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18th September 2024
12:49pm BST
Erik Ten Hag enjoyed his most emphatic win as Manchester United manager with a 7-0 win over Barnsley in the third round of the Carabao Cup at Old Trafford last night.
Goals from Marcus Rashford, Antony, Alejandro Garnacho and Christian Eriksen were all on the scoresheet, and new signing Manuel Ugarte looked solid in his home debut under the lights.
It was in fact a decision surrounding the Uruguayan midfielder that led to a lot of question marks from Red Devils fans concerning their manager's thought process.
With 62 minutes on the clock, Ten Hag decided to bring on captain Bruno Fernandes for Ugarte despite being 5-0 up.
Many fans saw it as a risk to bring on the team's talisman and endanger his fitness ahead of some really important fixtures in both the Premier League and Europa League.
Several fans took to social media to express their bemusement.
One wrote: "Crazy bringing Bruno on in this game."
Another tweeted: "Why the changes? With all the injury proneness within the squad, why not spare them for the next league match? ETH is so out of touch."
A third added: "Ever going to be a better chance to give Wheatley some mins? Weird decision to not bring him on and give him a proper run."
Someone else wrote: "Why should he show sympathy," while another commented: "Why you'd risk any usual starter at 5-0 up is beyond me tbf."
Fernandes certainly contributed to the result after he came on, providing two assists in just half an hour.
The former Ajax boss addressed his team's performance in his post match-interview.
"First of all, it was a difficult start but, once we found the shape, it’s not so weird because it’s the first time this team is playing together," he said.
"But once we found the shape and the patterns, we scored some great goals, starting with [Marcus] Rashford which was a brilliant goal but I’d also say some other goals were really good. We played with a lot of speed and we were very ruthless in front of the goal."
He added: "The key was finding the shape and, of course, the right attitude. We were 100 per cent concentrated and we certainly played very good.
"I think it was enjoyable to watch and also the fans they liked it and appreciated it. You could feel again the good bond between the team and the fans and we gave the fans some nice goals."
