Manchester United returned to losing ways today in a dispiriting defeat away to Brentford.
The Bees ran out 3-1 winners as the Red Devils toiled, and while things may have gone differently had Bruno Fernandes converted his penalty with the score at 2-1, it was another disappointing day for Ruben Amorim and his team.
Ugarte given a start
With Casemiro suspended following the red card he picked up against Chelsea last week, there was a position up for grabs alongside Fernandes in the middle of the park.
Manuel Ugarte got the nod over Kobbie Mainoo, and despite an unconvincing start to the season turned in a decent performance at the heart of a desperately poor side.
Nobody on the pitch made more tackles than the Uruguayan, who wrestled the ball back for his team three times. He also gave away one foul.
He was typically fierce in the duel, winning four of the seven ground duels he contested and two of his three aerial battles.
Small improvements
United were deeply unimpressive but still managed to take 14 shots and fashion four big chances.
Ugarte did not contribute to any of these attacking stats, instead playing the more defensive role expected of him, but did have a better game than usual on the ball.
The 24-year-old kept things moving well and found his man with 27 of his 32 attempted passes to record a passing accuracy of 84%.
He was wide of the mark with his two attempted long passes, however, and he lost possession seven times during his 66 minutes on the pitch.
Ugarte is never going to be able to compete with the likes of Mainoo in terms of providing midfield creativity, but he was at least less error-prone in possession today.
Casemiro was only suspended for one match so will be available to Amorim for next weekend’s trip to Sunderland.
Whether Ugarte did enough to keep his place remains to seen, but regardless it was a better performance from the midfielder than we have seen in recent weeks and he will hope to kick on from it.
Stats taken from sofascore.
Featured image Richard Pelham via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
