Manchester United closed the season with a composed 3-0 victory at Brighton, a match that belonged to Bruno Fernandes after he set a new Premier League single-season assist record. The opener arrived from a Fernandes corner, with Patrick Dorgu leaping to head past Bart Verbruggen via the crossbar. United settled into a relaxed performance thereafter and controlled the key moments.<\/p>\n
The second goal arrived from a well-worked move finished by Bryan Mbeumo, and Fernandes sealed the win early in the second half with a low drive. Brighton offered few sustained threats and much of the attention in the stands shifted to results elsewhere. Brentford\u2019s draw at Liverpool meant Fabian H\u00fcrzeler\u2019s side qualified for the Conference League despite slipping a place.<\/p>\n
Thierry Henry\u2019s single-season assist record had stood since 2002\u201303, matched only by Kevin De Bruyne in the years since. Fernandes went into the final day level with that figure and produced the decisive contribution to reach 21 Premier League assists this term. Nine of his 21 league assists this term have come from set plays, with Casemiro absent on the final day.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s performance also featured a number of solid individual displays. Senne Lammens settled after early nervy moments and was not heavily tested. Noussair Mazraoui provided technical security in the build-up, while Harry Maguire and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez were steady at the back. Luke Shaw made his 38th Premier League start of the season and offered an attacking threat down the left.<\/p>\n
Standout ratings from the match: Senne Lammens 8.1; Amad Diallo 8.1; Bruno Fernandes 8.9; Patrick Dorgu 8.5; Bryan Mbeumo 7.7. Substitutes included Shea Lacey (62\u2019), Joshua Zirkzee (74\u2019) and Leny Yoro (74\u2019), with Zirkzee given minutes in Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
Match statistics underlined United\u2019s control: expected goals 1.82 to 0.81, shots on target 7 to 2 and four big chances to Brighton\u2019s zero. Possession was close, 51% to 49%, and United finished the season in third, the day marked most memorably by Fernandes\u2019s piece of Premier League history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fernandes set a new Premier League single-season assist record as Man Utd sealed a 3-0 win at Amex. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,969],"tags":[1637,342,260],"class_list":["post-14034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-assists","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}