Man United 5-2 Ipswich: a Bruno Fernandes hat-trick

Ipswich Town led at Old Trafford after twenty-nine minutes and lost by three. Manchester United took thirty-three shots in front of 74,148 and Bruno Fernandes scored three of the five goals. It is the first win of United season and it arrived in the most emphatic way available.

How the two sides arrived

United had lost 2-0 at Hull City on the opening weekend, a result that made the following week uncomfortable in every direction. Ipswich had beaten Sunderland 2-1 at Portman Road and arrived with three points and no reason to feel intimidated.

For half an hour that confidence looked entirely justified.

The lead, and the eleven minutes that ended it

Leif Davis put Ipswich ahead on 29 minutes, finishing left-footed from the centre of the box into the high centre of the goal after Abdul Fatawu had found him. Old Trafford, already tense, got a great deal tenser.

It lasted eleven minutes. Fernandes levelled on 40 with a left-footed finish into the top left corner, released by a Matheus Cunha through ball on the counter — the first sign of the afternoon that United were going to attack the space Ipswich were leaving.

The hour that unravelled

The second goal came from Ipswich themselves. Jacob Greaves turned the ball into his own net on 56, confirmed after a VAR review, and from that moment the game went one way only.

Fernandes converted a penalty on 61 into the bottom left corner, then scored his third on 68 from the centre of the box. Bryan Mbeumo made it five on 82 from outside the box, and the assist was Fernandes, who finished the afternoon directly involved in four of his side five goals.

Chuba Akpom got a second for Ipswich on 90+1, set up by Julio Enciso. It flattered nobody, but it was at least a note to end on for a side that had spent an hour being overrun.

Thirty-three shots

United finished with 60.4% of the ball, thirty-three attempts and eleven on target. Ipswich had nine shots and five on target and scored twice — a conversion rate that keeps a team in games it has no business being in, right up until the volume at the other end simply wins.

Thirty-three shots is an unusual number even for a home side chasing a result. It speaks to a match in which the visiting defence had stopped being able to clear its lines, and to a home crowd that had gone from anxious to demanding inside twenty minutes.

Fernandes, and the response to Hull

Seven days earlier Manchester United had lost 2-0 at Hull City, a result that framed the entire week around them. The response was thirty-three shots, five goals and a hat-trick from their captain — which is the loudest available way of answering a question, if not necessarily the most informative one.

Bruno Fernandes scored from open play on 40, from the penalty spot on 61, and from open play again on 68, then supplied the assist for the fifth. Four direct involvements in five goals is the sort of afternoon that carries a player through a difficult autumn, and it came in a match his side had been losing after half an hour.

The caveat is the opposition. Ipswich had beaten Sunderland on the opening weekend and arrived with three points, but by the hour they had stopped being able to clear their own box, and much of the shot count came in a period when the game had already gone. Thirty-three attempts against an organised defence would mean something rather different.

Still, the pattern of the goals is worth noting. The equaliser came from a Matheus Cunha through ball on a fast break, the fifth came from a Fernandes pass on another. This was not a side grinding a low block down; it was a side attacking space that opened up, repeatedly, in the second half.

Four yellow cards were shown by Craig Pawson, and the VAR review that confirmed the second goal was the only real interruption to a game that had become one-sided long before the final whistle.

Where it leaves them

Manchester United are tenth with three points and a goal difference of plus one, which after losing at Hull is a considerably better place than the week began. Craig Pawson showed four yellow cards in a game whose only real stoppage was the review that confirmed the second goal.

Ipswich are twelfth, also on three points, with a goal difference of minus two. They led at Old Trafford, which very few sides will do this season, and they will need to look hard at the twenty-five minutes in which the match got away from them entirely.

Old Trafford, for a week at least, sounds like it used to.