Manchester United were easily beaten by eight-time Champions League winners Lyon in a fairly one-sided affair at Leigh Sports Village.<\/p>\n
With a play-off spot for the knockout stages already secure, United boss Marc Skinner made five changes to the starting XI, leaving out several big names for the league-phase tie.<\/p>\n
However, it was exploited by Lyon in a dominant first half in which United had just one touch in the opposition box – a header from Melvine Malard in the 40th minute that flew over the bar, despite being unchallenged. <\/p>\n
Lyon were good value for their early lead, given to them by Tabitha Chawinga’s diving header, and the visitors should have extended their scoreline on several occasions before the break.<\/p>\n
They did make it 2-0 eventually when Melchie Dumornay curled in a superb strike with 10 minutes remaining, then added Lyon’s third, finishing off a cross from the right to confirm a deserved victory for Lyon.<\/p>\n
Skinner’s changes at half-time – the introductions of England duo Jess Park and Ella Toone, and Sweden midfielder Julia Zigiotti – made a difference, but United still struggled to test Lyon goalkeeper Christiane Endler. <\/p>\n
This is United’s first season in the Women’s Champions League main draw but Lyon’s superior quality and experience was clearly evident on the night.<\/p>\n
Jonatan Giraldez’s side are yet to lose in the competition this season, sitting level on points with Barcelona in second place in the 18-team table with just one game remaining. <\/p>\n
The top four qualify automatically to the quarter-finals, while teams sitting fifth to 12th are drawn in a two-legged play-off. United currently sit ninth, in an unseeded spot in the play-offs.<\/p>\n
More to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United were easily beaten by eight-time Champions League winners Lyon in a fairly one-sided affair at Leigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-337679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}