Manchester U 3 Watford 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Wat­ford 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Feb­ruary 23, 2020. Man­chester Uni­ted had few prob­lems in beat­ing Wat­ford at ho­me. Bruno Fer­nandes gave Uni­ted the lead from the spot three min­utes ahead of the break be­fore An­thony Mar­tial and Ma­son Green­wood hit fur­ther goals in the sec­ond ha­lf to give the hosts a three-nil win.

Man­chester Uni­ted had beaten Chel­sea by two goals to nil in their last Pre­miership en­counter thanks to a fir­st ha­lf goal from An­thony Mar­tial and a sec­ond by Harry Ma­guire af­ter the re­start. Wat­ford, mean­while, had ma­naged a one-all draw ag­ainst Brighton and Hove Al­bion at Falmer Sta­dium, wi­th Ad­ri­an Mari­appa scor­ing for The Seagulls and Ab­doulaye Dou­coure find­ing the back of the net for The Hor­nets. Sev­enth pla­ced Man­chester Uni­ted took the ad­vant­age ag­ainst re­leg­a­tion threat­ened Wat­ford when new sign­ing from Por­tuguese Primeira Liga club Sport­ing Lis­bon, Bruno Fer­nandes, bril­liantly be­at ex-Old Traf­ford goal­tender Ben Fo­ster from the pen­alty spot in the forty-sec­ond min­ute of the fix­ture af­ter the for­mer had be­en fouled in­side the area by the lat­ter. And dur­ing a one-sided sec­ond ha­lf, Mar­tial made it two-nil to Man­chester Uni­ted wi­th a fab­ulous clo­se ran­ge fin­ish in the fifty-sev­enth min­ute be­fore Eng­land U21 in­ter­na­tion­al Ma­son Green­wood roun­ded off the scor­ing as the eight­een-year-old for­ward un­leashed an un­stoppable shot from the middle of the box pa­st Fo­ster and in­to the top left-hand cor­ner of the net wi­th fif­teen min­utes left on the clock. The com­pre­hens­ive ho­me vic­tory took Man­chester Uni­ted up to fifth po­s­i­tion in the Pre­mier Lea­gue stand­ings, whi­le Nigel Pearson´s boys re­mained next to bot­tom, six points above ta­ble-prop­pers Nor­wich City. Then, at the busi­ness end, Liver­pool, still un­defeated in the Pre­miership, were com­fort­ably lead­ing the way wi­th sev­enty-six points col­lec­ted from twenty-six mat­ches, as much as nine­teen points ahead of sec­ond pla­ced Man­chester City.

Born and bro­ught up in Maia, Met­ro­pol­it­an Area of Porto, Bruno Fer­nandes had star­ted out play­ing for loc­al te­am Boav­ista; a club known for giv­ing young­sters a chan­ce. Af­ter a num­ber of  im­press­ive per­form­ances in the youth te­am, the pre­co­ciously tal­en­ted pro­spect was lured to No­vara at the end of the 2011-12 term and pro­ceeded to play twenty-three Itali­an Serie B ga­mes for The Gaud­en­tians the next sea­son. Wi­th his fa­me grow­ing, Fer­nandes was sig­ned by Ud­inese at the be­gin­ning of the 2013-14 cam­paign and was han­ded his Serie A de­but for The White and Blacks in a three-nil loss to Inter Mil­an at Sta­dio Fri­ulion on the third of Nov­ember 2013. Fol­low­ing eighty-six Serie A ap­pear­ances for Ud­inese, he was ev­entually shipped out on loan to Samp­dor­ia in the sum­mer of 2016, wi­th an ob­lig­a­tion to be sig­ned per­man­ently. He went on to make his top-flight de­but for Samp­dor­ia in a two-one win ag­ainst Atalanta at Sta­dio Luigi Fer­rar­is on the twenty-eighth of Au­gust 2016 and ap­peared in thirty-five fir­st te­am mat­ches for the club un­til mov­ing to Sport­ing Lis­bon at the start of the 2017-18 sea­son. A mid­fielder wi­th an eye for goal, he would score thirty-nine Primeira Liga goals in eighty-three ap­pear­ances for The Li­ons be­fore he joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted for un­dis­closed fee in Jan­uary 2020. Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer: “We feel that we have ad­ded some X-factor qual­ity wi­th Bruno Fer­nandes. We want to de­vel­op that X-factor. He has come in and im­pressed every­one, but we do not want to put a lim­it on what he can do.” Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Lu­ke Shaw, Vic­tor Lin­delof, Harry Ma­guire, Aar­on Wan-Bis­saka, Bruno Fer­nandes, Dan­iel Ja­mes, Fred, An­thony Mar­tial, Ma­son Green­wood, Ne­manja Mat­ic. Sub­stitutes: Eric Bailly, Brandon Wil­li­ams, Tahith Chong, Ju­an Ma­ta, Scott Mc­Tom­inay, Odi­on Ig­halo, Ser­gio Rom­ero. Wat­ford Te­am: Ben Fo­ster, Craig Dawson, Chris­ti­an Ka­basele, Ad­am Mas­ina, Craig Cath­cart, Etienne Ca­poue, Ab­doulaye Dou­coure, Will Hug­hes, Troy Deeney, Ger­ard Deu­lo­feu, Rob­erto Pereyra. Sub­stitutes: Ad­ri­an Mari­appa, Nath­aniel Cha­lo­b­ah, Tom Clev­er­ley, Is­maila Sarr, An­dre Gray, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Heurelho Gomes.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted over­came Fir­st Di­vi­sion new­comers Wat­ford by two goals to no­ne at Old Traf­ford on the twenty-third of April 1983 thro­ugh goals from Ash­ley Gri­mes and Laurie Cunningham.

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