Manchester United recorded a much needed win in the Premier League on Saturday night, thanks to a single Bruno Fernandes goal against Burnley at Turf Moor.
Erik ten Hag's team have now won as many league games as they have lost this season after a difficult start had seem United fall to Tottenham, Arsenal and Brighton. The players also had to pick themselves up after a narrow loss to Bayern Munich in midweek.
Captain’s performance
Bruno Fernandes’ captaincy has drawn plenty of criticism, even before he was officially handed the full-time role during the summer, with detractors often questioning his leadership ability.
Some captains are talkers and others lead by example. On Saturday night, the United skipper very much fell into the latter category, dragging his team to victory with a decisive goal of the highest order. The volley was measured and precise as it nestled into the far bottom corner.
Fernandes might have had an even better second later on, but saw his shot saved by former Manchester City youth player James Trafford in the Burnley goal.
Overdue clean sheet
A major part of the reason that United haven’t been able to win games in recent weeks is through conceding too many goals. They impressively scored three times in Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday, yet still ended up losing the game because Bayern got four.
Prior to the win at Turf Moor, United had not successfully kept a clean sheet since beating Wolves 1-0 on the opening weekend of the Premier League season more than a month earlier. That run extended to five games and 14 goals shipped.
As the new goalkeeper, Andre Onana has taken the brunt of the blame, which wasn’t helped when the first Bayern goal was directly his fault after failing to keep out a shot he got two hands to. To his credit, he did accept responsibility and reflected on, by his own admission, a disappointing start.
Onana contributed to keeping Burnley out by making an outstanding save to deny Zeki Amdouni and, in the end, the Clarets had the same number of attempts on target (4) as United. That will breathe confidence into a goalkeeper seeking something that he can build on.
Jonny Evans appreciation
Nearly eight and a half years separated Jonny Evans’ last two Manchester United starts, having left the club in 2015 but brought back on a short-term contract in 2023.
A shortage of centre-back saw Evans come on against Arsenal at the start of the month, while he was then part of the XI alongside Victor Lindelof at Turf Moor – Lisandro Martinez and Harry Maguire were each absent, with the returning Raphael Varane only fit enough for the bench.
Defensively, the 35-year-old was part of the aforementioned clean sheet, while he showed an impressive technical side with the pinpoint pass for Fernandes to score the only goal. His FPL points for the weekend were through the roof and hardly anyone picked him.
It also happened to be Evans’ 200th United appearance, a milestone which he never expected to reach given that he left the club for West Bromwich Albion all those years ago on 198.
Sofyan Amrabat debut
Not particularly important to the game and the result, but a crucial moment in the bigger picture of the season was the United debut of deadline day loan signing Sofyan Amrabat.
The Morocco international has been recovering from a minor injury and so saw his debut delayed until appearing in the 89th minute on Saturday night.
United’s soft underbelly has been exposed too many times in recent months and Amrabat, whose bite and ability to shield a back four took his country to the World Cup semi-finals, should add a layer of steel that has been missing.
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This article was originally published on 90min as Four takeaways from Man Utd's win at Burnley.
