Mount turns on the style to calm nerves and ease United's stroll into final

Mason Mount's strike that sealed Manchester United's Europa League final berth was as sublime as Ruben Amorim's team were slipshod until the substitute took charge.

- Jamie Jackson

With 72 minutes gone, Leny Yoro prodded the ball to Mount who, with the sweetest touch of his right instep, swivelled, then bent the equaliser past the helpless Julen Agirrezabala.

A jubilant Mount ran to the ecstatic Stretford End, Amorim punched a hand, and Athletic Bilbao were 4-1 down on aggregate. They were soon four behind, as Bruno Fernandes chipped a free-kick from the right to the near post where Casemiro stooped and headed in.

Rasmus Højlund's tap-in came courtesy of the effervescent Amad Diallo's cross, before Mount's 45-yard arrow that made it 7-1 overall and vanquished the spectre of the mother of all collapses. This means United face off against Tottenham at Athletic's San Mamés Stadium on Wednesday week.

Forget lose their "mind", as Amorim admitted United can do, they would need to misplace arms, legs, and boots to cede a 3-0, first-leg advantage to team missing their finest quartet in Iñaki and Nico Williams, Oihan Sancet and Dani Vivian. And so, it proved.

Keep it tight early was surely an Amorim instruction, plus, of course, do not concede - please. Given the Portuguese's own admission that his players can freeze here the last thing required was further encouragement to the almost 4,000 Los Leones fans who crammed into their quadrant and whose noise informed their team they still believed.