Fred sends message to Man United supporters as Red Devils reach EFL Cup final | OneFootball

Fred Rodrigues grabbed his fourth goal of the season in Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest last night, as United sealed their EFL Cup final place.

United headed into this second leg already in a comfortable position, as they had a 3-0 lead from last week’s first leg thanks to goals from Marcus Rashford, Wout Weghorst, and Bruno Fernandes.

Last night’s game started off quite slowly, and it was clear to see that United knew they had this game already won and were just trying to see out the 90 minutes.

In an opening 45 minutes with few opportunities, Weghorst had the best chance for the home side, as the striker got on the end of a lovely cross from Fernandes, but his header bounced off the post.

While for Forest, they had nothing to lose in this game and had a couple of chances in that first half where they broke on the break and put United under pressure, but the majority of the first 45 minutes fizzled out. In the second half, United came out with more intent and urgency, as Ten Hag was clearly not impressed by what he saw.

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As the game approached the 70th minute, Ten Hag made a triple change, bringing Rashford, Anthony Martial, and Jadon Sancho onto the field, as the United boss clearly wanted to win.

Moments later, United opened the scoring and sealed their place at Wembley, with midfielder Casemiro playing Martial through, who ran on goal before passing to Rashford, but his pass was misplaced, and it bounced back to the Frenchman, who turned and slotted the ball into the bottom left corner.

Three minutes later, United doubled their lead when a well-worked team goal that started with Fernandes’ cross-field ball with the outside of his boot was passed back across goal from Rashford for Fred to just slot the ball into an empty net and book the home side’s place in the final.

Fred, who started the game in place of the injured Christian Eriksen, added yet another goal to his tally for the season and the Brazilian took to Twitter to react to the victory and his goal.

He wrote: “Ready for Wembley. Thanks God!”

The Verdict

Fred is a player who many at Manchester United would have thought was on his way out the door when Ten Hag was appointed manager.

However, the Brazilian has seemed to have gone up another level since the Dutchman’s arrival, while still not playing all the time. Fred has seemingly adapted well to becoming this impact player off the bench, as the previous weeks have shown he can come on and chip in with a few goals.

But now with Eriksen’s injury, the likelihood is that Fred will have a lot more game time coming in these next few months, and if he keeps performing and scoring goals, he could continue to be an important member of this United team.