Talking Points: Boxing Day draw at Leicester
The Reds picked up a hard-fought point against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium, but, ultimately, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men will be disappointed to have had the lead twice and not collected another three points on the road.
We round-up the main talking points from an entertaining Boxing Day clash...
REDS STILL STRONG ON BOXING DAY
United maintained our impressive Boxing Day record following the 2-2 draw against Brendan Rodgers’s men. The Reds have lost just two Premier League matches on 26 December (against Middlesbrough in 2002 and Stoke City in 2015), with 21 wins coming from our 27 matches. Before today, Leicester had lost five of their last six Boxing Day matches and they’ll be relieved to have grabbed a draw. The result keeps us a point behind the Foxes in the table.
Leicester City 2 United 2
ArticleTwo of the top sides in the division contest an absorbing Boxing Day draw at the King Power Stadium.
MARCUS MILESTONE
He’ll still be disappointed with his miss in the opening seconds of the contest, but Marcus Rashford didn’t let it play on his mind as he finished with aplomb on 23 minutes to net his 50th Premier League goal and his 80th for the Reds. OptaJoe confirmed that Marcus, aged 23 years and 56 days, is the third-youngest United player to reach the milestone after Wayne Rooney (22 years, 157 days) and Cristiano Ronaldo (22 years, 341 days). And, of course, it came courtesy of yet another Bruno Fernandes assist.
EDINSON IMPACT
We’ve seen Edinson Cavani come off the bench and make an impact already this season and he took just four minutes after entering the fray to do similar today. His attitude was on show from the off when he chased a seemingly lost cause in the corner after matter of seconds and, on 79 minutes, he threaded a lovely pass into Fernandes to slot home our second. The Uruguayan hassled and harried the Leicester backline throughout his 15 minutes on the pitch and you always feel anything is possible in front of goal with him around.
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FRIGHTENING FERNANDES
Bruno continues to rack up simply incredible stats, as he once again got on the goalscoring and assist sheets. Bruno brilliantly flicked the ball through to set up Rashford for our opener, before slotting home the second after being found by Cavani. It now means that, in 28 games, Bruno has 31 goal involvements with 18 goals scored and 13 assists to his name. World class and no wonder he told us it was his target to have more goal involvements than games in 2020/21 come the end of the campaign.
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BACKLINE ALTERED
An injury to Aaron Wan-Bissaka, sustained in the 6-2 win over Leeds, meant a switch around at the back for the usual defence which has featured so much in the league this term. Victor Lindelof shifted across to right-back and, after making his return from injury in the Carabo Cup win at Everton three days earlier, Eric Bailly lined up alongside Harry Maguire once more. Luke Shaw returned to left-back after coming on as a sub on Merseyside in place of Alex Telles. Later in the match, we saw the introduction of Axel Tuanzebe at right-back when Lindelof was forced off through injury.
TIGHT IN THE TABLE
This result leaves the Reds hot on the heels of the leaders in the table with two full programmes of games to come over the coming few days. The matches continue to come thick and fast for Ole's men with Wolves next up, at Old Trafford, for our last game of 2020, on Tuesday night. And we still have a game in hand over our chief rivals.