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Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes have been two of the most prominent personalities in football in 2020.
They are also fiercely competitive and judge themselves by the highest standards, so I think they would have been disappointed with the King Power, even though they both scored in a creditable 2-2 draw.
Rashford scored his 50th goal in the Premier League, which is quite an achievement considering he only turned 23 a couple of months ago.
But I’m sure he’s been kicking himself for not taking the ball home. He had a header in the first minute and a heads up that he should have converted.
For an elite player, your mindset is to be the best and Rashford has it. I saw an excellent individual performance from the young man; He was a threat, he took great positions, appeared on the right and left, and looked good.
But you will probably remember the opportunities that you missed. He’s been rightly praised for a lot this year and his football certainly hasn’t suffered from it, but he will want to be even better and finish off more of those opportunities. That attitude of being tough on yourself is key to having a great career.
Ditto Fernandes. He has been Manchester United’s main man since he walked through the door in January and claimed another goal and assist on Saturday.
His consistency is remarkable and you can see that he is the happiest type of player when he contributes directly to goals.
But we also saw the other side of the coin in trying to be too cute and lose possession within his own half, helping Leicester score their first draw.
To me, I think Fernandes is such a brave player with the ball, and he has overwhelming success doing it his way, that you put the occasional aberration as one of those things. It will happen from time to time with a very creative spirit.
But like Rashford, Fernandes demands the highest of standards of himself. He is a smart footballer and realizes that the last thing you want as a midfielder is to be a drag going into deeper areas. Fernandes is far from that and his balance sheet was hugely credited, but he won’t want to repeat that mistake too often.
He will have kicked himself in the back for that, but his teammates will easily forgive him because he continues to score so many points for them.
Overall, the game suggested to me that Manchester United will finish the season above Leicester because they have greater strength in depth.
That was underlined by Edinson Cavani coming in and setting up what United thought was the winner for Fernandes. Jamie Vardy’s even later draw had a touch of good luck in defeating Axel Tuanzebe.
United should finish in the top four again, although they probably won’t keep a clean sheet long enough to face a serious challenge to Liverpool and Manchester City.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer generally has fewer players who enjoy defending in their starting eleven than Liverpool, so the balance may not be as effective. But they can certainly score goals and there are clear signs of improvement.
I wouldn’t be surprised if their next big signing was another central midfielder, though it’s doubtful that it will be in January, unless the hierarchy really believes they can win the Premier League this season.
Despite Saturday’s score, there weren’t too many chances at King Power. Maybe it was the kick-off at 12.30 but there was a little less intensity than I expected.
These teams have so many games in the next two to three weeks that they either looked a bit tired or were preparing for the bigger games ahead.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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