Manchester United on Saturday scored a late winner to come back to winning ways against Fulham at the Craven Cottage in a Premier League. Bruno Fernandes’ 91st minute winner handed a crucial victory to Erik Ten Hag’s men.
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Fulham boss Marco Silva rung the changes for the cup win at Portman Road in midweek, and a lot of his key players returned as Leno replaced Rodak between the sticks while Ream and Robinson came into the back four. Iwobi and Willian were preferred to De Cordova-Reid and Cairney, while star midfielder Palhinha played as a holding midfield.
The big news for United was that Marcus Rashford was absent from the squad altogether. The official line was he had failed a fitness test, though Rashford has been criticised by some for celebrating his birthday hours after the derby defeat last weekend, including Ten Hag, who described his actions as “unacceptable”. Ten Hag made six changes from the Newcastle defeat, with Hojlund and Fernandes coming in for Martial and Hannibal in attack while McTominay and Eriksen came into the midfield, replacing the benched Mount and the injured Casemiro, who will be out for several weeks. Wan-Bissaka made his return against the Magpies and started at right-back, while Evans replaced Lindelof. Varane remained on the bench and made a late appearance.
Man United had a goal disallowed in the eighth minute when Eriksen floated a free-kick towards the back post, where Garnacho was waiting to divert the ball back across the face of goal. Scott McTominay tapped the ball into the goal but a VAR check ruled the goal out with Maguire deemed offside.
Both teams had their chances in the first as well as second half but none could capitalise until Bruno Fernandes in the 91st minute. Palhinha gave the ball away in a terrible area and Fernandes looked to feed it straight into McTominay. The ball bounced around before Pellistri laid it back to Fernandes, who showed great composure to feint past Lukic before picking his spot and rifling into the bottom corner, putting the visitors 1-0 up. United held on to the lead as Fulham looked down and out after conceding the goal.
Man United vs Fulham Lineup
Manchester United XI:
Andre Onana; Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Harry Maguire, Jonny Evans, Diogo Dalot; Christian Eriksen, Scott McTominay; Antony, Bruno Fernandes, Alejandro Garnacho; Rasmus Hojlund.
Subs: Anthony Martial, Sofyan Amrabat, Mason Mount, Sergio Reguilon, Altay Bayindir, Hannibal Mejbri, Facundo Pellistri, Raphael Varane, Kobbie Mainoo.
Fulham XI:
Bernd Leno; Timothy Castagne, Calvin Bassey, Tim Ream, Antonee Robinson; Harry Wilson, Joao Palhinha; Alex Iwobi, Andreas Pereira, Willian; Rodrigo Muniz.
Subs: Luc de Fougerolles, Bobby De Cordova-Reid, Raul Jimenez, Harrison Reed, Marek Rodak, Sasa Lukic, Fode Ballo-Toure, Tom Cairney, Carlos Vinicius.
Editors pick
