Pellistri deserves a headline too
It was his dogged determination that created the winning goal
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: Fulham 0, United 1
United’s Fergie-time winner had two parents. One was Bruno Fernandes, whose shot was precision-tooled to find the corner, grab the headlines and ease the pressure on Erik ten Hag. The other, much less celebrated, was Facundo Pellistri. If football had a wider vocabulary for the complex process of constructing a goal, Pellistri’s assist might have gone down as a persist. In the dying minutes he was not a fox in the box but a terrier, scrapping away, chasing everything, never giving up, faithfully retrieving the ball. He had already passed to Fernandes once in that 90th-minute sequence. Fernandes found Scott McTominay, who gave the ball back to Pellistri, as if to say ‘This move belongs to you’. Pellistri, not gunning for glory himself, opted for another simple pass to Fernandes. And this time it made all the difference.
Fulham were robbed, or rather they robbed themselves. They had only two shots on target (out of 18), whereas Fernandes alone had three (out of three). On expected goals, it should have been a draw – 1-0.7, to be precise. United, missing Casemiro and Rashford as well as Martinez and Shaw, started and finished well without doing enough in between. Fernandes was their most advanced player in more than one sense, including average position.
The match award could equally well have gone to his predecessor. Harry Maguire played better with a bang on the head than half the players would if you banged their heads together. He was dominant in the air and fluent on the floor. The other defenders were good too, and so was McTominay, doing two jobs at once as the defensive midfielder still looking to bomb into the box. As he showed in his TV interview, he knew exactly what the fans wanted when they waved that banner saying ‘Play like you mean it!!’ Say what you like about these Fergie-time winners, they do show some character.
There are still some big problems. United remain a team in search of a system. Antony has gone from bad to even worse. Rasmus Hojlund has gone from not scoring in the league to not even having a shot in the past two games. He was seething when substituted but didn’t have a leg to stand on. It’s strange but true that United do decidedly better, in the league, when Anthony Martial comes on to replace him. With Hojlund on the field (569 minutes plus added time), United have played 8, won 2, drawn 2 and lost 4. With Martial (237 minutes plus added time), it’s played 9, won 3, drawn 6, lost 0. Neither has found the net in the league, but on Hojlund’s watch the total score is United 4, Opponents 9, whereas with Martial (who sometimes appears alongside Hojlund) it’s United 8, Opponents 4 – so they’ve scored twice as many goals in half as many minutes. Hojlund has done far more to endear himself to the fans with his hustle and bustle and muscle. But you can see why Ten Hag hasn’t given up on Martial, who for all his faults does more to knit the front six together. Hojlund, so far, has been a Champions League specialist. Not a bad thing to be, but not quite what we were expecting for £65m.
United have won now four and lost two of their past six league games – the same as City. It’s lucky that you get as many points for an unconvincing win as for a resounding one. By Sunday evening they had more reasons to be cheerful. Aston Villa had come down to earth at Forest, Brighton continued their bad run, and Liverpool drew at Kenilworth Road after going behind to a rip-roaring goal from Tahith Chong, who was a United starlet from 2019 to 2022. The Opta algorithm still reckons that United will finish eighth, where they are now. But after a dismal few days this weekend has allowed the fans to dream again – if only about scraping into the Europa League.
Tim de Lisle, a United fan since the days of Tony Dunne, is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter at The Guardian, where he live-blogged the Fulham game.