Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes has played down an on-field argument with defender Victor Lindelof after seeing the club eliminated out of the Europa League.
Despite Fernandes opening the scoring for United after just nine minutes, Sevilla proved too strong for Solskjaer’s side with a 78th-minute winner from Luuk de Jong ensuring the Spanish side progressed to another final through a 2-1 victory.
After Sevilla’s winning goal, Fernandes was filmed in a fiery exchange with United defender Lindelof as the duo seemingly argued over who was to blame for allowing the De Jong to strike.
United could not find an equaliser after De Jong’s goal and have now been eliminated from the Europa League by a Spanish opponent for a third straight season.
Speaking after the match, Fernandes played down the incident and stressed his argument with Lindelof was ‘normal’ and a natural part of football when there’s so much at stake.
“It’s normal when you concede. It’s not about me or Victor. What happened between me and Victor is normal,” Fernandes told BT Sport. “It will happen many more times in football. We need to see the mistakes everybody did and improve.”
Across their past two games, Manchester United have taken a total of 46 shots but have relied on penalties from Bruno Fernandes to get goals.
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The Portuguese midfielder converted all 14 penalties he has taken this campaign and believes United had to make more of their strong start to the game against Sevilla.
“More than a positive start. We played a great game and created a lot of chances. But in football it’s not enough – we missed a lot in front of goal,” he said.
“We are not satisfied about this because we wanted to go through. Now it’s time to rest and refresh the legs. Their keeper did very well, but the quality we have we should have scored.”
Manchester United have now gone three consecutive campaigns without winning any major trophy – their longest such silverware drought since 1989.
