Cristiano Ronaldo Goal Secures Manchester United’s Win Against FC Sheriff

Goals from Diogo Dalot, Marcus Rashford and Cristiano Ronaldo gave Manchester United a 3-0 win over FC Sheriff on Thursday evening in the Europa League.

The ultimately comfortable win set up an enticing group decider with Real Sociedad, to be played in San Sebastian next Thursday afternoon.

To qualify for the knockout stages directly, United must win by more than a goal, or by a one-goal margin that is not 1-0.

They huffed and puffed in the first half, Cristiano Ronaldo missing their best chance, but then a minute before the break, a terrific ball in from Christian Eriksen picked out Dalot at the front post, who scored with a powerful header.

The second half was a similar story, United dominating, and on 65 minutes, Rashford planted home a terrific header before Ronaldo completed the scoring, tucking away a rebound after his own header had been saved. The stern test is yet to come, but momentum is building.

Erik ten Hag is renowned for his technical and beautiful football, but there is more than one way to skin a massed defence, and he should take no less pleasure in his side breaking the deadlock with a header from a corner than from a 392-pass move.

One of the beauties of football is that one goal is worth the same as any other goal, however it’s scored, and United haven’t scored enough from set-plays in recent times – and that was their first from a corner this season.

There’s no excuse for this, given in Christian Eriksen, Bruno Fernandes and Antony, they have three players more than capable of delivering quality crosses.

Their problem has been a lack of conviction and competence from those players deputed to get on the end of things, but Diogo Dalot showed excellent anticipation in simply holding his position, and decent desire to get on the end of an inviting ball in.

The challenge now is for the men attacking the box to make this the first of many, rather than a handy outlier.