Manchester United recorded a famous 7-6 aggregate win over Lyon in our Europa League quarter-final meeting at Old Trafford, with five of those goals scored in extra-time.

It was a chaotic affair to say the least, with the Reds slipping from two goals ahead in normal time to two behind in extra-time, before Harry Maguire rose to meet Casemiro’s cross to seal the last-gasp winner.

Manuel Ugarte, Diogo Dalot, Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo all played their role with goals in earlier in the game, and that’s only to mention the men that made it onto the scoresheet.

But who stood out in the busiest of all crowded fields? Keep scrolling to find out…

Pipping his team-mates to the post in Thursday evening’s award was, of course, Maguire, scorer of the all-important goal to clinch our spot in the semi-final, with 39 per cent of the vote.

Ruben Amorim threw the defender up front for the final few minutes, making an impact that will rightly take the lion’s share of the attention, but, in truth, his contribution went much further than that.

Not only did he play a searching ball from deep to pick out Dalot for United’s second goal, he was also a rock at the back, throwing his body in harm’s way at various points to defend the Reds’ lines.

There is no doubting how crucial Maguire was to this miraculous comeback victory, and not only for his winner.

The centre-back wasn’t blinded by the emotional nature of the victory, however, noting there are still lessons to learn from letting the initial lead slip.

He told TNT Sports: “To go 4-2 down in extra-time against 10 men is nowhere near good enough. We opened ourselves up too much, and they are a good team, they’ve got good forwards, they play great football.

“But we dug in and we showed great spirit. And that’s what this stadium does.

“To come back like that, yeah, it’s an incredible performance from everyone in the final minutes.”

There were sizeable votes for Fernandes (32 per cent), who ran himself into the ground for 120 minutes and netted the penalty to kick our extra-time comeback off, and Casemiro (18 per cent) for his two pinpoint assists, and earning the penalty, for the final three goals among all the chaos.

But few had an all-round performance quite like Maguire’s, who richly deserves to top our poll.

Congratulations, Harry! Thank you to all those who voted.

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• Highlights: United v Lyon Video

  Highlights: United v Lyon

  Somehow, we condensed United v Lyon into two minutes. Don’t ask, just watch…

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Ruben Amorim knows Manchester United never say die and he was so proud of his players for somehow prolonging our Europa League adventure on a madcap night at Old Trafford.

The bare facts of the matter are a 5-4 victory, after extra-time, was enough to clinch a 7-6 aggregate triumph over the much-respected French side.

Yet that only scratches the surface of what happened which is still scarcely believable some time after the final whistle.

From 4-2 down, United scored three times without reply, through Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire, to turn the tie on its head completely.

For some context, Opta Joe posted to say it was the first match in European football history to feature five goals scored in extra-time.

See a selection of what Ruben had to say to the official broadcasters afterwards…

TRY SUMMING THAT UP

“No, was hard. I was watching again the ’99, the documentary [when we completed the Treble by beating Bayern Munich with two late goals in the Nou Camp], so to have some inspiration for this moment. But, was a great night. I think the team were tired and you feel it during the game, and then 4-2 with one more player and, in the end, you think it’s over. But here, it’s never over.”

THE THINKING BEHIND THE TACTICS

“We tried to put Harry Maguire [up there] because he’s the only guy that can score a goal with his headers. And then Kobbie Mainoo, he has a lack of pace in this moment because he had that injury and he stopped for a while, but he’s really good on short spaces, and then he has the ability to do that kind of goal. And then we try it, and sometimes it works, and today was a good day.”

THE SQUAD IS STRETCHED

“When you are here, you can feel that playing Premier League and European games is really hard. If you don’t have the full squad, it is almost impossible. Mason Mount brings us experience. You can see Luke Shaw. Luke Shaw was meant to play 30 minutes, top, but then we had a problem with news at half-time, Vic had a personal problem, he had to leave. Nous too. So, all this stuff happening during this game, but, in the end, it was a good day.”

GARNACHO WAS TIRED

“The reflection of the coach is the league. You can be good in your European games, but your reflection as the team is the league and we are underperforming. But then we have to see the context. You can see that we lack a lot of characteristics in our team. You want to push forward and sometimes you see Garna really tired, but you feel during the game he’s the only one who can make transitions.”

NAME ON THE TROPHY?

“You can see in the stadium. So, everybody in the moment can believe that it’s possible. We need to be a little bit lucky on the injuries, to reach that, with some players it is going to be tough. But, I had, in my career, one final, and I had the semi-final in Turin [playing for Benfica in the 2014 Europa League], and the final was in Turin. So, we lost the final [to Sevilla], so let’s change that. It could be the same as the coach.”

BOTTLE THAT NOISE

“I think, if you see the goal of Kobbie and Harry Maguire, the sound of the stadium was the best sound I ever [heard]. You want to keep that. Sometimes people want to keep a lot of things, shirts and, I just want to keep that sound. It’s the best sound in the world. It’s a special moment. It was amazing. When you score two goals in the end, like that, you hear the sound of the fans and it pays off any suffering or frustration you have during the season. And, we know again, we know that we are underperforming. We deserve all the critics, but we still have time to make something special of this season, so we have to think like that and to be positive.”

Highlights: United v Lyon Video

Somehow, we condensed United v Lyon into two minutes. Don’t ask, just watch…

WHAT ABOUT ATHLETIC CLUB?

“Anything is possible, you saw it today. Of course, the opponents are really good but we are here to fight. Even if we don’t play perfect football, we can show the character. The character of the players was the main thing tonight. We have to focus as we are going to the semi-finals and you don’t win anything [for that], of course. This is mainly going to give us confidence and a clear target for these final games.”

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Manchester United passed a truly historic club landmark during our incredible, rollercoaster victory over Lyon on Thursday night.

The Reds had a two-goal lead at half-time, after strikes from Manuel Ugarte and Diogo Dalot, but Corentin Tolisso and Nicolas Tagliafico struck back to take proceedings beyond the 90.

United seemed to have the upper hand when Tolisso was shown a second booking and sent off, but the visitors added further goals through Rayan Cherki and an Alexandre Lacazette penalty.

But, in the second part of extra-time, Ruben Amorim’s side achieved one of the all-time great comebacks, as a Bruno Fernandes spot-kick was followed by goals from Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire to send United into the semi-finals.

And Fernandes’s goal was the 5,000th scored by the Reds at Old Trafford, since we first moved into our home 115 years ago.

Part one: Bruno’s Old Trafford Fans’ Q&A Video

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United actually lost our inaugural encounter at the ground, being beaten 4-3 by Liverpool on 19 February 1910. Sandy Turnbull, who had netted to clinch the club’s maiden FA Cup 10 months earlier, was the first home scorer.

A trio of United icons have managed a century of goals at the Theatre of Dreams and fittingly the man who gave the venue that oft-used moniker, Sir Bobby Charlton, is top with 138 strikes.

He just pips former team-mate Denis Law and the club’s all-time leading goal-getter Wayne Rooney to first place on the podium, as they each have 135 goals.

Intriguingly, four men fell just short of the 100 mark – Joe Spence (98), Mark Hughes (97), Dennis Viollet (96) and George Best (95) – while Bruno Fernandes is the highest scoring current member of the squad, with 52.

Marcus Rashford, who is currently on loan with Aston Villa, has 79 Old Trafford goals to his name.

The average number of United goals in M16 across a home season is 49, or roughly two per game, but there have of course been some standout campaigns – for better and for worse.

If anyone offered you the chance to go back in time and become a season-ticket holder for just one year, you could do worse than pick the 2002/03 term.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s men plundered a barely believable 81 goals across an admittedly high number of home games – 33. Ruud van Nistelrooy was responsible for 28 of them on his own, including three hat-tricks, as the Reds scored four or more on nine occasions.

The 1920s and 1930s were fallow decades for United and eight of our 15 lowest-scoring home seasons came during this period.

The nadir arrived in the first term that followed World War I, 1919/20, as the Reds managed just 21 strikes across 22 Old Trafford outings. Despite that, good away form ensured we finished in a relatively comfortable position of 12th in the First Division.

Our record win at Old Trafford is 9-0 – a treat experienced on two separate occasions, although once with no fans in attendance.

Ipswich Town were put to the sword in 1995, with Andy Cole tucking five away on his own. That victory set a new Premier League record which was then repeated almost 26 years later, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

There were seven different Reds scorers when Southampton were battered in early February 2021, with Anthony Martial netting twice and Jan Bednarek also putting into his own net.

Bednarek was later sent off – Saints’ second red of the evening – while Fernandes, Rashford, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Edinson Cavani, Scott McTominay and Dan James were also on target.

Part two: Bruno’s Old Trafford Fans’ Q&A Video

PART TWO | Fernandes answers fans’ questions on Take Me Home, Old Trafford banners, pyrotechnics & the Europa League…

We did beat Anderlecht 10-0 in 1956, although that European Cup tie took place at Maine Road – one of 74 ‘home’ games played at Manchester City’s old haunt that naturally do not count towards this tally.

United were tenants on Moss Side between 1946 and 1949, due to bomb damage suffered by Old Trafford during the war, while Goodison Park and Leeds Road (Huddersfield) hosted us in cup ties when both Manchester clubs had been drawn at home.

We also played three continental outings at Maine Road during the 1950s prior to the erection of floodlights at our own ground, and three 1970s home fixtures were held at Arsenal, Plymouth Argyle and Stoke City because of crowd trouble.

Every other United home game since 1910 has taken place at Old Trafford and, now we’ve scored our 5000th goal here, we can hopefully look forward to plenty more, before we leave for a new stadium in the near future.

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