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Last season, Manchester United were one of the worst teams in the league in terms of the number of shots allowed and even the expected goals against, a metric which shows how many goals a team was expected to concede based on the quality of chances their opponents had throughout the campaign. Looking the pure numbers of shots in the match against Fulham, Man United were just slightly better than their opponents, 14 to 10. But the expected goals are the story that paints the full picture. With the 10 shots Fulham had, they accumulated mere 0.4 expected goals, meaning United managed to keep them at a very low 0.04 xG per shot. There were some great long range shots from visitors where Andre Onana had to intervene, but those are not the types of shots that offer great statistical chance of becoming goals. On the other hand, United accumulated 2.4xG from 14 shots, equalling a much better 0.17xG per shot. Should have Bruno Fernandes materialised one of his big chances, the final score would have probably much better reflected the situation on the pitch than this 1-0. Nevertheless, Man United will be happy with this win.
We have seen against Fulham that Bruno Fernandes was used the in ‘false nine’ role and it did not bring out the best out of the Portuguese, at least not in terms of finishing up on the chances he was given. Two of them were squandered with poor finishing, but looking at the captain’s display apart from those two saved shots, there were positives. In fact, some of the numbers show just how valuable Bruno is to Man United, it is just that he would probably be even more able to prove so in his favourite ‘number 10’ role. Bruno had 70 touches of the ball, by far the most among the front four, and while supposed to be the sole striker, he made by far the most progressive carries into the final third of the pitch – a total of seven. No other Man United player had more than two, and the only other player on the pitch who had more than two was Fulham’s Adama Traore with five. He recovered six loose balls, managed to make eight crosses for his teammates, and be the outlet to put the ball into the final third for those around him. It was not his best performance all in all, but there was still plenty of value that Bruno brought.
Man United’s youngster and new star of the England national team, Kobbie Mainoo, had put up some interesting numbers in midfield on Friday night. He won all three of his tackles, he made five interceptions and won three out of four challenges he had. He was successful in four out of five take-ons he came into, made five progressive passes in the opponent’s half and completed 90% of all of his passes. That is being reliable.
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