Two listing Premier League giants face off in a Europa League final which could be decided by battles all over the pitch.
The 2024 Europa League final was a wonderfully high-quality affair. Xabi Alonso’s rampant Bayer Leverkusen had not lost a single game all season, yet were given a nut-and-bolt dismantling by an Atalanta side inspired by Ademola Lookman, who would go on to be crowned the best African player on the planet.
are both enduring their worst domestic campaigns in the modern era and somehow seem to be accelerating towards those dire depths. The two traditional giants have each beaten four Premier League teams this calendar year—French champions Paris Saint-Germain have won five games against English opposition in the same time frame.in next season’s Champions League. That dubious victor could be decided by a glut of battles all over the pitch.Amad Diallo boasts a combined 18 goals and assists across all competitions this season. / IMAGO / Action Plus This is the fourth meeting between Spurs and United this season but the head-on duel between Destiny Udogie—Tottenham’s first-choice left back—and the leading right winger for the Red Devils, Amad Diallo, is yet to take place. In fact, the two potentially key figures in Wednesday’sfinal have not been on the same pitch at the same time as each other since battling it out in Italy’s under-17s league seven years ago. Amad twice came out on top, playing a key role as his Atalanta side racked up 12 goals across two games against Udogie’s Hellas Verona. It may only take one goal to decide the Bilbao showpiece—three of the past four Europa League finals have gone to a penalty shootout—and Amad offers more verve and vague whisper of competence than almost any other United player. If Udogie can stifle the fleet-footed forward, it would dramatically diminish the threat presented by Ruben Amorim’s side.Brennan Johnson opened the scoring against Man Utd when the sides met in September 2024. / IMAGO/Ian Stephen Tottenham’s attacking outlets seem to dwindle each day. Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison have created 21 goals between them but will both watch Wednesday’s showpiece from the sidelines, while doubts persist over the fitness of Lucas Bergvall. Tottenham’s likely midfield three of Yves Bissouma, Rodrigo Bentancur and Pape Sarr are the type of trio you would want to help you move house, rather than unlock the door.The Wales international has a refined skillset—the winger has gone five weeks and more than six hours of football since last dribbling past an opponent—but he is very good at arriving at the back post. Almost half of Johnson’s goals this season have come from one sliver of the six-yard box, including his header in the Europa League semifinal against Bodø/Glimt and—perhaps more pertinently—the opener against United at Old Trafford in September. Conceding goals from runners ghosting in at the far upright is a painfully familiar habit for United. Even before the team shifted to a back three—creating that corridor of calamity between the widest centre back and wing back—the Red Devils had a penchant for leaving this area of the pitch bizarrely unguarded.Dominic Solanke channeled his inner Eren Yeager in his first goal for Tottenham Hotspur. / IMAGO/Paul Terry/Sportimage Dominic Solanke has formed a healthy habit of scoring against Manchester United. The England international boasts five goals across his previous four meetings with the Red Devils, including three this season.against United and—more specifically—Harry Maguire. The perennially ponderous centre back didn’t so much try to stop his compatriot as get a really, really good view of his goals, rushing into an invisible five-yard barrier as Solanke had time and space to set himself. For all his flaws, Maguire has proven to be more decisive in the final, rather than defensive, third as of late. It was an almost comedically slow pirouette from the towering defender which led to Casemiro’s opener in the, while Maguire’s aerial prowess is well established. According to Amorim, he is “the only guy who can a score a goal with his head”.Bruno Fernandes boasts the most assists and total goal involvements in Europa League history. / Sports Press Photo/IMAGO It’s not surprising to see Bruno Fernandes lead Manchester United for goals and assists. Yet, the club’s freshly crowned Player of the Season—for aThe fury seeping out of Fernandes as he desperately tries to inspire this particularly insipid iteration of United is palpable. If Amorim could have 11 Fernandes’ on the pitch, he undoubtedly would, but that’s not to say that he should play the role of his other 10 teammates at the same time. Fernandes’s propensity to try and plug every hole in this string bag of a team can leave some of his colleagues exposed—as Casemiro found out during the bleak 1–0 defeat to Spurs in north London earlier this year. However, there are many upsides to Fernandes’s wandering. The Portuguese playmaker routinely darted behind Pedro Porro when the sides duked out a chaotic seven-goal thriller in the Carabao Cup this term, with Amorim seemingly targeting the space routinely vacated by Tottenham’s fullback, a player he knows well from their shared time at Sporting CP. Ange Postecoglou could be tempted to instruct a one of his workmanlike midfield to man-mark Fernandes, although whether any fit member of the Tottenham squad has the capacity to quell United’s talismanic playmaker remains to be seen.Grey Whitebloom is a writer, reporter and editor for Sports Illustrated FC. Born and raised in London, he is an avid follower of German, Italian and Spanish top flight football.
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