke goal making it three-one. We also won a friendly in 2004, the only goal when Mikael Silvestre headed in a Ryan Giggs corner.

PSV had lost both away games in this competition and the expectation among philosophers who thought us the better side in Eindhoven was that we would win this match and secure qualification for the knock-out round. Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial and Marcos Rojo, absent at Watford, were returned to the starting line-up as was Matteo Darmian, for the first time since his withdrawal for humanitarian reasons from confrontation with Wilfried Zaha at Selhurst Park at the beginning of the month. For the realists there were contrary indications. PSV lie third in the Eredivisie in which they have lost only once this season. Louis van Gaal has a poor managerial record against them, eleven defeats and six wins, and their youths had hammered ours earlier in the day at Leigh by five goals to nil.

The PSV team was young, only two of them over twenty five. One of these, Mexican Andrés Guardado, boasts 127 caps for his country and has still not reached thirty. We began as one would hope on the front foot; a move up the right ended with Martial cutting back for Rooney and a Jesse Lingard backheel, but no shot. Bastian Schweinsteiger did shoot but it was saved. Guardado executed a superb tackle on Martial and headed away Darmian’s curling cross at the start of was to be an impressive performance. Lingard put in another splendid ball but the resulting corner was efficiently cleared; PSV were playing with discipline and organisation and we were less threatening than we had been against CSKA. Indeed, when Luciano Narsingh pulled a hamstring they played a man short for a long while and you would not have noticed. Rooney was among those who could not get on the end of Darmian’s inviting cross and after the corner kick Morgan Schneiderlin’s ball into the goalmouth was missed by Lingard trying an overhead kick. Martial stepped over Rooney’s cross when he was well placed to shoot but Lingard’s first touch, at speed, was too heavy. The climax to our opening half hour came after a wicked cross from Rojo on the left which Joshua Brenet, facing his own goal, dealt with. From Daley Blind’s corner Schneiderlin escaped Héctor Moreno’s embrace and poked the ball goalwards but Jeroen Zoet got down to gather it under the post.

Before that PSV had ventured forward just the once, when Luke de Jong brushed Chris Smalling aside. Now they attacked with more purpose. Darmian’s tackle on Jürgen Locadia hopefully indicated a return to form but Jorrit Hendrix and de Jong worked a slick move and David de Gea had to make a flying catch. From a corner kick Moreno headed over the goal. PSV’s switch of tactics opened them up a little at the back, but their assessment of the risk this posed proved accurate; from a splendid break by Rooney and Lingard, Memphis Depay fell over his own feet; when Zoet slipped on the turf Rooney was unable to take advantage. Lingard’s exciting run was halted by Hendrix and Rojo’s header after the corner just failed to drop into the net. Twice Martial followed up Memphis’ work with stinging shots low to the near post but Memphis ended the half limping after he had battled gamely for the ball. Guardado ended it pleading with the referee to book Rooney for a clumsy tackle. It had been a messy forty five minutes, forgettable save for contribution of the fans who, in the seventh minute, displayed en masse the lights on their mobile phones to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the passing of Georgie Best. The ground that had welled up then with an emotional rendition of “Spirit in the Sky” was a more silent, worried place as the teams went off, even though we could have been ahead.

We restarted with a fresh determination to break the stalemate. Memphis won the header, Rojo the corner. Schneiderlin should have headed Blind’s corner home and Lingard thought he had scored when he got to Martial’s cross but his header passed outside the far post. Smalling got a superb pass through to Memphis, who elected to shoot with Rooney on his right. Jeffrey Bruma cleared Rojo’s cross, Blind put Memphis in, Schneiderlin ran it over the line. There was at this stage every indication that we would prevail but with less than an hour gone and the touch paper lit, the firework fizzled out. Darmian had to impede Locadia to allow de Gea to clear. Memphis, Smalling and Schneiderlin in turn gave the ball away.

We brought on Ashley Young for Memphis and Marouane Fellaini for Schweinsteiger but although Young put in a couple of good crosses the changes did little to address our decline. It was the visiting fans singing now. Home fans making do on overpriced cola and microwaved meat pies might not have known that the Philips Stadion’s Avant-Garde restaurant has a Michelin star; just the one. Increasingly the teams played like their respective cuisines, PSV confidently and deftly passing the ball around while we looked manufactured and bland. Even when Rojo was found by a beautiful pass from Smalling, Rooney lost the ball after the corner and we were lucky that the advantage on the swift breakaway was frittered away by Locadia’s poor cross. The United traditions our players were echoing were the lost confidence and defensive passing of Dave Sexton’s era. The home crowd oscillated between restive groans and desperate, encouraging chants.

Schneiderlin gave it away again, Davy Pröpper’s shot was powerful but few can beat de Gea from thirty yards. Suddenly with eighteen minutes left came our chance to extricate ourselves from the mess that qualification had become; a ball by Blind out to Martial whose cross found Lingard but he half volleyed into the Stretford End crowd a chance he should have buried. Rooney was the United player taking responsibility but the moves he attempted broke down when his passes found Fellaini’s head or Young’s feet. At the other end Guardado danced through our defence, Rojo deflected de Jong’s shot. With six minutes left we brought on Juan Mata for Darmian but inexplicably and shamefully we lacked the spirit for the surge. The Belfast Boy must have turned in his grave as, with vital seconds ticking away, Schneiderlin and Smalling passed the ball aimlessly to each other until one of them lost it. The three minutes the referee added now represented risk rather than opportunity but fortunately when Locadia dribbled his way into our box, Rojo remained steady. As the last seconds of a dismal second half drifted into oblivion Santiago Arias did a Thierry Henry and collapsed holding his face after wrestling Lingard. Rightly the free kick was ours but Blind’s lofted effort found not a single red shirt fighting for it.

Instead of being in the knock-out stage we are in grave danger of going out, needing a win in Wolfsburg to qualify. The media would have it that there were boos from the Stretford End as the teams went off but it was not as dramatic as that; it sounded like snoring to me.

Paul Andrew James