Bruno: Our equaliser was too late

Bruno Fernandes felt Manchester United might have gone on to complete a turnaround against AFC Bournemouth, if we had been able to equalise at an earlier interval.

Despite having 25 shots in the game, it wasn’t until the final moments that the Reds were able to cancel out Antoine Semenyo’s first-half opener, when Rasmus Hojlund came up with a poacher’s goal to earn us a steely point.

Our skipper admitted that we were lacking slightly in the final third despite elements of our build-up playing offering encouragement, and that, ultimately, we should have scored more than just the one we managed on the south coast.

Fernandes ‘happy’ for Hojlund Video

Fernandes ‘happy’ for Hojlund

📹 REACTION | Bruno was delighted to see team-mate Rasmus find the net against Bournemouth with a late leveller…

Speaking to MUTV’s Zarah Connolly after the game, our no.8 said: “We were down in the game, we had to try to get some result from this.

“We knew how tough it is to play here against them, obviously them having a great season, doing very well. Different moments for both teams but we are really aware of what we had to do. I think we create a lot but again we couldn’t score as many as what we wanted but at the end we got the goal to at least get the point from this today.”

United were dominant in the second half in particular, a course only aided by the hosts being reduced to 10 men when Evanilson was dismissed with 20 minutes remaining, but Bruno had felt we’d been performing well even when parity in numbers remained.

“We felt that at 11 against 11 we were doing well, we could create space for ourselves, we were getting into their box,” he continued.

“Everything was just missing a little bit – getting more bodies into the box, creating more danger. We did that with 11 v 11 but we didn’t score.

“But at the end we got our goal, [it] probably was a little bit too late to get the win, because I think if we had a little bit more time to push after the goal, we could have won the game.”

The captain said the onus on getting those goals has to be shared throughout the team, with Bruno the leading marksman in that regard, having netted 15 times in all competitions.

But with Hojlund the man to get the all-important late leveller, Fernandes hopes that goal will give him a boost between now and the end of the campaign.

“Strikers are about scoring goals and we all know that, he knows the responsibility of being the No.9 of United and he has to score goals, that’s the demand of a club like this, not only for him, but for everyone else.

“Everyone that plays here who has the qualities to get into the box to score goals has to do it. Today, it was Rasmus, and everyone is very happy to see a striker scoring and hopefully it’s going to give him a little bit of a push for what’s coming.”

Of course, attentions now turn to a hugely important first leg of our Europa League semi-final tie against Athletic Club, in the Basque country on Thursday, as Bruno shared his view of how United will now look ahead to that crucial contest.

“We haven’t spoke about it yet. Obviously now, from tomorrow [Monday] on, we have to start recovering, focus on what we have to do against Athletic.

“It’s going to be a very tough game, we know that they play at home and they will play the final at home if they beat us. For us, it’s giving the chances to our fans to travel two times to Bilbao.”

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