Manchester United spurned an excellent opportunity to end the 2019-20 season with a trophy after losing to Sevilla in the Europa League semi-finals on Sunday night.Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men went into the tie as favourites and took the lead in the ninth minute courtesy of a Bruno Fernandes penalty.But goals either side of half-time from Suso and Luuk de Jong sent the Spanish outfit through to Friday’s final at the Red Devils’ expense.United were arguably the better team at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne but missed a host of chances over the course of the 90 minutes.The Premier League giants had 20 shots compared to Sevilla’s nine, seven of which were on target.However, poor defensive errors certainly contributed towards United’s failure to reach the Europa League final.Victor Lindelof has been heavily criticised for his role in De Jong’s winning goal. The Swedish centre-back was badly positioned when Jesus Navas swung in the cross which resulted in an unmarked De Jong tapping past David de Gea from close range.
Fernandes was seen ripping into his teammate seconds later, which led to an alleged foul-mouthed response from the defender.But United fans were delighted to see the Portuguese midfielder call out his teammate on the pitch following such a woeful piece of defending.Harry Maguire, like Lindelof, also failed to cover himself in glory with his performance and many supporters on social media now want to see the captain’s armband passed from the England international to Fernandes.
That Bruno fronted up and conducted the post-match interview with BT Sport has further convinced fans that Solskjaer should hand the captaincy to the former Sporting Lisbon star.“We had a great game and created a lot of chances, but in football that's not enough,” a visibly dejected Fernandes said. “When you create chances you need to finish and score, but today we missed a lot in front of goal.“We are not satisfied with this result as we want to go through to the final. Now it's time to rest and refresh our legs ahead of next season.”
On the argument with Lindelof, Fernandes added: “It's normal when you concede a goal with ten minutes to go, everyone was mad.“It's not about me and Victor it's about the whole team. What happened between me and Victor is nothing, it's normal.“But what's important now is we need to see the mistakes that everyone has made and improve for the next game.”Watch Fernandes's post-match interview in full here...