Fenerbahce 1 Man Utd 1: Red Devils now 12 MONTHS without a win in Europe as fiery clash sees old boss Mourinho sent off

THEY stepped into ‘Hell’ and came face to face with the old devil himself. 

But Manchester United escaped from Jose Mourinho’s lair with a point in another night of European mayhem. 

Amid the chaos, Mourinho was red-carded, Andre Onana pulled off a ridiculous double save and Erik ten Hag survived another tactical brainstorm despite Youssef En-Nesyri’s header cancelling out Christian Eriksen’s opener.

Having conceded 17 goals on their previous five trips overseas, this was actually a pretty respectable effort from Ten Hag’s dysfunctional team – who have now drawn three out of three in the Europa League and face a battle to avoid a humiliating early elimination.  

They have now failed to win in European competition for an entire year, since a 1-0 home win over Copenhagen on October 24, 2023. 

Istanbul has provided plenty of fire-pit nights for United both here at Fenerbahce, where they were once thumped 3-0 under Sir Alex Ferguson, and at Galatasaray, the venue for their original ‘Welcome To Hell’ trip back in the 90s. 

So despite Ten Hag fielding a full-back as a ‘false ten’ and dropping Rasmus Hojlund, they ended up relieved to avoid defeat.  

Mourinho, of course, is never knowingly upstaged and the tantrum he chucked when Bright Osayi-Samuel was denied a second-half penalty earned him a place in the stands. 

He speaks plenty of languages, the Special One. And two of them are ‘foul’ and ‘abusive’.

With Bruno Fernandes suspended after his red card in Porto, Ten Hag opted to play full-back Noussair Mazraoui as his No10 – to the bafflement of many. 

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And despite his winner against Brentford on Saturday, Hojlund was benched. 

Ten Hag rarely does the obvious thing. But not in a good way. 

Mourinho had been in typically mischievous form at his pre-match press conference, claiming a potential Premier League winners medal with United for the 2017-18 season when his side finished runners-up behind Manchester City – who are facing 115 League charges of financial wrongdoing.   

The Sukru Saracoglu Stadium was packed and raucous well before kick-off.

When United were in possession, the shrill whistling of the home crowd perforated eardrums. 

But it was Fenerbahce who set the early pace – especially their former Newcastle box-of-frogs Allan Saint-Maximin – all nutmegs, shoulder drops and slalom runs at the United defence.  

Former QPR man Osayi-Samuel skinned Lisandro Martinez but shot into the side-netting. 

This was no stereotypically negative Mourinho team. 

And Rashford had just been booked for a foul on Sebastian Szymanski when, against the run of play, United fashioned a fine counter-attacking goal. 

Manuel Ugarte won possession, Alejandro Garnacho sprinted down the left and Mazraoui fed Joshua Zirkzee, who cut back for Eriksen to thump his shot into the corner of the net. 

Rashford ought to have doubled the lead soon after, cutting inside from the right but screwing his shot just wide of the far post. 

But United were still having to defend with guts and with desperation – especially when Ugarte produced an outstanding sliding block to deny Dusan Tadic from close range.

Mourinho was doing his conkers at this – and soon started berating the fourth official after Zirkzee went down injured. 

It was becoming a frustrating night for the old rogue – especially when Andre Onana decided to channel the spirit of Gordon Banks with an astonishing double save to deny En-Nesyri. 

First, the Moroccan centre-forward’s downward header was met with a gob-smacking tumbling stop, then the Cameroonian keeper leapt to his feet to push away a second nodded effort after Tadic had teed up En-Nesyri again. 

The striker grinned as if he had just fallen victim to a strange optical illusion. And perhaps he had. 

United led at the break but then they had often done so during their shocking recent run of European trips. 

Mourinho had slapped Onana on the back in the tunnel at half-time but within four minutes of the restart, the United keeper was powerless to stop Fenerbahce equalising. 

Saint-Maximin delivered the deep cross from the left and En-Nesyri, with another downward header, managed to avoid another miracle and beat Onana at the third time of asking. 

In the stands, the drums were thudding, the punters were bouncing and United knew they were up against it on foreign soil yet again. 

Ten Hag responded by abandoning the Marzaroui ‘false ten’ experiment – bringing on Hojlund and Casemiro for Zirkzee and Victor Lindelof in a major reshuffle. 

Then came Mourinho’s ejection from his technical area – the Fenerbahce boss raging at an unrequited penalty appeal when Ugarte upended Osayi-Samuel. 

It was a decent shout followed by some indecent shouts from Mourinho, who was sent packing to the stands after a lengthy exchange of opinions with ref Clement Turpin. 

Would he be smuggled back into the dugout in a laundry basket, one of the tricks he used to defy a touchline ban during his Chelsea days? 

Rashford then skewed an excellent close-range chance and Mazraoui, despite reverting to left-back, had a long-ranger turned over the bar. 

With United’s players now playing in their correct positions, they began to get the upper hand. Matthijs De Ligt should have scored with a header, Hojlund forced a save.

Then Antony was carted off on a stretcher late on, to add to Ten Hag’s injury woes as it finished a stalemate.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk