Europa League: High-flying Real Sociedad is the worst draw for Manchester United
Manchester United have dropped into the UEFA Europa League after their elimination from the Champions League last week. This year's edition is set to be one of the most competitive tournaments in recent seasons following some mouthwatering knockout fixtures. Interestingly, the majority of the in-form teams in Europe are competing in this season's Europa League knockout stages.
The involved teams include Tottenham, who are the leaders of the Premier League. There’s also AC Milan, who are currently top the Serie A table, while Lille also sit at the summit of Ligue 1. n the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen are first on the league table, just as Real Sociedad are also currently the table-toppers in La Liga. The current leaders of Europe’s top five leagues are all competing in the Europa League!
Unfortunately for Manchester United, they’ll be facing the leaders of La Liga in the last 32 of the Europa League. The Red Devils were relegated to Europe’s second-tier club competition after failing to progress from their group in the UEFA Champions League.
Despite picking up nine points from their opening four group games, consecutive defeats to PSG and RB Leipzig saw Manchester United finish third in their group.
Manchester United handed tough Europa League last 32 tie
The consequence of their third-place finish is a clash against La Liga’s in-form side. While Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side has made a slow start to the season, the situation is the exact opposite for Real Sociedad.
La Real are unbeaten in their last 10 games in all competitions and have already stolen a march on the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona. Their last defeat in the league came on September 29 when they lost at home to Valencia.
Since then, they have embarked on an impressive run of form in the Spanish top-flight division. Real Sociedad are compact at the back and their stability will make it very difficult for Manchester United to find a way past them.
After the Red Devils' elimination from the Champions League, Solskjaer indicated that he aimed to go all out in an attempt to win the Europa League.
Real Sociedad as good as PSG and RB Leipzig
However, Real Sociedad will pose the same level of competition as RB Leipzig and PSG, if not even better.
“We’ve learned any small mistake will get punished; we were very close to going through in a very good group,” the Manchester United boss said, as quoted by the Guardian.
“That shows me a team moving forward from barely beating Rochdale [last year on penalties in the Carabao Cup], and we struggled to beat Astana and Partizan [in the Europa League] convincingly. We still have a little bit of a way to go of course to compete and go and win the Champions League because that’s our aim: to win trophies and to be contenders,” concluded Solskjaer
Manchester United have often started games slowly and that plays directly into the hands of Real Sociedad, who have made a habit of opening the scoring against their opponents.
For all their problems, Manchester United may go into the game as favourites thanks to the talent at their disposal but, on current form, La Real are arguably the better side. The Red Devils couldn’t have received a worse draw in the Europa League.