Manchester United maintained their fine recent form by beating Leicester City 3-0 today at Old Trafford.
Erik Ten Hag’s men looked somewhat lethargic early on after their thrilling 2-2 draw away at Barcelona in midweek, with Leicester being the brighter of the two sides. Brendan Rodger’s men really should have opened the scoring such was their dominance, with Man United ‘keeper David de Gea pulling off superb saves to deny Harvey Barnes and Kelechi Iheanacnho.
Leicester would live to rue not scoring when they were on top, with red-hot attacker Marcus Rashford putting the home side ahead after 25 minutes. Bruno Fernandes flicked a ball in behind the Leicester backline and Rashford fired confidently past Danny Ward and into the bottom corner.
Diogo Dalot missed an absolute sitter just before half-time when the Portuguese defender somehow managed to fire wide when just a couple of yards out from goal.
United’s started the second half well and Lisandro Martinez almost got that crucial second goal but the Argentina international’s header crashed off the crossbar.
In the 56th minute, United would find that second goal and it came as little surprise that it came from the clinical Rashford. The England international was slipped in by Fred and after racing through on goal Rashford finished through the legs of the ‘keeper.
On the hour mark United made it three, Jadon Sancho side footed a left-footed finish home from ten yards out after some neat interplay with Rashford and Fernandes.
Most key passes made in a single Premier League game this season:
🥇 BRUNO FERNANDES & BRUNO FERNANDES (9)
🥈 Mohammed Salah, Kieran Trippier (8)
🥉 Andreas Pereira, Morgan Gibbs-White, Jack Harrison, Brenden Aaronson, Martin Odegaard (7)The Conductor. 🎶 pic.twitter.com/N9YWNxyOjB
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) February 19, 2023
Today’s win sees United move within three points of second-placed Man City and five off league leaders Arsenal. Speaking afterwards United boss Ten Hag was critical of his sides performance early on in the game, but was more pleased with the second half showing and reserved special praise for his skipper Bruno Fernandes.
“Leicester is a great team, they played really well and made it really tough for us,” Ten Hag told Sky Sports.
”It was also by us, we didn’t follow the rules and the principles of the game from our way of play and then you get punished. We were lucky and it is only because of David de Gea that we don’t concede a goal. Great saves, we were not disciplined and it is not right.
“We came in at half time and said it. we were 1-0 up, we knew also how to beat them because there was a lot of space in the midfield and behind their defending line. It was a good goal, once again a great pass from Bruno [Fernandes], great goal from Rashy [Marcus Rashford] and then we are 1-0 up. The second half was all us and Bruno Fernandes played a magnificent game.
“The team is putting Rashford in the right positions, especially Bruno, he creates how many passes, he gives behind, he crosses in. Not only Bruno but I think he is doing a great job.
“We need all players in form but we have to follow the priniciples of our way of play and if we do that, we can play very well and we have seen that in the second half.
