Brentford 1 Man Utd 1
Thomas Frank’s side are finding that winning feeling difficult to come by this season. With Man Utd the visitors to the Gtech Community Stadium, Brentford were hoping to put some distance between themselves and the bottom three.
It was the hosts who started on the front foot but as the move broke down, Erik ten Hag’s side looked to punish them on the break. Rashford sped down the left flank but with a number of defenders blocking his route to goal, he laid it off into the path of Fernandes.
The Red Devils’ captain only had one thing on his mind as he struck a first-time shot but dragged it wide of the post. Flekken had it covered in The Bees’ goal and never looked in any trouble. You could see from the early exchanges, the tactics the visitors were looking to employ.
Ivan Toney thought his week had just got better as he was played in on goal. The striker got slotted the ball past Onana but it struck the woodwork and came back out. So close to opening the scoring for Frank’s side, to cap off a week that had seen him score his first goal for England also.
Credit: @premierleague
Lewis-Potter was finding a lot of space down the left wing and tried to pick out Toney but the defender just got a touch to take it out for a corner. As the cross came in, Jorgensen met it with a header at the far post but his effort clipped the crossbar and went over with Onana beaten.
United were struggling to create anything of note and the hosts hit them on the counter-attack with a direct ball over the top. Toney gathered the ball and made a bee-line for the box before trying to bend one in the top corner. He could not keep it down as he saw his effort sail over.
After the interval, Fernandes got down the right wing and fed the ball into the path of Hojlund. As he tried to score in his seventh consecutive game, Flekken made a great save to turn the effort over the crossbar. It was the first save he had been forced to make in the game.
As Sir Jim Ratcliffe plans his outlandish strategies of free new stadiums, paid by the UK taxpayer, getting in some of Europe’s top talent and appointing the current England manager as ten Hag’s successor it all seems to be the fever-inspired dream of a deluded man.
There are far bigger problems to address at Old Trafford, as they try to bring some success to a club that has been lacking since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson eleven years ago. You need to think about putting solid foundations in place before building something special.
Brentford continued to ask questions as a cross found Yarmoliuk in the box. His shot seemed to be heading into the bottom corner before Onana got down well to make a one-handed save. He then got back to his feet to block Lewis-Potter’s follow up also.
Credit: @ManUtd
A high ball into the box was poorly dealt with by Lindelof. It dropped to Wissa on the volley, who saw his shot clip the outside of the post with the Man Utd keeper rooted to the spot. Brentford weren’t knocking on the door now, they had kicked it down.
Mbuemo, back from a long-term injury, played a sublime ball into the box for Toney to meet it on the volley and score. Celebrations were cut short as the assistant raised his flag for offside. Then came the long wait for a VAR review, but the goal was to be chalked off.
The Bees played a long ball forward with Toney challenging for it. Dropping invitingly to Mbuemo, his volley thundered against the crossbar and came back out. Brentford were starting to wonder what they had to do to score in this game.
In the sixth minute of added time, Casemiro played the ball into the path of Mount, who slotted the ball into the bottom corner of the goal. As he ran towards the away fans, it seemed his first goal for the club had sealed the win.
Brentford were not giving up on the game as a ball was lofted into the box, it was superbly pulled out of the air by Toney. He waited for the right moment before cutting it back from the byline to pick out Ajer in the middle of the goal. The defender drilled the ball home to equalise.
Just as ten Hag and his coaching staff had been celebrating an unlikely win deep into stoppage time, the Brentford defender had wiped the smiles off their faces. It was no more than Thomas Frank’s side had deserved on the balance of play as the points were shared.
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