Manchester United v Wrexham LIVE: Red Devils suffer early pre-season setback as new signing Andrey Santos makes debut | OneFootball

Manchester United have suffered a frustrating defeat to Wrexham 1-0 in the first game of their pre-season in Finland at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.

Both teams fielded something close to a strongest XI, with Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw and Bryan Mbeumo featuring for United, and a debut for Andrey Santos after his £48m move from Chelsea. But the link-up play in the final third was not where Michael Carrick would have wanted it to be. The midfield dominated possession and Santos got a good stretch of his legs with his new teammates - showing off an impressive defensive work rate and ability to then carry forward.

Wrexham defended with aggression, closing down space quickly to prevent United finding the final pass and actually found themselves with a couple of good chances in the early goings as Sam Smith found himself in space on numerous occasions.

The breakthrough came for Wrexham came in the 40th minute when Lewis O’Brien found himself with the ball on on the left edge of the penalty area and played a scything ball through Maguire’s legs to find Smith all alone at the back post who was happy to oblige and gave Wrexham the lead against the run of play

There were wholesale changes at half time for both teams, United brought on a completely new XI of youngsters and academy players hoping to break through into the first team this season. They started with attacking intent but just as the senior players, could not break the Wrexham defensive line. Chances began to flow more freely in the final third of the game but aside from a last minute penalty shout there was nothing of consequence in the end for United.

United will travel to Norway next to face Rosenborg and Wrexham will take on Leeds.