Bruno Fernandes calls for Manchester United improvement after dramatic late win over Brighton
The Portugal international gave away one penalty, but won the match with another
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Bruno Fernandes netted a 100th-minute winner for Manchester United at Brighton on Saturday, but immediately pointed to deficiencies in his team’s performance and called for better.
United were poor in defeat in their first Premier League game of the season, at home to Crystal Palace a week ago, but managed to pick up all three points here despite not necessarily showing a great uptick in tempo and creativity.
The woodwork came to United’s rescue on no fewer than five occasions at the Amex Stadium and the home side thought they’d earned a point with a stoppage-time equaliser of their own, before Fernandes scored from the penalty spot even later on - after the referee had initially blown the full-time whistle, in fact, before bringing the game back upon a VAR review.
Fernandes acknowledged Brighton had played well, but called upon the Red Devils to show more intensity and determination in future games, starting against the same opponents in the EFL Cup in midweek.
“It was areally difficult game, we know Brighton’s qualities,” he told BT Sport at full-time.
"We were not [as] aggressive as I want and gave away two goals. We need to do much better; we made some mistakes but like all big teams we need to believe until the end.
“We need to think about doing better against Brighton than we did today.”
Despite the Seagulls hitting the post and bar five times, three of them from Leandro Trossard, Fernandes doesn’t feel it was enough for the home side to warrant the win, pointing to the fine margins of actually hitting the back of the net.
"They did very well but maybe because we weren’t aggressive. We must recover more balls, press better, lose possession less. Maybe they deserved more I don’t know, [but] the point is score goals, not [hit] the crossbar and the post.
“Sometimes you have to have some luck. In the goals we can do much better and we’ll work on that.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments