Sheffield United gave a good account of themselves despite falling to a 4-2 defeat at Manchester United on Wednesday evening.
The Blades led twice but Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes restored parity on both occasions, before the aforementioned Fernandes produced a wonderful long-range strike and an assist to grant three points for the Red Devils.
Player grades
Wes Foderingham: 8
Plenty of talk about the goalkeeper situation at the minute and Foderingham returned between to the sticks and produced an outstanding performance which marked nine saves. After some great stops early on, Foderingham could do little about the outrageous goal from Fernandes to give Man United a 3-2 lead.
Jayden Bogle: 8
Bogle was tasked with dealing the tricky Alejandro Garnacho and he matched up well against him. United’s right-wingback gave the Blades an unlikely lead in the first half when he pressed high and pounced on an error from Andre Onana.
Mason Holgate: 5
Didn’t look confident on the ball and always chose the easy option to rather than taking it on himself to progress the ball which stopped a lot of the flow. Defensively was caught out at times and made a couple of unnecessary lunges, one very close to the penalty area.
Anel Ahmedhodzic: 6
Made a couple of good interventions but the marking is still questionable.
Auston Trusty: 4
One minute he looks competent and then the next he looks like he’s got his boots on the wrong way. Terrible defending for the corner which led to him bringing down Maguire to give away a contentious penalty. Either way, poor defending.
Ben Osborn: 7
Energetic down the left flank. Never really looked in trouble at any point in the game, and he contributed in attack with a brilliant cutback for Brereton-Diaz’s goal.
Gustavo Hamer: 7
A typical Hamer performance. Hard-working and always involved in a dangerous attack for the Blades. His vision and passing technique causes teams a host of problems, the issue is getting him the ball so he can use that, and getting bodies forward for him to pick out.
Oli Arblaster: 7
A player that is maturing before our very eyes. Involved in dictating the play for Sheffield United, and he was very busy defensively performing 15 defensive actions, including seven tackles proving his ability to screen the back line.
He went directly against Manchester United’s own teenage sensation Kobbie Mainoo, and Arblaster got the better of him in on several occasions.
Andre Brooks: 5
Struggled to get into the game which is probably why he was substituted for Vinicius Souza at half time. He did work hard and tracked his runners efficiently though – just couldn’t get a touch of the ball in possession.
Ben Brereton-Diaz: 7
Brereton-Diaz is quickly turning into a loan player that you should never ‘fall in love with’, but you do. He has a great work rate, full of explosivity, and he just gets the club. Deserved his goal and was unlucky to not add another to his tally of five.
Cameron Archer: 6
Archer did his best to work with what he had – zero service. He chased down loose balls and proved to be a nuisance at times up against Casemiro and Maguire.
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