Manchester United run riot to fire four past CSKA Moscow in stylish Champions League victory

CSKA Moscow 1 Manchester United 4: Romelu Lukaku was at the double while goals from Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan added to the visitors' tally

Manchester United dominated proceedings from the off (Getty)

When he was trying to calm everyone down after Manchester United’s victory over Basel that opened their Champions League campaign, Jose Mourinho accused his players of losing focus, of indulging in “PlayStation football”.

This was PlayStation football, the kind everyone with a console in their hand imagines they are capable of, and CSKA Moscow had no answer to it. In Soviet times CSKA were the Red Army’s team. Stalin was wont to have his generals shot after defeats like these.

Manchester United might have won by many more than four goals. Romelu Lukaku, whose tally now stands at 10 in nine matches, was only denied a hat-trick by a superb save from Igor Akinfeev, who spent much of the night looking aghast at his defenders, who never tired of exposing their captain. He was CSKA’s lone hero.

The view from Mourinho’s dug-out was altogether better. Manchester United have returned to the Champions League with a 7-1 aggregate victory from their opening two games and they face home and away fixtures against Benfica, who were beaten in Lisbon by CSKA and thrashed in Switzerland by Basel. They can already start planning for the knockout stages.

Despite winning the European Cup in Moscow, Manchester United had a poor away record against Russian teams and now they came out in an odd, off-white strip; the kind that Persil would suggest was washed by Brand X. Fashion-wise it might have been a faux pas but within four minutes of the kick-off those shirts were coming together to congratulate Lukaku in what has become a familiar scene.

It was a simple, brilliantly-constructed move that saw Anthony Martial, preferred to Marcus Rashford in Mourinho’s three-man forward line, deliver a deep cross that was a contest between the young, athletic Lukaku and Sergei Ignashevich, who at 38 is neither. Lukaku won the header and won Manchester United the lead.


 Lukaku celebrates his opener 
 (Getty Images)

His second of a chill Moscow night resulted from another dreadful defensive error from CSKA’s ageing back line. This time, Martial, who had just put United two up from the penalty spot, drove in a low cross that Vasili Berezutski, who at 35 is a mere stripling alongside Ignashevich, ought to have cut out. Instead, the defender launched a kick at thin, cold air and Lukaku stabbed home the kind of goal that would have been an embarrassment in training let alone on a Champions League night. The forward simply folded his arms in celebration. United were three up before the half-hour mark. The game was dead.

CSKA might have been buried even more quickly. When Manchester United played out a considerably less-impressive 1-1 draw in Rostov in March, Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s every move was applauded by the city’s large Armenian community. Here in the heart of Moscow he gave his travelling supporters something to remember him by.

Ander Herrera returned to Mourinho's first team (Getty)

The first was a shot, after he was put through by Daley Blind, that Akinfeev, whom Sir Alex Ferguson seriously considered signing instead of De Gea, saved well with his feet. Then, as Mkhitaryan danced through on the right he was brought down by a park-pitch type challenge. Martial stepped up to convert the penalty.

After the interval, Mkhitaryan scored effortlessly as Akinfeev palmed Martial’s shot into his path. Jesse Lingard came on for him and almost scored with his first touch.

CSKA Moscow's defence was found wanting (Getty)

CSKA Moscow were rather better going forward – they could scarcely have been worse. It is very hard to be critical of the kind of performance Manchester United produced here but the back three Mourinho employed was sometimes sliced open. Amid the carnage at the other end, David de Gea had plenty of saves to make and one of them, from the 19-year-old Fedor Chalov, was breathtakingly tipped over into the mass of flags behind his goal that even in the midst of a catastrophic defeat never stopped waving. They deserved the last-minute goal Konstantin Kuchaev’s near-post shot on the run gave them but it was a thin, bitter consolation.

CSKA Moscow (3-1-4-2): Akinfeev; Vasin, V.Berezutski, Ignashevich; Wernbloom; Fernandes, Dzagoev, Golovin, Schennikov; Vitinho (Kuchaev 85), Chalov (Zhamaletdinov 69). Substitutes: Pomazun (g), A.Berezutski, Nabakin, Natcho.

Manchester United (3-4-3): De Gea; Smalling, Bailly, Lindelof; Young (Darmian 67, Herrera, Matic, Blind; Mkhitaryan (Lingard 60), Lukaku, Martial (Rashford 72). Subsitutes: Romero (g), Mata, Tuanzebe, McTominay.

Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)