Welcoming Rochdale in the third round of the Carabao Cup, M.U welcomed the return of Paul Pogba and Mason Greenwood. Due to the pressure from the 0-2 defeat to West Ham last weekend, Coach Solskjaer was quite careful when using a relatively strong lineup when Lingard, Fred, Wan-Bissaka all played.
With superior strength, M.U easily dominated the game and created a supply of pressure on the Rochdale goal in the first 45 minutes. However, their players were too unlucky. Rojo, Pogba, Greenwood missed good chances to score.
After failing to score many attacks, M.U almost had to pay the price at the beginning of the second half. Fortunately for them, Wan-Bissaka still managed to clear the ball right on the goal line in Rochdale's sharp counter-attack in the 52nd minute.
It was not until the 68th minute that the home team scored the opening goal. From a combination between Andreas Pereira and Jesse Lingard, the ball was brought to Greenwood's position. He pushed the ball for 1 back, causing defender Rochdale to miss a shot before finishing with his dangerous left foot to defeat goalkeeper Sanchez.
However, M.U's joy did not last long because of the shaky defense. In the 76th minute, the players in red left Luke Matheson behind and let the 16-year-old talent rush in and shoot into Romero's net from close range.
After letting the opponent equalize, M.U focused all their efforts on finding a goal. However, unluckiness still prevented them from scoring more goals and forced them to enter a lucky penalty shootout.
In the brain-weighing gunfighting series, goalkeeper Romero shone at the right time, pushing Jimmy Keohane's kick to help M.U win 5-3.
