Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s winner against Fulham came with a candid assessment of Manchester United\u2019s collective effort under Michael Carrick. Asked by Sky Sports whether Carrick had urged the squad to enjoy playing for the club again, the 22-year-old said: “It\u2019s true, he has said these things many times to the team. That\u2019s exactly what we are doing.” He added that the change went beyond mood.<\/p>\n
“But it\u2019s not just that. You can see how much we work hard for each other without the ball and that also contributes to good results in the end. The work rate is definitely different. Everyone is on point and covering their spaces. In the end, that\u2019s what counts.”<\/p>\n
\u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s remarks pointed a critical light at his predecessor. The draft notes that Ruben Amorim was relieved of his duties at the start of January after reportedly falling out with the club\u2019s upper hierarchy rather than the dressing room. The impression that players had begun to lose confidence in Amorim\u2019s methods is underlined by the observation that Leeds United collectively ran more than 5km further than their Manchester counterparts in what proved to be Amorim\u2019s final game.<\/p>\n
\u0160e\u0161ko did not dwell on the past. “The aim is to continue like this,” he insisted. “We want to focus on our work and what we have to do. We have [to] work hard like we are and focus in every moment. All of this is going to lead to great results.”<\/p>\n
United took all three points and returned to the division\u2019s top four, but Fulham\u2019s manager made a forceful post-match point. “Top performance from ourselves. Second half, our team was better. The way we played and controlled the ball, they wanted to press us high but we never let them,” Marco Silva said.<\/p>\n
Carrick reflected on Fulham\u2019s quality in his own post-match comments: “I was well aware of what a good team Fulham are going into the game. I was getting questions thrown at me about teams sitting back here, but I knew it was never going to be like that today,” Carrick crowed post-match.<\/p>\n
United have now won seven successive games while recording possession of 45% or below. When they have had more than 45% of the ball this season, they have four wins from 17 Premier League games, per Opta. The run raises the question of how United will fare against teams that invite them on and force sustained control, a tactical issue flagged ahead of Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s trip to Old Trafford next Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u0160e\u0161ko: United’s work-rate ‘definitely different’ under Carrick, raising questions about Amorim. plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,179,969],"tags":[1021,1162,317],"class_list":["post-6396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fulham","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-amorim","tag-analytics","tag-benjamin-sesko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396","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=6396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}