Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United break Atalanta hearts

Manchester United came from two goals down to beat Atalanta 3-2 at Old Trafford in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Atalanta went into the half-time break with a 2-0 lead after goals from Mario Pasalic and Merih Demiral, but an inspired second-half performance by United saw them score three goals through Marcus Rashford, Harry Maguire and Cristiano Ronaldo.

While Atalanta were missing some important players, particularly in defence, they were the team causing the biggest threat in the opening period of the match. United were having a lot of the ball but were not making their possession count, whereas La Dea were looking to hit the hosts on the counter-attack at every opportunity.

The first-half display by United was pretty shambolic, as evidenced by the scoreline, but they showed enough fight in the second half to turn things around. The withdrawal of Demiral due to injury at half time hurt Atalanta, who found themselves in the eye of the storm in the first 10-15 minutes of the second half.

United were able to grab the first of their three goals through Rashford in the 53rd minute, and that was followed up by Scott McTominay hitting the post five minutes later. Then, it only felt like a matter of time before they grabbed the equaliser.

Twenty-two minutes after Rashford netted, Maguire scored United's second goal. Atalanta failed to clear a corner and that allowed Bruno Fernandes to send in another cross, which ended up falling at the feet of Maguire, who fired past the impressive Juan Musso.

Cristiano Ronaldo the hero

The home crowd were in full voice and they were trying to inspire the team to score a third, which Cristiano Ronaldo achieved in the 81st minute. Luke Shaw's pinpoint cross was met by Ronaldo, who managed to hang in the air before heading the ball powerfully into the bottom corner. Once again, Cristiano Ronaldo became the hero on another magical night for Manchester United at Old Trafford.

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