Bruno Fernandes has addressed the media after his side lost the Manchester derby on Sunday evening, with three second-half goals from Manchester City ensuring consecutive Premier League defeats.
United’s top-four hopes are all but over after the latest defeat, with the Reds slipping 11 points behind Aston Villa in fourth place.
Marcus Rashford’s early wondergoal was not enough to take anything home to Old Trafford and speaking after the game, the United captain has admitted that all defeats damage the club but insists the intentions were there from the squad on the day.
“I think the commitment from the team was there,” Fernandes told Sky Sports, according to the BBC.
“We had our chances. Sometimes we played a little too deep but you know City do that to all the teams, you have to defend your box and we did that really well in the first half. From a chance that could be ours it ended up 1-1.
“There’s always something more you can do in the game, if it is City or someone else you can always do something better. City are a team that knows how to have the ball and pin teams back. We knew we had to defend our goal really well and I think we did, we should have had more spells with the ball than we did in the second half.”
United’s plan to absorb the pressure from the hosts and hit them with fast transitions looked to be working for the first 30 minutes but after, it was all City.
United struggled to put more than three passes together in the opposition’s half and one sequence in the second half aside, it never looked like United were going to get anything done with the ball.
