Captain Bruno Fernandes pointed towards Manchester United’s continued struggles in attack for their latest defeat and admitted “everyone is aware” that they are short of goals.
Head coach Ruben Amorim named a starting XI without a recognised centre-forward as his side succumbed to a seventh home defeat of a horror season against Oliver Glasner’s Crystal Palace. Jean-Philippe Mateta put Palace in front shortly after the hour mark before the French striker added a second late on.
But United were bereft of quality in the final third throughout and Fernandes pulled no punches with his assessment as they drew a blank.
Fernandes spoke to MUTV after the game and said: “We spoke after the games we won. We said everything we did in the past would be forgotten if we don’t win the next one and that’s the case today. We need points in the Premier League, everyone is aware of that. It’s a different competition and we need to win, but unfortunately today, we didn’t get the three points.
“We lacked a little bit of aggression to get into the final third and [lacked] something to score goals. With the players we have in front, we need to have more goals and create more, take players on and get chances from that. We did have some chances but we didn’t have as many as we should have.
“You build with results and when you win games, you get more confidence. We won the last three games and everyone was confident, so for us now, it’s a setback and we need to understand that we’ve doing some good things and even today, we showed some good things.
“The result doesn’t show that, but we can still achieve a lot doing the things we’ve been doing.”
United unveiled new signing Patrick Dorgu, along with Ayden Heaven, before kick off. The Denmark defender, 20, has joined from Lecce in a £30m deal, signing a five-year contract. But they are linking up with a side sitting a dismal 13th in the Premier League table.
Meanwhile Marcus Rashford is set to complete a loan move to Aston Villa before Monday night’s transfer deadline with the England international not part of Amorim’s plans.
