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So the teams are in. Interestingly, Jonny Evans is not in the squad, as he’s expected to seal a move to West Brom imminently.
Despite reports that Fellaini would come into the side, the Belgian international remains on the bench, though there are two changes to the team that drew with Newcastle at the weekend – Herrera and Carrick replace Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger in the starting XI.
And here is the Brugge team, which sees five changes to the side that were beaten 3-1 at Old Trafford in the first leg.
Needless to say, still no David De Gea in the Man United squad.
United will be hoping Memphis Depay can repeat the magic he showed against Brugge last week.
“I think this is what’s been wrong with United all season… Everything is so slow.”
RTÉ’s Ronnie Whelan is not impressed with what he sees in the opening stages of this game.
Chance for Brugge early on as De Sutter connects with a deep cross.
Fortunately for United however, Luke Shaw is well positioned to block his opponent’s attempt.
Rooney has slipped on more than one occasion already.
The England international is looking a little isolated up front in these early stages.
Herrera has already been booked for a late tackle on Vasquez.
United are looking a little nervy in these opening stages as Boligni briefly was through on goal, but his touch took the ball too far wide.
BRUGGE 0-1 MAN UNITED (ROONEY 19)
Brugge must hate the sight of Memphis Depay by now.
The Dutch winger does extremely well to evade a few would-be tacklers before playing through Rooney, who slots the ball home with the simplest of finishes.
That’s surely the tie all over then.
Brugge need to score three times now to simply force extra-time.
Good link-up play again, as Rooney feeds Depay with a clever lofted pass.
The Dutchman is correctly adjudged just offside, but himself and Rooney seem to be beginning to form a good understanding.
Decent play down the left with Vazquez at the heart of it.
However, the cross can’t find De Sutter and United eventually clear their lines.
An unfortunate incident causes the crowd to cheer loudly.
A steward who attempts to stop a pitch invader falls awkwardly as he does so.
Depay swings a dangerous corner in, but the defender gets there just ahead of Herrera.
Brugge could start to really fall apart if United get another goal.
A cross is floated across the United area, but it’s just too high for Claudemir to properly connect with a header.
Whatever about their defensive inadequacies, Brugge continue to look lively in attack.
Good work by Shaw, before Depay’s shot deflects comfortably into the goalkeeper’s arms.
It’s been an entertaining first 40 minutes.
Not for the first time, a Brugge attacker gets in behind the United defence.
De Sutter’s powerful shot has to be parried away by Romero.
Shortly thereafter, the same player connects with a corner but his attempt goes just wide.
As I type, Diaby is through on goal but fails to take it round the goalkeeper and United are off the hook again.
Brugge are a bit unlucky to be behind given how this game has panned out so far.
It was pretty selfish play from Diaby for that last chance.
The pass to Mbombo was on, but the player went for the glory himself and made a mess of the chance.
HALF-TIME: BRUGGE 0-1 MAN UNITED
So half-time and United lead 1-0. It’s been a far from vintage performance from the Red Devils.
Van Gaal’s men have looked a little vulnerable at the back at times, and are probably fortunate to be leading, with Brugge missing some decent opportunities.
On the plus side though, Wayne Rooney took his goal well, following excellent play by Depay, who appears to be continuing on from where he left off against the Belgians last week.
The lads in the RTÉ studio are less than impressed with United tonight.
Liam Brady says the play is “too slow,” while John Giles singles out Michael Carrick and Ander Herrera as “poor”.
“The best midfield player tonight has been Vazquez,” adds the Arsenal legend, while Dunphy calls United’s defence “a shambles”.
Schweinsteiger is set to come on for Januzaj in the second half.
But Dunphy reckons it’ll “stay the same” and he’ll “slow the game down”.
The second half is underway…
Herrera is now in the number 10 role instead of Januzaj.
Rooney thinks he should have had a penalty.
Replays reveal Duarte missed the ball, but he also made minimal contact with the United striker, who went down all too easily.
BRUGGE 0-2 MAN UNITED (ROONEY 49)
Rooney doubles United’s advantage.
Brugge concede possession in a dangerous area, with Herrera then crossing for Rooney, who makes no mistake with his finish.
Here’s the goal that has effectively ensured Man United’s passage into this year’s group stages.
Man United break again, but Mata slightly overhits a pass to the onrushing Depay.
Club Brugge are looking fairly demoralised now.
Juan Mata plays a beautiful through ball to Rooney, who coolly finishes again for the hat-trick.
As I type, Mata again plays through Rooney, but this time, the goalkeeper makes a good save to deny him a fourth.
It’s a lovely ball through from Schweinsteiger and Herrera — who has caught the eye in his more advanced second-half role — shows good composure to finish well past the goalkeeper.
It’s his last act of the match, as he’s replaced by Hernandez.
Out of nowhere, De Sutter hits a powerful shot off the underside of the bar.
Brugge have more or less fallen apart in this second half, but they do have a few talented players who continue to give their all.
This fourth goal is worth watching a couple of times purely for Schweinsteiger’s masterful pass.
George Hamilton is in good form tonight.
The ball falls to Vormer on the edge of the box, but his attempt is well off target.
Unsurprisingly, the intensity of this game has dipped considerably of late.
BT Sport pundits Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand in the sky box.
Young’s cross can’t find Hernandez.
The game is well and truly over, but his cameo appearance is unlikely to do the Mexican international’s confidence any good.
That penalty came about after Duarte was harshly adjudged to have handled Rooney’s cross.
Meanwhile, the stadium announcer has just advised Man United fans to leave early or risk missing the train.
Dierckx limps off injured for Brugge.
The hosts will have to finish the match with 10 men, as they’ve made all three substitutions.
Great work by Ashley Young, whose pinpoint cross finds Hernandez, but the Mexican international slots over with the goal at his mercy.
It really hasn’t been the striker’s night.
FULL-TIME: BRUGGE 0-4 MAN UNITED (AGG: 1-7)
So that’s that. Man United win comfortably in the end.
Despite struggling to convince in the first half, United had more urgency in their play after the break.
Schweinsteiger’s introduction and Herrera’s move to number 10 improved things for the visitors, while Wayne Rooney was more clinical than he has been of late, looking as if he could be returning to something like his best form, claiming a well-taken hat-trick.
The Red Devils took advantage of a tiring Brugge side, who effectively threw in the towel after the second goal.
However, on the less positive side for United, Hernandez had a disappointing cameo, missing two golden chances, while the defence looked shaky at times in the first half.
Ireland is the only European team left in it.
Delighted, turning his back on our country.
Youre an ignorant fool.
Ridiculously stupid comment.
Oh, the irony! Ha ha ha!
Paul i think that all the fools are flocking to him and we’re the only ones seeing sense in this idiocracy
‘The English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner city slang, and various grunts.’
Blame the fatcats that run the game on Eoins decision to play for the neighbour’s ! I will admit I enjoyed watching England fail and Ireland power on ! Test status for Ireland .!!!
Somewhere, Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen (recently sacked England captains) are getting absolutely twisted on a big bottle marked “SCHADENFREUDE”.
Anyone who slates Morgan for declaring for England is either un-educated in the language of cricket or else a total moron, you choose?
Why? Not being smart but I don’t understand the set up, or benefit to declaring for another nation when your own can compete at the WC also, is it just for money or is there more,?
It’s because England have test status (can play 5 day test matches like the ashes) while Ireland are only associates (can only play ODI cricket). Ed Joyce did the same thing.
I have no ill will towards Morgan for doing it. I’ve more ill will towards the ICC for being so archaic that they refuse to grant Ireland test status.
He will be in much more money with England. It is also about playing Test cricket which Ireland do not play but will hopefully sometime in the near future be granted the chance to play. Also even at one day level outside of the world cup Ireland rarely play the big teams maybe two or three times a year they would get a game. Apart from that they just play the likes of Scotland, Holland, U.A.E. Etc. So the money in that side of cricket isn’t great. Pretty sure all the Ireland team are now signed to English county sides which is ok money but nothing on the level England would pay.
So he went to play against the bigger sides, which pays more.
I asked Captain Hindsight about Morgan and he tells me Morgan should have quit the England set up at the top after the 2010/’11 Ashes win and come back to play for Ireland with the hope of still being playing when/if we are allowed to play tests.
To be fair, the Test game is the pinnacle of cricket. It’s where the big money contracts, the exposure, the big crowds are. The Test arena is where players careers are measured. Any of the Irish players would love the chance to play this – ideally with Ireland but that’s not possible at the moment – and Eoin Morgan was the one that England wanted. I wouldn’t be that harsh on him. The ICC should grant Ireland test status and allow the likes of Morgan and Rankin to come back to Ireland immediately without serving time out of the game.
It’s one thing to allow people to swap to another country, it’s another to allow them to swap again.
I don’t know the first thing about cricket or how test/associate status is determined, but surely if it’s a case of the better a nation performs, the better chance there is of being granted test status, then the best players should stay and help their own nation achieve that?
But Why can players flit from one country to the next in cricket?
I’m confused by England’s defeat today, my natural reaction is to rejoice at any defeat for that shower. However will the ICC blame the Associate nations for denying them one of their biggest markets in the knock-out stages and see it as proof that their 10 team World Cup is the way to go?
Will the English see our success and poach more of our players, will Balbernie and Dockerill get big offers from county teams this summer?
Or will the opposite happen and the xenophobes in the English media blame Morgan and the other non-Englishmen in the team for the performance and launch a media pogrom?
Bangladesh aren’t an associate.
That said, they are the most recent team to jump from associate status to test status, so the ICC might take it as a warning that if you promote cricket in associate countries and let them make it to test-match level, they might actually get good and remove the teams from the bigger TV markets from the World Cup.
I know Bangladesh are a Test nation but that wouldn’t stop the ICC blaming the Associates as you also hinted. Beat either India or Pakistan and there’ll be no denying that Ireland are in the top 8-10 ODI nations but we’ll still be stopped from playing more than a half dozen or so ODIs every year. That’s as perverse as the World Cup in Qatar!
Disgraceful individual turning his back on his country, wouldn’t want him back. Hope he enjoys the “understanding” and “support” from his chosen country after this.
sure we wouldn’t have anyone from another country representing
So have you willing Es Joyce to fail then? His century vs Zimbabwe won it for us. He left Ireland and played for England and then came back.
Hope you’re showing the same narrow minded contempt for him as well and booing him when he does well for Ireland.
the best of luck to Joyce and morgan until we get test status this is the way it operates.
Go on Paul Dunne. Nice one. Nailed it with minimal words.
For an English sport you’d expect England to be a bit more of a challenge.. How embarrassing :P
Morgan haters are just idots who obviously do not follow cricket. Should not be criticising a man for wanting to play cricket at the highest level. (Test level not the world cup I’m sure a lot of people on here wouldn’t know that.) If your gonna slag off Morgan why aren’t you getting at Boyd Rankin as well he did the exact same thing as Morgan and he couldn’t even make it into the England World Cup Squad. We probably are missing him more than Morgan as well. I suppose we shouldn’t be playing Ed Joyce because he turned his back on us and now has come crawling back to play for us.
World Cup quarter finals would be higher standard than the group stages..your argument is flawed…
It’s still not test cricket, which Morgan has played for England.
India, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand – they’re the highest level.
England? Not in a long time.
Aside from the persons who see fit to have a go at Morgan, it has to be said that this English one day team ranks up there with the most abject and gutless seen for a long time. A lot of people said that players like Pietersen and Stokes scare the opposition because they can change a game in a flash. Who do they have now? Batsmen who seem to be in a straitjacket and bowlers like Broad and Anderson who are way past their best. And at the helm a coach who is so bad, it’s sad.
At this rate I would back the Aussies to win the next Ashes series 5-0.
I’m a complete novice here so go easy…….why is it someone like Joyce can play for Ireland, then England and back to ireland? Thanks
Shite sport …. Simple as
Possibly the worst 12 months for english sport in living memory. Worst world cup ever, a failed six nations campaign and now this.