- Amad Diallo netted a brilliant second-half brace to guide Man United to victory
- He first scored a well-placed header before curling his second into the corner
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There were no laps of honour here at Old Trafford, not even for match-winner Amad Diallo.
No wave of emotion like the one that swept Ruben Amorim out of the Jose Alvalade Stadium on Tuesday night after Sporting Lisbon’s barnstorming Champions League win over Manchester City.
No, Amorim will start work at Manchester United on Monday with the bar set low. He will take over a team that has been struggling in the lower reaches of the Premier League and only moved up to 15th place in the Europa League last night thanks to a first win in Europe in more than a year.
If he needed an accurate gauge of the task he inherits, then look no further than games like this one. A United team that cost more than £400million to put together labouring to victory over PAOK thanks to two second-half efforts from Diallo.
None of which can really be blamed on interim manager Ruud van Nistelrooy. He inherited a bad hand from Erik ten Hag and has played it to the best of his ability. United are now unbeaten in the three games since Ten Hag’s departure. Two wins and one draw.
But very little has changed, in truth. United still don’t play like the sum of their expensive parts and there is an ocean of room for improvement.
Van Nistelrooy will take charge of Sunday’s game at home to Leicester City and then wait to see if he has a place in the new set-up. The indications are that he probably won’t.
And then the Amorim era will begin. At least, he will arrive with United’s Europa League prospects looking up. The next game is at Old Trafford against Bodo Glimt in three weeks’ time and he will fancy his chances of winning that one.
After being held to a disappointing draw by FC Twente in their other home game in Europe this season, this felt like another winnable match for United.
PAOK arrived here lying 30th in the 36-team table — having qualified for this stage of the competition by beating Shamrock Rovers — and had one point from three games.
Van Nistelrooy was certainly in bullish mood before kick-off. ‘The most important thing was to get the lads back at their best over the last weeks,’ he said.
‘Of course, a lot has happened — results were not good and there was a lot of pressure on them. There was no time to make big changes.
‘As an assistant, you are a bit closer to the lads than the manager so that helped me a lot. We really got it going together. We communicated and said we have four games together, let’s make the most out of it and get the results we can.’
While Van Nistelrooy could have been forgiven for putting personal ambition first and going with his strongest line-up, he replaced first-choice centre backs Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez with Victor Lindelof and Jonny Evans.
Diallo took over from Marcus Rashford on the right and he was United’s brightest player in an underwhelming first half, two weeks after looking less than impressed to be brought on for the dying moments of the draw with Fenerbahce in Istanbul.
Diallo had a decent shout for a penalty turned down in the 17th minute when Baba Rahman trod on his foot. The first thing he did after coming back on following treatment was to swing a cross to the edge of the six-yard box where Rasmus Hojlund headed United’s best chance of the half straight at goalkeeper Dominik Kotarski.
Alejandro Garnacho had less joy on the left after his brush with a disgruntled fan outside Old Trafford before the match. After misplacing several passes, he did manage to pick out Diallo at the far post, but Baba made a crucial interception.
Roared on by 4,000 fans at a subdued Old Trafford, PAOK had their moments too before half-time. The best effort came from Mady Camara and was tipped over the bar by Andre Onana after Camara’s early strike had deflected off Casemiro and bounced wide with the United keeper wrong-footed.
It took less than five minutes after the restart for United to make the breakthrough. Given what had gone before, it was no surprise that Diallo was the man to do it but no one would have expected the 5ft 8in winger to score with a header.
It started on the left with Bruno Fernandes and he spotted Diallo drifting behind Baba at the back post.
The cross was spot-on and so was the header as Diallo sent it looping over Kotarski and in off the far post. So often in Europe, United’s problem has been holding on to leads and they very nearly gave up this one within a matter of seconds.
Andrija Zivkovic raced on to a pass inside the box and his low effort was far too close for comfort as it flew past Onana’s left-hand post.
The game was opening up and a first-time pass from Fernandes gave Diallo another clear sight of goal but this time Kotarski denied him, saving with his legs.
Back came PAOK. Taison found Tarik Tissoudali, unmarked 10 yards out, but his snatched low effort was straight at Onana.
Diallo wrapped up victory in the 77th minute when he stole the ball away from Baba and broke on goal.
There was only one thought on his mind and the shot took a nick off Omar Colley on its way in.
Victory in Europe at last — and something for Amorim to work with.
