Manchester United record historic Champions League win over PSG after controversial VAR penalty

PSG 1-3 Manchester United (3-3 agg): Marcus Rashford's late penalty kick, awarded by VAR, meant United went through on away goals and knocked out a stunned PSG in Paris

By this point, you have to just hand it to him. A stoppage-time Marcus Rashford penalty helped Ole Gunnar Solskjaer what may be his most remarkable Manchester United comeback yet, and perhaps his most jaw-dropping.

This 3-1 victory away to a stricken Paris Saint-Germain obviously did not have the pure football drama of 1999, but did have the huge controversy of Damir Skomina using VAR to award a contentious late penalty for a Presnel Kimpembe handball. That it went right to the very extremes of the match was fitting in so many ways, from the history to the fact that an utterly stretched United team were pushed right to the limit.

PSG meanwhile again had their limits brutally exposed. The curious psychology of this team will once again be called into question, as they somehow suffered an elimination maybe even worse than the 6-1 to Barcelona, but that should not overshadow how Solskjaer has just kept coming up with answers and responses.

This match saw a multitude of them, from the decision to correct Eric Bailly’s inclusion to the timing of the late surge.

The French champions were just the latest victims of a wider ongoing surge at the club.

What a moment. What a night. What an effort.

What – you have to say – a manager.

Solskjaer insisted on the eve of the game that United just aren’t a club that “go out easily” and they did go in hard from the off, in ways even beyond the goal. Their first act of the game was Fred taking down in Angel Di Maria with a ferocious challenge. They had to try a lot of that, given how little they had the ball.

That wasn’t such a problem, though, if PSG were going to keep making the errors with it they did. Thilo Kehrer’s pass was bad enough, but just as lax was Thiago Silva’s reaction. Lukaku personified United’s aggression with how he went for it and went through to make it 1-0.

Yet as bad as that was, it was immediately after that we saw the best of PSG.

Romelu Lukaku scored twice against Gigi Buffon (Getty Images)

They responded to the goal supremely. Far from the panic or “doubt” that Solskjaer had hoped for after the first goal, they assuredly took control of the ball and the game. With possession that astonishingly went up to 86.9% by 25 minutes, as they played 256 passes to United’s paltry 25, PSG began to calculatedly aim for the English side’s weak spots.

There was one big one in Eric Bailly. PSG repeatedly got in behind him, and it was of course from there that Juan Bernat found the space for their equaliser, and then forced a fine save from David De Gea moments later.

Bailly was just completely out of his depth, and so often out of position. His inclusion had been the one big surprise of Solskjaer’s starting line-up, since it seemed as if United’s available players ensured the starting XI picked itself with Ashley Young and Diogo Dalot, so it was as if the Norwegian had tried that to just do anything “different” that he could. It was a gamble that didn’t work. There was no upside, as PSG repeatedly got down that side. Bailly was humiliated, and then some. It could spell the end of his time at the club, and certainly brought the end of his game.

Solskjaer did show impressive decisiveness in quickly rectifying his error, by hauling him off after 36 minutes for Dalot, with Young moving to right-back. United did immediately have better balance and shape, while also looking much more of a threat to PSG.

It wasn’t just that switch that changed the game, though. So did another PSG error, and another Lukaku goal. Buffon so badly failed to deal with a wickedly dipping Rashford strike, allowing Lukaku to put another past him.

Kylian Mbappe was kept relatively quiet (Action Images via Reuters)

What followed, however, was even more curious. PSG had reacted to the first goal supremely, but this was the exact opposite. They were suddenly so panicky, so looking fragile for every United attack.

Rashford shot narrowly wide, before Dalot almost forced an own goal with a brilliant shuffling run. That such moments of huge tension were coming from so little possession seemed to only add to PSG’s nerves.

It got to the point that Marquinhos was diving in apparent attempts to get McTominay booked. That was how rattled they looked.

They needed to reassert that smooth control.

A chaotic lull did seem to lull in the second half, but it was difficult not to think this was Solskjaer attempting to assert some control of his own there, too. It was as if United were looking to just keep a foothold in the game and keep PSG out, so they could then go for it in the final stages.

The signal for that was when academy graduate Tahith Chong came on, as Solskjaer went with it in so many ways, but not before United still had to take a bit of punishment.

There was some exceptional defending in this spell in the moments when the French champions – and particularly Di Maria and Mbappe – did suddenly burst, Chris Smalling offering some brilliantly defiant interceptions and Fred having a much more defiant game than anyone expected.

Solskjaer eventually went for that last throw of the dice in another academy graduate in Mason Greenwood.

And, given this was Solskjaer and United in Europe, there was of course that last minute drama.

The referee went to the screen, Rashford went to the centre of Buffon’s goal, and United went into rapture.