Athletic Club will be without Dani Vivian for this second leg, after he was dismissed in the first half of last week\u2019s encounter, for denial of a goalscoring opportunity.<\/p>\n
The Basque side\u2019s leading goalscorer, Oihan Sancet, missed the game in Bilbao with a hamstring problem but head coach Ernesto Valverde says he is \u201cdoing quite well” and could return.<\/p>\n
Nico Williams, the lively winger, played 79 minutes in Bilbao before coming off as a substitute, having only recently returned from injury, and was rested for Athletic\u2019s goalless draw with Real Sociedad at the weekend. Also rested were goalkeeper Julen Agirrezabala and captain Oscar de Marcos, who played in Athletic\u2019s last game at Old Trafford, way back in 2012.<\/p>\n
PAST MEETINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n United have won only two of our five competitive clashes with Athletic Club, and both by the same scoreline.<\/p>\n Back in 1957, the Busby Babes overturned a 5-3 first-leg deficit in remarkable fashion, winning 3-0 in the European Cup quarter-finals at Maine Road. Dennis Viollet, Tommy Taylor and Johnny Berry scored to set the tone for our unbeatable spirit in Europe, with that being our first foray into the competition.<\/p>\n Much more recently, in 2012, Marcelo Bielsa’s side were one of the most impressive victors at Old Trafford in a European tie, when winning 3-2, despite Wayne Rooney scoring twice.<\/p>\n Athletic Club got the job done in the Europa League second leg at home, winning 2-1, with Rooney again the man to find the net for the Reds, with a late long-range piledriver.<\/p>\n Last week, of course, was our second victory over the Lions, as a Bruno Fernandes double inspired us to a 3-0 win at the new Estadio San Mames.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Athletic Club will be without Dani Vivian for this second leg, after he was dismissed in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,1592,4884,18,2465,17,12,20,16,15,21],"class_list":{"0":"post-79424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-first-team","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-like","13":"tag-manchester","14":"tag-match-coverage","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-search","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-now"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114461498334985676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}