A week which began with the new minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s pronouncements of aiming to knock Manchester City “off their perch” within three years ended in familiar desultory fashion for Manchester United as they needlessly squandered a point, gifted to them by Fulham’s only mistake of the day, and lost to Alex Iwobi’s winner seven minutes into added time.
Erik ten Hag, adjusting to life without his suddenly prolific but now injured striker Rasmus Hojlund, had seen Harry Maguire score an 89th-minute equaliser after Bernd Leno had failed to deal with a long-range shot from Bruno Fernandes and parried it into the United defender’s path.
True to type, Fernandes frantically tried to inspire an Old Trafford crowd that could scarcely believe their luck, gesturing to them wildly as the officials announced nine minutes of added time. But if Ratcliffe was pleading for patience in his first public addresses this week, his players should have taken a leaf out of that book. Instead of settling for that undeserved point, United continued to push forward rashly and, as had been the case on so many occasions during the preceding 90-plus minutes, were quickly caught on the break when Adama Traoré won the ball and sped away from Maguire down the right — a mismatch if ever there was one.
The speedy Fulham substitute advanced before finding Iwobi, starting for the first time since his Africa Cup of Nations duty, and the Nigeria winger finished superbly into the bottom corner of André Onana’s goal.
Yet, implausibly, Ten Hag insisted his side should have won, and could have done so had it not been for losing Casemiro to injury just before the opening goal.
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“We could have won this game and should have won this game because the team showed great character,” the United manager said. “But Casemiro was a great loss because we lost some stability and balance.”
It was hard to agree. Yes, United were without Hojlund, out for another two or three weeks, and longer-term absentee Luke Shaw, but Ratcliffe’s plea for three years to start seeing the fruits of his vision looked wholly optimistic as Fulham celebrated their first Old Trafford win in 21 years and only their second in 61 years. “I’m not going to change my view after one defeat, you have to see the bigger picture,” Ten Hag said.
“The bigger picture looks very good. So we have to catch up in certain positions, get our injured players back, then also strengthen the squad in the transfer windows.
“You see we have some good young players coming up with really high potential. So, we are definitely in the right direction.”
Ten Hag had gambled even before kick-off by handing a debut to one of those promising youngsters, the teenager Omari Forson, preferring him to chronic underachiever Antony, the £86 million Brazilian whose loss of form and confidence is becoming one of many worrying issues in the United squad.
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Forson, 19, slotted in on the wing with Marcus Rashford playing as a No 9, two selections which failed miserably on the day.
Instead, United were constantly on the backfoot as Fulham broke in numbers, frequently swarming past Ten Hag’s hopelessly over-manned midfield of Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo. On one such fast break, midway through the second half, Marco Silva’s men outnumbered United’s six to four, only for Andreas Pereira to just miss Antonee Robinson’s driven far-post cross.
Pereira, it was fair to say, enjoyed returning to United, on whose books he had spent eight years from 2014 without ever breaking into a regular first-team place, although so did many of his colleagues, as the team with the division’s second-worst away record celebrated their first win on the road since the opening day of the season. They deserved to take a first-half lead even before it arrived, with Timothy Castagne’s header forcing a fine reflex save out of Onana and Rodrigo Muniz thundering a shot against the post after spinning away from Victor Lindelöf.
Diogo Dalot also struck the woodwork in that first period but, without Hojlund and Shaw, two of their most influential players in a recent five-match winning run, United laboured badly and could have been reduced to ten men if Maguire’s foul on Sasa Lukic had been interpreted differently.
United fell behind, deservedly, on 65 minutes when Pereira’s corner found Calvin Bassey unmarked and, after the defender’s first effort had struck team-mate Castagne, the defender showed the composure, and somehow had the time, to bury the loose ball into the roof of the goal.
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Not until the final 20 minutes did United piece together periods of sustained pressure, with Leno, and Fulham’s, only major error of the afternoon handing Maguire the equaliser, although so ill-advised was their response to the prospect of a draw, that United might have conceded a minute before the winner, when Muniz headed Castagne’s cross just wide from yet another Fulham fast-break.
“When they equalised, Old Trafford was completely on fire, the crowd were playing a big part and it becomes what I call ‘a crazy Premier League game’, when anything can happen,” Silva, the Fulham manager, said . “So we had to show a really strong mentality.”
Manchester United (4-2-3-1): A Onana 7 — D Dalot 6, R Varane 5, H Maguire 7, V Lindelof 6 (Antony 90+9min) — K Mainoo 6 (A Diallo 80), Casemiro 5 (S McTominay 53, 5) — A Garnacho 8, B Fernandes 6, O Forson 5 (C Eriksen 53, 5) — M Rashford 5. Booked Maguire, Fernandes.
Fulham (4-2-3-1): B Leno 5 — T Castagne 7, Tosin 6, C Bassey 7, A Robinson 7 — H Reed 7 (A Traoré 77), S Lukic 7 — H Wilson 6 (I Diop 80), A Pereira 8 (T Cairney 67, 5), A Iwobi 7 — R Muniz 7. Booked Tosin, Pereira, Wilson, Leno, Cairney.
Referee M Oliver. Attendance 73,487.