Manchester United’s James Scanlon suffered a disappointing night as his Gibraltar side was thrashed 0-7 by Croatia in the World Cup qualifiers.
Scanlon played the entire 90 minutes for his national team and was making his 13th international appearance.
He has been in prolific goalscoring form this season, scoring a highly impressive 22 goals in 33 matches for the academy.
Unfortunately, he could not carry his form into this match in what was an incredibly tough assignment
Playing the 2018 World Cup finalists was always going to be a daunting task but Scanlon was barely in the game, being given a 5.4 rating from Sofascore.
He did make one key pass in the match in the rare moments that the Gibraltarians got forward.
Nonetheless, he was only able to complete eight of his 16 passes in the match as most of his work was off the ball.
Scanlon was unsuccessful in his three dribble attempts and was not able to complete any of his three crosses during a frustrating night of action.
The United academy talent didn’t have any more luck in his defensive effort, losing all seven ground duels that he competed for.
He was more competitive in the air however, winning one of his two aerial battles.
The youngster also made one clearance from a Croatian attack.
Despite the result and poor performance, playing against such seasoned international veterans will only help his development.
Going up against the likes of the experienced Ivan Perisic will no doubt assist his progress in the long run, even if there is some short-term pain like last night.
Gibraltar sit bottom of their group with zero points from their opening three matches.
Scanlon will conclude this round of international fixtures when his side travel to the Faroe Islands on Monday evening. He will hope he can have much more attacking joy against significantly weaker opposition than the Croats.
Featured image Carsten Harz via Getty Images
Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social
Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
