Fulham were hosts to Manchester United in Saturday’s early kick-off of the English Premier League (EPL) at their Craven Cottage ground. The reverse fixture which United won 4:1 at Old Trafford was however the Red Devils’ best performance under Jose Mourinho this season before he got the boot. Over the last 5 meetings between both sides, United won 4 and drew one leaving Fulham with no victory at all.
United’s caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (OGS) made 6 changes to the side that beat Leicester City last weekend, dropping star man Marcus Rashford, Victor Lindelof, Jesse Lingard, Alexis Sanchez, Eric Bailly and Ashley Young. The thinking behind this massive change could be because of the UEFA Champions League 2nd round first leg clash against Paris Saint Germain (PSG) on Tuesday night. Fulham are second from bottom on the EPL log and they need to string up consecutive wins to have a chance of remaining in the league come next season. They clearly weren’t going to bag 3 points from this tie and to make matters worse they still have to face Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. We shall see how it pans out for them.
Fulham looked like they wanted the 3 points more when the game kicked off amassing 4 attempts at goal in 12 minutes with Luciano Vietto and Aleksander Mitrovic coming close. United slowly but progressively got a hang of the game and put the Fulham defence under pressure a few times before getting a goal in the 14th minute through Paul Pogba who finished up a well laid pass from Anthony Martial. At this point the result was going one way and it was United’s route. In the 23rd minute, Martial finished off a solo effort which started from the United half after receiving a pass from from Phil Jones. He went past a couple of Fulham players before slotting pass Sergio Rico who was in goal for the Cottagers. 2:0 and that was how the half ended.
In the 64th minute the Red Devils were awarded a penalty and Paul Pogba dispatched it easily making scores 3:0 in United’s favour. There was no coming back from this for Fulham. For me it was nice hearing the United fans boo former Liverpool player Ryan Babel anytime he touched the ball.
The game ended 3:0 and this pushed Manchester United up to 4th position with just a point ahead of Chelsea who face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. It is important to also note that OGS has amassed 25 points from just 9 Premier League games when compared to Jose Mourinho’s 26 points from 17 games.
If you asked me, the chase for 4th position in the EPL is hotter than the title race itself.
Thanks for your time guys, BLESS.
Retelling sports with a goal in mind!!!
