london – A flood of mediocre finishing narrowly avoided a deeper crisis, and United enter the autumn in much the same position they find themselves in at this time of year. Questions about the head coach’s suitability fade away as ownership draws the ire of supporters and too many players remind them that they can always fall below low standards.
Had Matheus Cunha’s tame shot – his 26th in the Fulham goal – not been mercifully blocked by David Affengruber, there would have been no doubt that the home side would have clung to a valuable victory in what seemed destined to be a battle with defeat. Alvaro Arbeloa’s side have looked a bit below Premier League standards in their first four games of the season. Today they looked the better against supposedly Champions League level opponents. Intelligence, energy and hard work all come from the Fulham players.
Desperate final moments cannot change the harsh reality facing Manchester United. It does little more than ensure that the noise around Old Trafford is not turned up louder for the next three weeks during the international break. This seems to be the situation at Manchester United at this stage of every season. The quiet ability that initially landed Carrick the permanent job looked more like the exception than the rule.
In fact, Carrick and his coaching staff could do worse in the coming days than comb through the spring documents looking for the missing ingredient in the league table. He wouldn’t be without answers for long. What Manchester United had in the second half of last season were two very capable midfield anchors in Casemiro and Bruno Fernandez, who were undoubtedly the best attackers in the league.
At least one of them isn’t coming back. another? Well, that’s a real concern. Of course, Fernandes was not the reason why United came so close to defeat at Craven Cottage. In fact, he was arguably the most threatening player of the front four, creating four chances and shooting three times, the visitors’ first shot on target, one of the rare opportunities for the visitors to actually score a good shot.
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Dropping deep to assist the team’s build-up play, he is United’s key passing engine and the hub of the final third, always delivering Fernandes’ classic high-risk, high-reward passes into the box. By the time the final whistle sounded, his expected goals were 0.28 and his expected assists were 0.17, a combined output that only the highest-level attacking midfielders would sneer at.
Attacking midfielders like Fernandes are at their peak. For a player who contributed 0.65 xG+xA per 90 games last season under Michael Carrick, a performance of 0.45 xG+xA in a Premier League game would be an underwhelming afternoon. United’s position in the league is largely due to the fact that his expected output is dwarfed by his actual performance, with 13 assists and four goals per 90 games, with an efficiency rate of just over one.
In the first few months of the year, Fernandez doubled down on every hand, with the dealer showing him an ace every time. In eight of United’s last 17 league games, the Portuguese midfielder has contributed a goal or an assist and had a major impact on the points earned by the side. Of course, if their DPS leader is eliminated, this team will not be missing anyone. When Fernandez That’s good, You do want to know, though.
is the key word. Fernandez is still great, he’s just no longer the best creator in the league. Five games into this game, he already looks like he’s on the same level as the likes of Martin Odegaard and Rayan Cherki. This is an elite company worth retaining. He just doesn’t separate from them like he did last season.
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Take Fernandez, the best player in the league, out of this team and you end up with a team that is worrisomely lacking in offensive ideas. United can’t create good shots of their own without their captain helping them. Carrick’s side rank 84th out of 96 teams in Europe’s top five divisions in expected goals per shot and 87th in percentage of shots inside the penalty area. No wonder they have to bring so many people to reach a goal.
It’s worth mentioning that 20% of United’s league minutes came against Ipswich, who completely lost their game at Old Trafford and couldn’t stop allowing high-value shots. That’s why United’s expected goals are ranked so high, but the more you learn about this team, the more you feel the need to discount this game until it’s a washout overall. Doing so, the only teams with worse expected goals per shot are Getafe and Paderborn. When Carrick pointed out that the Fulham goalkeeper was “probably the man of the match”, he seemed to ignore the fact that it was easier for Bernd Leno to save when the ball was 20 yards away.
Without Fernandez to create openings, it became a battle of system against system, team against team. From these perspectives, Fulham is more than just a rival to Manchester United. Their opener was full of luck, with Sene Lamenz parrying Calvin Bassey’s shot only to see Lisandro Martinez deflect the ball into his own net. Brazil did not show such good luck winning the ball that should have belonged to Cunha.
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Basic errors plagued the performance. After some exchanges, Anthony Robinson or Alex Iwobi would find space to attack from the left, with Brian Mbemo not tracking and Diogo Dalot doing nothing, choosing the worst of several poor options. Look at Fulham’s succession of passes in midfield. This really shouldn’t happen to United, especially against an opponent who looks like they will be in danger at the end of the season.
Five months ago, Manchester United might well have been facing the same problem. A largely unchanged front four may still be overconfident in applying pressure on the ball; a largely unchanged back five may still struggle to defend space. If this game were played in April, though, Fernandez would likely work his magic and turn one point into three. The upper limit of what United could achieve without him operating at the highest level seems worryingly low.