Emotions running high at Wembley, Fernandes quits and United seek victory

It's a lovely afternoon in London and the sun is shining down on the Wembley pitch. The conditions are perfect for a game of football. Mitoma drives forward and wins a free-kick, which De Gea saves by tipping it around the post. Great save, considering the sun was bound to be in his eyes.

It had been a sedate start until Mitoma got on the ball. Already, he has shown the intelligence not to take on Wan-Bissaka down the line but go inside and closer towards goal. It sounds such a simple tactic and worked well there to win the free-kick. De Gea would have been pilloried had he let that in. It was one for the cameras.

De Gea played it short twice early on but has since gone direct twice. You can see why, there’s space to exploit there. Dunk is pressing Fernandes from goal kicks but it means he’s getting drawn up field quite easily. Rashford almost got on the end of that last clearance and it was just a straight ball, there was nothing complex about it. This might be an afternoon when it suits De Gea to go long.

Brighton like to draw men on to them and then play through teams but at the moment their spare men are often the full-backs, which is probably by design from United. Estupinan and Gross are free a lot of the the time and in space out wide, but they’ve not really made much from it so far.

Fernandes is limping

Fernandes is still struggling after he landed awkwardly on his angle a few minutes ago. You have to wonder how much longer he and United can give it when he is unable to fully commit himself to challenges, attacks etc. Ten Hag has just sat down with his assistants for a conflab but is back in the technical area. None of the subs have been called back. Yet.