It wasn’t a great performance for Manchester United, but they also didn’t get a bad result from the match.

Sevilla dominated the day, but Manchester United still managed to just come out of the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 tie with a scoreless draw on a day where David De Gea was the best player on the pitch.

Sevilla simply ran over Manchester United for much of the night. They were the better team in possession, they were the better team at pressuring the ball, and they pushed the ball into dangerous areas better. United had to deal with an injury to Ander Herrera that disrupted their plans, but even before he left the pitch they were struggling to consistently tie together dangerous possessions and make the hosts work for their own possession.

But Sevilla couldn’t make the most out of their chances. They outshot Manchester significantly, but David De Gea’s fantastic showing in goal meant that they had nothing to show for it. This wasn’t a case of Manchester United playing organized, defensive football to grind out an acceptable first-leg result — this was a case of them playing poorly, and De Gea bailing them out so Sevilla didn’t punish them.

United will definitely be happy with the result given the disparity of the performance — they probably would have taken a 0-0 scoreline going into the return leg at Old Trafford coming into this match, but especially after getting so heavily outplayed, they’ll definitely be happy with this result.

But this tie still isn’t out of Sevilla’s hands, despite failing to score before heading to England. Not giving up an away goal means that any scoring draw will see them progress to the quarter finals, and they definitely have the fight in them to try and get at least that kind of result at Old Trafford. Manchester United are nowhere near safe after this result.

Sevilla: Sergio Rico; Jesus Navas, Gabriel Mercado, Clement Lenglet, Sergio Ecudero; Steven N’Zonzi, Ever Banega; Pablo Sarabia, Franco Vazquez, Joaquin Correa; Luis Muriel (Sandro Ramirez 85’)

Goals: None

Manchester United: David De Gea; Antonio Valencia, Chris Smalling, Victor Lindelof, Ashley Young; Ander Herrera (Paul Pogba 17’), Nemanja Matic, Scott McTominay; Juan Mata (Anthony Martial 80’), Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez (Marcus Rashford 75’)

Goals: None

Three things we saw

David De Gea was the only reason why Manchester United didn’t lose heavily

On a day that Manchester’s midfield was a disjointed mess, and their defense was so poorly organized that Sevilla waltzed past them regularly, they should have lost this match and lost it by multiple goals. They didn’t, and that’s all because of David De Gea, who was just jaw-droppingly good in goal.

Sevilla could and should have been up by at least two goals by halftime, including off an absolute ripper of a shot just before the whistle that De Gea made an extraordinary save on. But the Spaniard kept United in the match with his work in goal, as well as coming out crucially at times for clearances that his defenders had whiffed or just given up on. If not for De Gea, Manchester United would have lost this game badly, full stop.

The Mourinho-Pogba feud has to end, now

Paul Pogba started this match on the bench, ostensibly because of the flu, but it can’t be ignored that Jose Mourinho has been sniping at him in the media regularly. There’s been rumors swirling for weeks that the relationship between manager and star midfielder is breaking down — but that has to end, and it has to end now.

Pogba was forced into the match because of an injury to Ander Herrera, and at times it looked like his head really wasn’t in the match. That’s hardly shocking under the circumstances. With the Spanish midfielder looking like he’ll be out for several weeks at least during a crucial stretch of United’s season, Mourinho and Pogba need to bury the hatchet on whatever their problems are, or their season could sink, and sink very quickly.

Oh yeah, Sevilla were really good

It’s easy to focus on the things that United didn’t do well in this match, because there was a lot of it. They were bad in possession, they were bad at managing pressure on the ball, they were bad at defending and tracking runs — but at the same time, Sevilla were very, very good at exacerbating those issues and taking full advantage of them.

Lead by a sterling performance by Joaquin Correa and a clinic on midfield pivot play from Ever Banega and Steven N’Zonzi, Sevilla were by far the better team on the day. It’s funny how a team that’s made it’s name in big cup competitions but gets overlooked because of who they’re playing rises to the occasion, and that’s what Sevilla has been doing for much of the last decade. They’ve had their struggles in the league this year, but this is legitimately a very good team, and while they didn’t get the result they wanted on Wednesday, they’re far from done making noise in this competition.