Manchester United in the Euros Group Stages
Overall, there haven’t been too many United players making the headlines for England at the group stage in the tournament. We have to take into account the fact that Dean Henderson withdrew from the England squad, Harry Maguire is only just match fit and Marcus Rashford doesn’t seem to be getting a full game probably due to fitness as well. There have however, been some standout performances from a United perspective.
Paul Pogba
Things started off pretty well for the French midfielder, he put in a very solid performance in the first match against Germany. He attempted nine long balls, with 6 of those being accurate, in this metric he was second only to Lloris. He topped the table for through balls, attempting three with two being accurate. In this match, he displayed his talents in that box-to-box role as well as making things tick from slightly further out from goal. However, France as a team, and consequently Pogba, looked a lot less confident against Hungary. In that match, he achieved only one key pass, three crosses, only one of which was accurate and zero through balls. He did however attempt five long balls, four of which were accurate. Pogba really turned things on in the final group stage match against Portugal. The match ebbed and flowed in favour of both teams, hence the 2-2 score line, but throughout Pogba looked quality. In the match, he registered three key passes, eleven long balls, nine of those being accurate and four through balls with two being accurate and one being the assist for Benzema’s goal. He also had a pass accuracy of 97%. He really is instrumental to this France team.
Luke Shaw
Having missed out on England’s opening game against Croatia, Shaw would have looked to impress when given the start against Scotland. However, he didn’t quite live up to what we might expect from him on a regular basis. In that game England looked pretty poor overall and a bit dull, with the full-backs very rarely going into the attacking third. However, in the final match of the group stages against Czech Republic, Luke Shaw looked pretty strong going forward as well as defensively. In that match he had two key passes, six crosses, four long balls, and one through ball. These are all signs of an attacking full-back putting in a more rounded performance in England shirt, something we have seen time and again from Shaw at Old Trafford.
Harry Maguire
After missing out on the end of the season for United and the opening two games for England, it is good to see the United skipper back to full fitness. He played the full 90 minutes against Czech Republic, which may have surprised some people that he was fit enough for the full match, but he looked really solid throughout the entire match and rarely put a foot wrong. In the match he made two interceptions, two clearances and blocked one shot. Not only did he look defensively solid, but he was excellent at progressing the ball up the pitch, with those trademark strides into midfield as well as some excellent balls over the top for the pacey forwards to chase down. He had a pass accuracy of 87.3%, he achieved one key pass in the game which was a through ball for Kane. He attempted seven long balls with three of those being accurate. All of these are great signs for a player coming back from an injury.
Scott McTominay
Here is a player who has ultimately had a disappointing tournament with Scotland not progressing from the group stages, but in terms of performances has probably done what we expect from a player like Scott. He has been reasonably reliable, always put in a good shift, and has mostly looked solid defensively with the odd shaky moment. He had a pretty solid performance against England in that respect playing on the right of a back three. He made one tackle, two interceptions, two clearances and won two aerial duels. He also had a pass accuracy of 82.9%. There’s nothing really to complain about here, as previously mentioned a decent performance. Against Croatia, on the other hand, there were a few examples of poor defending from Scotland as a team and consequently McTominay gets drawn into that. The main incident that springs to mind is the final goal from Croatia, the Perisic header from a corner sent in by Modric, Perisic was pretty much unmarked and had a near enough free header, not good enough. I don’t think we can read too much into the future of McTominay off his international career, mainly because for Scotland he is playing as a centre-back not as the kind of box-to-box number 6 or 8 that we think of him as playing for United.
Victor Lindelöf
The Swedish centre-back has looked really solid playing alongside Marcus Danielson. The pair have managed consecutive clean sheets in their opening two matches. With one of those coming against Spain, keeping them from scoring with the attacking talent they possess is some achievement. It was this match that Lindelöf was awarded the man of the match. An award that was fully deserved with a very solid performance, in the match he made one interception, blocked two shots and made an astounding nine clearances. Against Poland they looked slightly more fallible, however a few things to bear in mind; Sweden were already through the group stages at this point and they were facing up against arguably the best striker in the world in Robert Lewandowski. Even in this match, he still made one interception, six clearances and blocked two shots, so it’s not like he had a terrible game. I can’t imagine that Sweden will progress too far into the knockout stages but we shall have to wait and see how he performs in his upcoming games.