Manchester United beat Sabah 4-0 at Old Trafford on Thursday in their first Champions League match for 1,003 days. Matheus Cunha, Bruno Fernandes and Benjamin Šeško scored inside 18 first-half minutes, and Lisandro Martínez added a fourth after the break.

It was United's 300th match in the competition, and their first since a home defeat by Bayern Munich in December 2023 ended their last campaign at the group stage. The breakthrough still took 27 minutes, and the opening half-hour was harder work than the scoreline suggests. "The result looks comfortable, it wasn't always like that," Michael Carrick told TNT Sports.

One miss turned the first half

Cunha scored from close range on 27 minutes after Patrick Dorgu crossed first time from the left. Dorgu started at left-back, with Luke Shaw missing from the squad. Nine minutes later Kaheem Parris found Joy-Lance Mickels from the right, and the Sabah forward put his header wide from inside the six-yard box.

United made them pay. Fernandes scored from Youri Tielemans' pass on 42 minutes. Three minutes after that, Bryan Mbeumo played Šeško through, and the striker went round goalkeeper Stas Pokatilov to score into an empty net on his first start of the season.

With the game won, Carrick used the second half to rotate, bringing on Mason Mount for Tielemans at the interval. The fourth came on 68 minutes. Fernandes took a free-kick quickly to the substitute Joshua Zirkzee, whose backheel caused the confusion from which Martínez scored at close range.

Highlights via Manchester United

A homecoming for Sabah's coach, and a lesson

For Valdas Dambrauskas the night was personal. The Lithuanian's coaching career began at Manchester United Soccer Schools, which hired him in 2004, and before the game he told BBC Sport that walking out at Old Trafford was "beyond my imagination".

Sabah were founded in 2017, won their first Azerbaijani title last season and came through four qualifying rounds to get here. Dambrauskas said his side were not scared, but that his centre-backs had stayed too deep. Once United's players were allowed to turn and run, he said, "it is almost impossible to stop them."

Encouraging, with City three days away

Carrick made four changes from Sunday's 2-2 draw at Everton, where United twice led, and this win follows a league start of four points from three games. In his press conference he called the performances encouraging, even if the league results had not been what United wanted.

Manchester City visit Old Trafford on Sunday at 16:30 BST, having had two more days to recover. United's next Champions League match is away to Atlético de Madrid on Tuesday 13 October, the same night Sabah host Slavia Praha.

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