Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has suggested he and his teammates were punished for thinking Saturday’s encounter with Bournemouth was “going to be easy”.
The Cherries ran out 3-0 winners at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon, consigning the Red Devils to another humiliating loss in a dismal 2023/24 season so far.
Fernandes fronted for the cameras post-match and explained why United fell so overwhelmingly short against Bournemouth.
“We lacked many things and that’s why we don’t get the result today,” he said.
“Everything was lower than the levels in the game before and that’s why when you play teams like Bournemouth, who are really aggressive and on the front foot, they press you, and you think it’s going to be easy, you get these kind of results.
“Everything was underperforming. Creativity, movement and arriving with bodies into the box. Most of the time we arrived with one or two players, but in the last game we had more getting in the box to score a goal.
“Today, it was, as I said, underperforming. We just lack consistency and that’s a big part of football. It’s really important to be consistent every game and we’re not being.”
Fernandes hardly covered himself in glory during the drubbing. The Portugal midfielder was in-part to blame for Bournemouth’s opening goal, with his under-hit pass into Scott McTominay being pounced upon by Lewis Cook, who crossed for Dominic Solanke to find the net. Philip Billing and Marcos Senesi scored the Cherries’ other goals in the second half.
With the score already at 3-0, Fernandes picked up a booking for dissent in the game’s closing stages, ruling him out for next weekend’s trip to rivals Liverpool having picked up five yellow cards in the Premier League this season already.
Before then, United return to European action on Tuesday with the visit of Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Erik ten Hag’s side need to beat the German giants and hope the other game in Group A between Kobenhavn and Galatasaray ends in a draw in order to qualify for the knockout stages.
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