Manchester United’s Champions League return ended in disappointment as Harry Kane struck from the spot for Bayern Munich in an entertaining 4-3 win kicked off by Andre Onana’s clanger.
The European heavyweights are at very different stages right now, with the perennial Bundesliga champions second favourites to win a competition that the Red Devils did not even feature in last season.
Absentee-hit United began brightly enough at the Allianz Arena, only for Serge Gnabry to score shortly after ex-Manchester City forward Leroy Sane’s effort squirmed past summer signing Onana.
Rasmus Hojlund scored his first goal for the club but Kane quickly slammed home a penalty, with Casemiro scoring either side of Mathys Tel’s stoppage-time strike as the Red Devils suffered a fourth defeat in five matches.
Few could argue with the eventual outcome, but United had started brightly in Bavaria and should have gone ahead through Facundo Pellistri or Christian Eriksen inside four minutes.
Bayern, who were without suspended boss Thomas Tuchel on the touchline, shook off initial sluggishness, with Sane’s strike beating distraught Onana before Gnabry fired home four minutes later.
Hojlund’s effort off the heel of Kim Min-jae shortly after half-time brought hope to Erik ten Hag’s men, only for Eriksen to soon be adjudged to have handled.
Ex-Tottenham team-mate Kane scored the resulting spot-kick, with Casemiro’s brace sandwiching Tel’s strike during a dramatic conclusion to the Group A opener.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here