Manchester United\u2019s campaign has hit an uncomfortable milestone after a 3\u20130 derby defeat to Manchester City that exposed recurring problems inside the squad. The loss leaves the club level with their joint-worst start to a new Premier League season and prompted sharp words from senior players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe familiar flaws of Ruben Amorim\u2019s side were ruthlessly exposed by Manchester City on Sunday in a desperately limp 3\u20130 derby defeat.\u201d That assessment is reflected in the dressing-room mood. \u201cWe have to be more in control of certain situations,\u201d United\u2019s beleaguered captain fumed post-game.<\/p>\n
A visibly affected Noussair Mazraoui offered a blunt appraisal to MUTV. \u201cI am feeling bad,\u201d a sodden Noussair Mazraoui sighed to MUTV. \u201c[I\u2019m] disappointed in myself, in the team, and disappointed for the fans that we couldn\u2019t bring the performance we did lately. A derby makes it more special, more emotional, so if you lose and you have played good and you have the chances we created in the last games, you can maybe accept it because there are still improvements. But [against City] was just not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defensive leaders shared the same verdict. \u201cWe have to get better,\u201d he moaned. \u201cWe have to prove it, otherwise it\u2019s no use. In the first half, they [City] were the better team…In the second half, they scored the 2\u20130 pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
“But then we went 3\u20130 down in a rather clumsy fashion\u2014we played better in the second half but they were definitely much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are, however, elements that require more nuance. The team continue to create chances. \u201cI felt we had a lot of opportunities to create chances,\u201d the Dutchman pointed out. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t make the last ball count.\u201d Bruno Fernandes underlined that finishing is the central issue. \u201cWe keep creating chances to score and we are not able to score as many as we wanted,\u201d he lamented. \u201cAll we have to take from this game is to look at what we need to do better and go forward to the next game. We need to score goals and not concede. It is the main thing of football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistically the concern is stark. United have taken more shots this season than any other Premier League side, yet of 71 attempts only two have been scored. One of those was Fernandes\u2019s stoppage-time penalty against Burnley. The summer outlay of \u00a3200 million ($272.3 million) on new forwards has so far failed to translate into goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United equal a joint-worst Premier League start after 3-0 derby loss; players voice stark critiques.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[342,1006,1019],"class_list":["post-2830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-captaincy","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830","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=2830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}