Manchester United's Roma comeback papers over Como-shaped cracks
A fortunate win over Roma ended United's winless run, but the collapse against Nico Paz's Como two weeks earlier exposed problems a single result cannot fix.
Manchester United ended a nine-game run without a win by coming from two goals down at half-time to beat Roma in the Champions League, with Matheus Cunha scoring the winner from a penalty that Guardian Football's Barry Glendenning described as "somewhat fortuitous."
The result arrived after a first half so poor that club alumni Nicky Butt, Ashley Young and Wayne Rooney, working as pundits on Amazon Prime's coverage, spent the interval criticising what Glendenning summarised as United's "timidity, cowardice, and lack of ideas, confidence and belief."
Roma themselves have previous for surrendering two-goal leads in this competition, Glendenning noted, which is part of why the recovery looked less like a tactical correction than opponents retreating from a position they could not protect.
A low block that invited the comeback, not a system that earned it
The distinction matters. A team that drops into a low block after taking a two-goal lead is choosing to defend territory rather than press for a third goal, and that choice hands the ball back to opponents without forcing them to solve anything in build-up.
United's second-half improvement should be read against that backdrop. Winning the ball back higher up the pitch counts for little if the opponent in front of you has already stopped contesting midfield; the penalty that turned the game came from exactly the kind of sustained territorial pressure a retreating side concedes almost by design.
None of that erases the first-half evidence. A team that cannot generate pressing intensity or control transitions against a side still playing with intent has a structural problem that one piece of fortune in a second half does not repair.
The spaces Nico Paz found still exist
United's defensive issues were starker a fortnight earlier, when Como beat them 4-1 in the same competition. Como sporting director Carlalberto Ludi, speaking to Radio Radio and quoted via TuttoMercatoWeb, confirmed Nico Paz scored twice and set up a further goal in that match, part of a run of three goals and five assists in four Champions League games this season, Football Italia reported.
Paz operates as an attacking midfielder comfortable drifting into the half-spaces between a defensive line and a holding midfielder, and it was precisely that zone United failed to close against Como. A player finding that much space and productivity in a single Champions League fixture is rarely a freak outcome; it typically reflects a gap in how a team screens the area just in front of its back line.
That the same side who could not contain Paz in midfield also needed a fortunate penalty to beat a Roma team that had stopped competing for the ball says less about one bad half and more about a defensive structure that still breaks down once an opponent commits players forward through the centre.
One win does not settle what nine without one raised
Ludi used the same interview to address Paz's long-term future, insisting the midfielder is "100% a Como player" despite interest from Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal. Real Madrid activated a buy-back clause on Paz in the summer before Como re-signed him permanently for a reported €60m, and Ludi acknowledged Real retain the right to take him back in 2027.
Ludi's frustration was pointed. "I put myself in the shoes of Como fans, because every November and every March, I don't know whether it's media speculation or for other reasons, it always comes out that Real Madrid are taking all the players back home," he said, adding that the same speculation now surrounds Jacobo Ramón as well as Paz over the next two seasons.
For United, the Paz link is speculative and unconfirmed, nothing more than reported interest alongside two rival clubs. What is established, because it happened on the pitch, is that his form against them in October was the clearest evidence yet of where their current Champions League side is most exposed: the central zones between midfield and defence, where a confident opponent with a creative passer can simply walk through.
The Roma result ends the winless run and lifts some immediate pressure, but the two matches sit awkwardly side by side. One shows a team rescued by an opponent's own retreat into a low block; the other shows a team unable to stop a single midfielder from repeatedly finding pockets of space through the centre. Neither suggests the underlying issue has been solved, only that it was not punished on this occasion.
Sources
- Guardian Football: Football Daily | Manchester United’s unlikely one-match winning streak and hard-to-please fans
- Football Italia: ‘Nico Paz is 100% a Como player’ – Ludi addresses future amid Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester United links
- Planet Football: Manchester United’s nine original ‘Fergie’s Fledglings’ & how they fared