Bournemouth 0
Man Utd 1
United took an early lead when Casemiro reacted brilliantly to a Eriksen pass, and despite the Bournemouth defender attempting to stop the pass, and ending setting it up nicely for Casemiro to finish. 1-0. Up until 30 minutes, we dominated, and should have gone and scored a second but there is clearly not enough hunger and incisiveness by the front 3.
Bournemouth started coming out and our left flank was exposed a few times as Shaw and Sancho were not closing the gaps well enough. Sancho even shied away from heading the ball away and let a player in behind him through on goal…unacceptable for any manager!
DDG had to come to the rescue with a good save and I could sense some edginess creeping in. Once again, we encouraged our opponents to come have a go at us.
We needed a second goal early in the second half to settle the nerves. I would have taken off Sancho and sent on Garnacho immediately. Garancho was sent on for the last 20 minutes. He still contributed more than Sancho did in 70 minutes.
The second half was opaque. United did have the openings to get a second but a combination of poor finishing and abysmal decision making in the final third kept us from getting the much needed second goal. The Bournemouth keeper had only one difficult save to make from a Bruno first timer. Our front four were simply not good enough today and that kept Bournemouth in the match, so much so that DDG had to come to the rescue towards the end (the finishing from the Bournemouth forward was thankfully not clinical).
At the end, we held on for a very precious 3 points away from OT. We now need just one point from the remaining 2 matches, both at OT, against Chelsea and Fulham. I am hoping that despite not playing our best football by any stretch of the imagination, we can achieve this target…NUMQUAM MORIBIMUR!
