Manchester United v Paris Saint-Germain: Champions League – live! – The Guardian

Here is David Hytner’s match report!

I’ll leave you with that. Thanks a lot for your emails, tweets and general company this evening. Bye!

Harry Maguire speaks: “A disappointing night, football’s a game of fine margins. We had the better chances, their goals were scrappy goals bu they’ve stuck it in the back of the net. We came away with nothing but I feel like we deserved something. You’ve got to be clinical, take your chances and not give them soft goals but they haven’t opened us up with their talent. We’ve got to pick ourselves up, it’s still in our control to go into the knock-out stages.”

So, for United it comes down to this:

A win or draw at RB Leipzig next week: fine, they go through.

Defeat at RB Leipzig: hello Europa League!

Krai Chatamra writes: “This defeat is all on Ole. Why did Fred stay on beyond half time? Being unaware that two goals differential would mean that PSG would top the group! Very naïve management.”

He probably did know about the goal difference, and I’m not actually sure the group-topping thing matters much, but can’t argue with the sentiment on Fred.

PSG had the first 20 minutes and the last 25, and that’s how they won the game. United were better in that middle phase and played some *lovely* stuff early in the second half. Martial should have scored, Cavani chipped against the bar, and if one of those go in it’s all so different. But PSG have quality everywhere – they made it tell through goals from Marquinhos and then Neymar. Inbetween times, Fred was – slightly harshly on the basis of that one incident, but not before time in reality – sent off for United.

What a game that was – utterly breathless at times. United now need a point in Leipzig.

90+3 min: That means PSG will overtake United on head-to-head and top the group, although United’s battle is with Leipzig now really.

No mistakes this time from the Parisian attack. It’s another counter, fluidly worked to Rafinha, who draw De Gea and rolls it across to Neymar for a cool finish from close in. Neymar had started that move with a brilliant run and pass. He’s come good tonight.

90 min: Gueye does come on for Diallo, and meanwhile Ighalo is on for Wan Bissaka in United’s last throw of the dice. Four added minutes here …

89 min: It’s well delivered by Telles but PSG deal with it and …. counter like lightning. Mbappe runs 80 whole yards and goes one-on-one with De Gea, he’s surely going to wrap this up. But, incredibly, he slides it wide!

88 min: Angel di Maria was all set to join the gaggle of returning heroes but Tuchel appears to have changed his mind and we may soon see Idrissa Gueye. Meanwhile, corner to United …

86 min: United are really giving it a go now; they are camped in PSG’s half, the away side perhaps all too aware of how precious this win would be.

84 min: They come close-ish now, Navas clasping a reaction header from Fernandes after Maguire had volleyed across from beyond the back post.

82 min: United attack again but Van de Beek, perhaps not up to the pace yet, fouls Herrera. Even with 10, I would not discount United yet.

80 min: Wow, what an effort from Pogba! Maguire heads a free-kick across and Pogba, watching it all the way, spears a vicious volley towards goal from 25 yards. It is inches over; Navas was grasping at air.

79 min: Herrera strikes one from 20 yards but it’s high. PSG now introduce Kehrer for Florenzi and Rafinha for Verratti. Here, too, are Van de Beek and Greenwood for Martial and Cavani – who was so close to that fairytale reunion.

76 min: This has been just as eventful, edgy and entertaining a game as the neutral could have hoped for.

74 min: It gets worse. Now Rashford walks straight down the tunnel, I think with a recurrence of his shoulder issue. Pogba is on to replace him. They need a goal or it’s a sticky night in Leipzig.

73 min: That’s all … errrm … unravelled a bit for United. They’d had such a good first 20 minutes of the half and should have been ahead. But Tuchel changed PSG’s formation, they got themselves in with a sniff or two … and now it has all gone wrong for the home side.

The Marquinhos goal was, incidentally, checked at length by VAR but it correctly ruled Cavani – I think – had played him on.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Ole, why did you keep him on? Fred gets a second yellow immediately, for clipping Herrera. His first touch gets away from him and, although he does eventually get a toe on the ball, he’s adjudged to have got too much of the man. That’s harsh really, I’m not sure what he did wrong – but he didn’t really have a lot of margin for error after that first half, we have to say.

The resulting corner is cleared to the edge of the box, Herrera drills it back in, Diallo sticks out a foot and dabs it across … and Marquinhos squeezes it past De Gea from two yards!

68 min: Fine save from De Gea! The substitute Bakker finds space on the left of the box, found after good play by Neymar, and he goes for the slide-rule finish … but De Gea gets a fingertip on it and sends it wide! And then …

67 min: Rashford beats Navas to a through ball but is going well away from goal and the situation ends with a ballooned Fernandes cross.

66 min: A double PSG change just now – Bakker and the returning United old boy Herrera on for the heavily-involved Paredes and the quiet Kean. They move to a back three, presumably to quell some of the danger from those counters.

64 min: United are managing to roast PSG on the break *while* controlling the game. Never saw this coming in those early minutes. It’s a PSG corner now though, and although United half-clear the danger stays alive. Florenzi chips across from the left byline and Marquinhos, close in but leaning backwards, loops a header behind off the top of the bar!

62 min: Paredes intervenes with a well-timed and very necessary challenge on Rashford, who had weaved deep into the PSG box. There is a real edge and urgency to this game.

60 min: PSG are again unhappy as Martial caught Marquinhos, who needs some treatment, with an arm. It was clearly unintentional though.

59 min: Verratti is booked for fouling Martial. This is so much better from United. Much more ambition and intent, and some genuinely dazzling football on the break.

57 min: Cavani hits the bar! Another sensational United counter, begun by a quite startlingly astute dummy from Fernandes deep in his own half. Cavani is sent clear and chips Navas delicately from 20 yards … but it rebounds off the woodwork! The rebound finds its way to Martial, but his drive is blocked. That was quite exquisite stuff, all bar the finer details of the finish!

56 min: PSG haven’t really offered much in this half. United have had the better moments so far, and the bigger miss.

Just to reiterate for anyone coming in late, a draw *is* all United need.

54 min: Fred lets fly from range and it’s deflected wide. This game is looking very open and PSG are leaving gaps. They don’t leak anything from Telles’s corner, though.

51 min: That, though, was what United will hope for plenty of in this half. The chance came from Neymar’s side, the United right and PSG’s left, and he is showing his usual levels of interest in covering back.

49 min: Huge miss from Martial! United break beautifully, Cavani slipping Rashford in. Rashford then lays it across and it’s on a plate for Martial 10 yards out … but, perhaps put off by the run from a covering defender if we are being really generous, he skies an absolute sitter!

48 min: PSG spend the early minutes of the half pushing, without stringing anything of real note together.

47 min: Interesting from Robert Lin, who says – “The referee also made a technical mistake in the Fred incident. Once he checks the VAR, he has to make a decision either red card or nothing, there is no middle ground in the rulebook, he is not allowed to just give yellow. Fred is a very lucky man.”

I promised you a second half, and a second half we now have.

He’s still out there for the second half.

We have a second half coming your way very soon – and it should be a belter. United will be very, very keen to get this done tonight. Needing a result in Leipzig wouldn’t be the best.

“Zinedine Zidane should see if VAR can get his red rescinded from the World Cup final,” suggests Niall Mullen.

Haha, indeed. For those not watching: it was not in that league, but the decision only to wield a yellow was pretty inexplicable.

“Solskjaer needs to take off Fred, who is only a mild provocation away from a red card now,” writes Justin Kavanagh, and I’d probably agree. Matic or, if he’s feeling bold, Van de Beek are both on the bench. Fred and Paredes have been needling ever since the incident and both are on tightropes.

An eventful half. PSG scored early through Neymar and looked in the mood to run away with it. Then Fred was, rather incredibly, only booked after a VAR monitor check for a headbutt on Paredes, and that seemed to perk United up. Rashford was behind an own goal from Danilo, and both sides have had moments since. PSG, and Neymar, complain vociferously as they go in, but level it is.

45 min: Fernandes is played in from deep behind the PSG defence and you’d beg him to smash it first-time … but he tries to delicately lay it forward to Cavani and gets it all wrong.

44 min: Neymar is rolling around in apparent agony after McTominay, who’d tackled him fairly, accidentally trod on his ankle as he recovered balance. He’ll be fine.

43 min: Fred springs Rashford away down the right and the forward seeks out Cavani, but his cross is stopped at source.

41 min: Another searching Florenzi cross is too far in front of Mbappe. Will PSG go all-out in the second half?

40 min: Neymar plays a free-kick to Mbappe, but he can’t skin Wan Bissaka and fires a speculative low cross that De Gea holds.

38 min: Fred and Paredes, those two old buddies, contest a shuddering challenge in midfield. Paredes goes down and Orsato has a card out … but the PSG man is booked. He was probably the later into that one but Fred is walking a tightrope now. He shouldn’t be on the pitch as it is.