Manchester United vs FC Midjylland match report: Debutant Marcus Rashford spares Louis van Gaal's blushes

Manchester United 5 FC Midjylland 1

Marcus Rashford scores his second goal of the game (EPA)

Marcus Rashford spared Manchester United from Europa League humiliation with the most impressive European debut in front of the Stretford End since a teenage Wayne Rooney’s 2004 hat-trick against Fenerbahce.

Rashford, 18, had been due to start the game as a substitute until Anthony Martial’s tweaked hamstring in the warm-up forced Louis van Gaal to throw the Manchester-born forward in at the deep end against FC Midtjylland.

But with two second-half goals to cap a hugely impressive performance, Rashford carried United into the last 16 and further eased the pressure on Van Gaal ahead of Sunday’s visit of Arsenal.

Whether it was the unusually small crowd, or the hangover from last week’s 2-1 first-leg defeat in Denmark, there was an air of quiet foreboding hanging over Old Trafford ahead of this fixture.

A game on a night when few people want to watch football, in a competition nobody inside Old Trafford wanted to be in, not to mention an injury crisis that had accounted for 13 of Gaal’s first-team players even before Martial’s injury, it was perhaps no surprise that the Theatre of Dreams instead felt like a torture chamber.

But these are strange times at Manchester United and the personnel shortage that has ravaged Van Gaal’s squad has clearly compromised the team on all fronts.

Van Gaal was forced to hand a first start to 19-year-old left-back Joe Riley following the youngster’s substitute debut in Monday’s FA Cup fifth round victory at Shrewsbury, while Martial’s warm-up injury – the French forward tweaked a hamstring while stretching – led to Rashford making his first senior appearance for the club.

As a result, United’s line-up for a crucial European tie was similar to those selected by Sir Alex Ferguson in the days when the League Cup was treated like little more than a glorified FA Youth Cup by the club.

But despite all of the problems facing Van Gaal and his team, United still only needed to secure a 1-0 victory against the Danish champions.

For a club built on dramatic second-leg fightbacks against the likes of Barcelona and Juventus, beating FC Midtjylland 1-0 was hardly a challenge on a par with scaling Everest.

But United increasingly make hard work of things nowadays and so it proved against Jess Thorup’s team, whose first-leg fightback, with goals from Pione Sisto and Paul Onuachu overturning Memphis Depay’s opener, had given them the advantage coming into the return fixture.

United started brightly, with Depay showing pace and trickery down the left and Rashford playing with youthful confidence, but they were only knocking on the door rather than pushing it down.

Jesse Lingard went closest to scoring an opener on 22 minutes, when Filip Novak’s clearance hit the winger’s shin, only for the ball to fly the wrong side of the side-netting, but it was anything but a chance carved out by a touch of flair or creativity.

That came at the other end five minutes later when Sisto breached United’s defences once again to put Midtjylland 3-1 ahead on aggregate.

The Uganda-born forward made easy work of turning Daley Blind on the edge of the penalty area before evading a diving challenge from Michael Carrick to shoot low and hard past Sergio Romero.

It appeared to be United’s worst nightmare, but falling behind sparked them into life, with Depay creating the equaliser five minutes later with a cross that was diverted into his own net by defender Nikolay Bodurov.

United began to press forward and their chance to level the tie came from the penalty spot, seconds after Morgan Schneiderlin had headed against the post.

Andre Romer’s foul on Ander Herrera resulted in the penalty, but Mata’s effort was woeful, with goalkeeper Mikkel Andersen easily saving low to his right.

Having been guilty of making a half-hearted challenge in the build-up to Onuachu’s winner in Denmark, Mata’s miss merely added to the Spaniard’s misery against Midtjylland.

And although Andersen correctly guessed which side Mata would hit the ball, the lack of pace in the strike ensured the goalkeeper could have walked across before bending over to pick it up.

But having kept their foot on the pedal, United finally levelled the tie on 63 minutes when Rashford marked his debut with a goal in front of the Stretford End.

Uruguayan full-back Guillermo Varela, who has also impressed during his recent run in the first-team, made the goal by pulling the ball back from the touchline for Rashford to calmly side-foot into the net.

With extra-time looming, though, Varela once again broke through the Midtjylland defence to cross for Rashford, whose goal put the game beyond the Danish champions before Herrera made it 4-1 with an 87 minute penalty, moments before Romer was dismissed for a second booking.

Depay’s long range shot from 20 yards in the final minute capped an impressive performance to ensure United will now go into Friday’s draw with hopes still alive of Champions League qualification via this competition.