FRED had his best game for Manchester United on Wednesday against Tottenham. There have been others – he played well in Paris in United’s greatest moment of an up and down 2019 and against Liverpool too but nobody is pretending that £52 million Fred has been a success since Jose Mourinho oversaw his signing from Shakhtar Donetsk.
He does seem to be getting better though and he looked better still alongside Scott McTominay, the two in a 4-2-3-1 formation against Spurs. The Scottish international does the simple stuff well. United have won six of the last seven games that McTominay played in, losing one and drawing two of three where he was absent. The Brazilian played in all those games, an all energy foil who works as hard to close down space off the ball as he does when he’s on it.
“The boy works hard,” said Ole Gunnar Solskjaer of Fred. “He’s creating a relationship with Scott which is very good for us — they’ve been consistently picked and that gives them confidence.
“It does,” said Fred when I spoke to him after the game on Wednesday. “I’m playing every game and that is all I wanted last season. I enjoy playing alongside Scott, a strong player.” The pair were looking comfortable until Dele Alli turned Fred to score Tottenham’s equaliser. “Well, it was frustrating, but it was a great goal,” said the Brazilian who would go on to block Son Heung-Min from making it two.
Fred for Man Utd vs. Spurs:
• Most touches (86)
• Most passes completed (49)
• Most passes in the opp. half (39)
• Most recoveries (11)
• Most crosses (3)
• =Most interceptions (3)
• =Most fouls won (2)The display Old Trafford has been waiting for. pic.twitter.com/7F7b6NiBrX
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) December 4, 2019
Fred has started the last eight league games. Not only that, he’s played in 90 minutes in each of them. He didn’t make the matchday squad for the first four matches of the season and was sub for the next three. Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna worked hard with him on the training ground. It’s paying off.
“Tonight was a fantastic victory and I’m very happy with it, important,” he smiled. “Was it my best game? Well, I did well against Liverpool too. I’m pleased tonight because we kept our lead to win the game. We have not done that enough this season, we need to win more matches.”
Confidence is an important part of Fred's make up. He’s long been training well, but his head would drop after he gave the ball away in an actual match. When he lost possession against Tottenham he worked hard to get the ball back. Fred had to contend with Moussa Sissoko’s studs in his shin, but that won a 17th–minute free-kick for his team.
He’s a seemingly indefatiguable Duracell bunny bundle of energy who, on 89 minutes in a loud, tense, emotive Old Trafford, dribbled the ball away from danger. That energy will be needed with the relentless run of game ahead, especially if Paul Pogba remains unavailable to play.
“I’m ready for them,” he says. “I cannot complain about too many games when all I wanted was to play more games. All I know is that I’m feeling better every day at this club and that I really enjoyed playing tonight. The noise in the stadium. Wow. That is why I joined Manchester United.”
Fantastic and solid performance from Fred, his best performance in Man Utd shirt so far. ✊
— Al-Siddiq Jallaba (@sadeeqbasise) December 4, 2019
Fred’s form is encouraging but doubts about him are not going to vanish after a decent game or three. He still has a long way to go to be considered of a sufficient level to play week in week out for United or whether he should be considered a squad player, but playing well against better teams has done him no harm. The players around Fred do have an influence, but he’s got to be more consistent this season too, having been cut slack in his first term to allow for him settling into a new country where he didn’t speak the language and with a new style of football.
Fred maintained that he could have joined City but chose United. He’s friends with a couple of City’s Brazilians and they too have been supportive of him as he tried to settle in an unsettled team, but the 26-year-old was selected in one of the two Manchester derbies last season, April’s 2-0 home defeat. He was as bad as the rest and wouldn’t be selected for any of the remaining three league games.
“We have a bad memory of that night,” he says. “But we’re better now.” The league table hardly convinces, though United are now eight unbeaten at home in all competitions since the August defeat to Crystal Palace. It’s the away form which needs to pick up, though, oddly, United’s form away at City in the derbies this decade has been better than Old Trafford. And United have still to lose to any of the sides above them in the table.
City, a superior team who’ve wobbled themselves recently, will be a huge test, for United, for Solskjaer and for Fred. They all claim they’re ready.
