Manchester United have put themselves in a much stronger position for qualification to the next round of the Europa League after a 2-1 win over Viktoria Plzen last night. After going a goal behind, due to a dreadful error from goalkeeper Andre Onana, United secured the three points thanks to two goals from Rasmus Hojlund, who now has five goals in his last four games.
Speaking to TNT Sports after the game, captain Bruno Fernandes reflected on how the result was achieved.
They [Viktoria Plzen] made a good pressure, they got the goal. But the most important thing: we had the resilience, the fighting spirit, to come back. It was a good performance overall. Obviously, I think in the final third, we could have kept the ball a little more, but we knew the man marking from them was difficult to get away [from], so sometimes it was just a more pass and run, pass and run, to try and find the gaps.
We should have done even a little bit better at the end. We had two or three transition moments where we could have killed the game. But also, when we don’t kill, we have to run back quick, and we did it a lot of times.
As it stands, United are seventh in the table with one game to go, meaning we progress straight through to the next round as long as we remain in the top eight. Rangers, who are the final opponents, are currently one place below us and also fighting for automatic qualification. Fernandes discussed the importance of avoiding extra qualifying games.
We want to go through. We want to be in the highest positions so we can avoid playing one more game, two more games in this case, and we have to win the games we have ahead.
Attention now returns to the Premier League, with United taking on local rivals Manchester City at the Etihad this weekend.
You know what it means to play a Manchester derby. You know how much it means for the city, for our fans. So we have to do everything we can to win that game because, like I said in Europa League, it’s the same in the league, we’re not in the position we want to be, we need points, we need to win. And for us, obviously, it’s Manchester City, it’s a Manchester derby, but it’s just one more game that we want to, and we have to, win.
The post Bruno: We know what the derby means to our fans first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.
