Manchester United opened their preseason with a tense 5-4 penalty shootout victory over Leeds United in front of a sold-out Croke Park crowd in Dublin on Wednesday. The match finished level after 90 minutes, but there was still plenty for United to assess, from individual sharpness to a few familiar concerns.<\/p>\n
Bryan Mbeumo was the most dangerous player on the pitch and set the tone for the hosts\u2019 goal. After beating his marker in transition, he lifted his head and delivered the final ball for Zirkzee, who finished from close range. Leeds pulled level in the 29th minute when Brenden Aaronson punished a mistake from Tyler Fletcher in midfield, and neither side found another breakthrough before penalties.<\/p>\n
Zirkzee\u2019s night was mixed. He scored his second goal of the summer, but he also passed up chances earlier in the match and never fully matched Mbeumo\u2019s influence. The Dutchman has now scored nine goals in 75 appearances since arriving from Bologna, and his uneven showing against Leeds did little to settle the debate over his place in Carrick\u2019s squad. He was withdrawn just after the hour mark.<\/p>\n
There was also encouragement for Harry Amass, who made his first preseason start after a string of promising outings. The 19-year-old was neat in possession, showed composure on the touchline, and made sensible choices about when to advance and when to stay back. His one major lapse came after Fletcher\u2019s giveaway, but he recovered well as the game went on.<\/p>\n
Senne Lammens made his first appearance of the summer after being handed the No. 1 shirt, producing three saves in 61 minutes and conceding once from a chance he could hardly have stopped. Matheus Cunha also returned, coming on in the 61st minute after his Brazil involvement and recent illness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United beat Leeds on penalties in Dublin, with Mbeumo, Zirkzee, Amass and Lammens all notable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[702,1083,179],"tags":[59,178,182],"class_list":["post-18439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leeds-united","category-man-utd","category-manchester-united","tag-featured","tag-friendly","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}