Manchester United marked their beginning in the UEFA Champions League with a comfortable 3-0 win over FC Basel in their opening match of the group stage.
Mourinho had made six changes in the starting line up from the side that had drawn 2-2 against Stoke City last Sunday. Victor Lindelof and Chris Smalling were expected to come in place of Eric Bailly and Phil Jones as they both were suspended for this match. Young and Blind started in both the sides in place of Valencia and Darmian respectively. Mata was in the starting eleven in place of Hererra to provide more attacking threats to the Basel defense while Martial was chosen over Rashford for this match.
The match had started with United dominating Basel from the very first minute of the match. Basel were trying to organise their first and then take the chances of mistakes of United to counter. In the 18th minute of the match Paul Pogba was injured badly and had to be replaced by Marouane Fellaini.
Marouane Fellaini had provided the aerial threat which they were missing before his inclusion and Romelu Lukaku was trapped by the Basel defenders. The brilliant header of Fellaini had finally broken the deadlock for United at 34th minute of the match.
Ashley Young had provided a beautiful cross towards Marouane Fellaini and the player had no committed no mistake to head it towards the goal. The first half had ended with United leading with one goal margin.
In the second half, FC Basel were desperate to make a come back in the match. But their task became more difficult when the Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku had met the cross of Blind perfectly to pull it into the net and United doubled their lead with this goal at 52nd minute of the match. FC Basel had replaced their forward R.Van.
Wolfswinkel with K.Bua to change their fortune in this match at 65th minute. United also brought Lingard in place of Martial at 68th minute of the match. The match was becoming more and more between United attack and Basel defense as one after one attacking threats were coming towards the penalty area of FC Basel.
FC Basel manager had now replaced Riveros with Oberlin at the 76th minute of the match and at the same time United also made their 3rd substitution by bringing Marcus Rashford in place of Anthony Martial.
The United substitute marked his appearance with a goal at the 83rd minute of the match when Marouane Fellaini created some space in the right and Henry Mkhitaryan had miscued the shot but Marcus Rashford did not commit any mistake to make it 3-0 for United . The match ended with this scoreline which had denoted an emphatic win for Manchester United.
Manchester United are currently situated at the top of the Group A with a greater goal difference. CSKA Moscow had also defeated Benfica with a 2-1 margin in the other match of the group. United will now play against Everton in the Premier League on Sunday and will try to strengthen their position at top in the Premier League also.
