It was arguably Fred’s worst performance in a Manchester United shirt.
The Brazilian made a terrible mistake for United in their FA Cup quarter-final defeat by Leicester City but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer defended his midfielder.
Fred received the ball from Harry Maguire before Leicester’s first goal of the evening, but his weak pass back to Dean Henderson allowed Kelechi Iheanacho to open the scoring as Leicester won 3-1 on the day.
United often try to start attack from the back with their build up play, although the team rarely looks comfortable doing so and it’s no wonder teams press us high up the pitch like Leicester did at times on Sunday.
Solskjaer has no plans to tell his team to abandon their principles of favouring clearing the lines after one error.
“We want them to build from the back. We’ve been really solid, we’ve been really good, we’ve built a foundation to play from with what we’ve done,” Solskjaer told MUTV after crashing out of the FA Cup, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News.
“Sometimes it goes wrong and that’s acceptable. Everyone can make a mistake and we win together and lose together, as a team.”
United managed to score an equaliser through Mason Greenwood but it wasn’t enough as Leicester took the lead again before doubling it. Goals from Youri Tielemans and another for Iheanacho, who is in terrific goalscoring form at the moment, saw United suffered their first domestic defeat on the road in 30 games.
Solskjaer was impressed with the goal which also involved Paul Pogba and Donny Van de Beek.
“Top goal, great to see Mason having that instinct again, a good finish. Good from Paul and Donny creates the goal without even touching it, it was clever, that’s something to build on,” Solskjaer added after the match.
It’s a huge blow to be knocked out of the FA Cup this season and our attention now turns to winning the Europa League and finishing second in the Premier League.
Disgusting
I was appalled to read this morning that Fred was targeted with horrendous racist abuse on social media after the match.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the Brazilian was sent vile abuse on his Instagram page including monkey emojis.
Fred is the latest in a long list of players to receive awful abuse online.
Read more: Man United player ratings: Fred awful as Reds crash out of FA Cup against Leicester
It is not a case of singling out a player ,but all season Fred gives the ball away,time and time again,Martial is still poor up front.I have just read that Pellistre is playing out of his skin out on loan.Get him back,and playing on the pitch,not sitting in the stands,with the rest of our promising young players.Hannibal,Shortire,Amad,Get them playing,and sell Martial.