Harry Maguire knows Manchester United must improve to win the Europa League after advancing past Lyon in the “strangest, maddest game I’ve ever played or witnessed”.
The England international scored the match-winner in a 5-4 comeback win — 7-6 on aggregate — with a header in the 121st minute which saved United after they had trailed 4-2 in extra time.
“That game pretty much summed up my time at this club, to be honest,” said Maguire after the match.
“Incredible feeling to score that winner in such an important game, in a game that was full of emotion. It was just a mad game, maybe the strangest, maddest game I’ve ever played in or witnessed. The lads showed great spirit and fight in the end to dig in and turn it around.”
Despite the extraordinary fashion in which United changed their fortunes, Maguire warned they cannot afford to play like that if they want to go any further.
“The worst feeling was that we’d thrown it away rather than lost the game at that moment and how we managed to get ourselves into that situation,” he said. “Even going into extra time at 2-2 and the momentum was back with us with the sending off, we shouldn’t have ended up in that situation.
“We can’t get done on two counter-attacks like that when we’re playing against ten men. It’s criminal really.
“We’ve got to be far better than that if we want to win this competition, we can’t be doing that. But it does show great fight, togetherness and that’s one thing I think this group of lads are doing. They’re giving everything. Sometimes I think this year has not been good enough. Rightly so. It hasn’t. But they are giving everything.”
Maguire, who is fully aware of the significance of winning the Europa League, is not getting ahead of himself though.
“Listen, we’re only in the semi-final. We’re playing Bilbao, I don’t know if people say they’re the favourites to win the competition. We’ll go in with a great belief to win the game. But we’re only in the semi-final, so we don’t want to get carried away in terms of speaking about winning the competition.”
United will travel to Athletic Club on May 1 for the semi-final first leg before welcoming them to Old Trafford a week later. They next face Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League on Sunday.
(Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
