AMEX STADIUM – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer acknowledged that Manchester United need to score more late goals if they are to bridge the gap on rivals Liverpool and Manchester City this season after Bruno Fernandes’ 100th-minute penalty secured a 3-2 victory over Brighton on Saturday.
Fernandes has made a habit of scoring from 12-yards since swapping his native Portugal for England in February with his five Premier League goals from penalties at least two more than any other player in the division since he made his debut against Wolves on February 1.
It is unlikely he will ever score a later one. Opta clocked Fernandes’ most recent spot-kick conversion at 99 minutes and 45 seconds, making it the latest goal scored in a Premier League match since his United teammate Juan Mata netted for Chelsea after 100 minutes and three seconds against Norwich City in August 2011.
So late was the match-winning goal, in fact, it technically happened after referee Chris Kavanagh had already blown the full-time whistle. It was only after a few minutes of vehement protestations from United’s players led by captain Harry Maguire whose header had rebounded off Neal Maupay’s forearm and a word in his ear from VAR official Simon Hooper that Kavanagh jogged over to his pitchside monitor to review the penalty incident before pointing to the spot.
Solskjaer is no stranger to late goals, of course. The Norwegian accounts for the most famous stoppage-time goal ever scored by a Manchester United player, prodding the ball into the roof of the net with a casual flick of his right boot deep into added time to snatch the Champions League trophy away from Bayern Munich inside the Camp Nou in 1999.
That goal, along with countless others scored by United players in that era, led to the “Fergie Time” phenomenon – the idea that Manchester United were given more additional time to score than their opponents due to the cult of personality of their manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who regularly prowled the touchline pointing purposefully to his watch while aggressively chewing his way through a packet of Wrigleys.
As someone who was there at the time and teleports himself back to that golden era in United’s modern history at any given opportunity, Solskjaer knows all about the concept of “Fergie Time” but as he acknowledged after his side’s incredibly fortuitous win over Brighton, not even Ferguson’s team managed to score a goal after the final whistle had already been blown.
“I don’t think we’ve ever scored after the final whistle but, of course, the handball was before full-time,” Solskjaer said. “It was probably the right thing to do [to check the monitor for handball]. For us, it was a big thing. We’ve talked about how we need more late goals.
“We were the team that lost the fewest games – apart from Liverpool – last season, but we drew too many. To get two extra points after conceding the equaliser so late on is a great boost for us.”
Another hallmark of Ferguson’s best United teams was winning matches that they had no right to. That is what Solskjaer’s side managed at the Amex although as he himself admitted there was plenty of good fortune about their victory.
Brighton had 18 efforts on goal to United’s seven with five of those rattling the woodwork – a record since Opta started collecting such data – and a further three stinging the overworked David De Gea’s palms.
“We got away with one,” Solskjaer acknowledged. “Maybe one point we deserved, we didn’t deserve more.”
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