Fernandes double helps Man United thrash Sociedad, Bale stars for Spurs – The Citizen

Bruno Fernandes scored twice as Manchester United romped to a 4-0 victory over Actual Sociedad of their Europa League last-32 first leg on Thursday, whereas Gareth Bale impressed for Tottenham in a 4-1 thrashing of Austrian facet Wolfsberg.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United are all however into the final 16, with 4 ‘away’ targets to take into the return sport in every week’s time, after the primary leg was performed in Turin as a consequence of coronavirus journey restrictions.

“We all know 4-0 is an effective end result however we’ve to concentrate on what they will do,” Fernandes instructed BT Sport. “My goal is to attain essentially the most targets I can, that’s my place. The one goal is to win trophies.”

United began slowly within the first 10 minutes however started to develop into the sport, with Marcus Rashford losing two wonderful possibilities.

The Premier League outfit did seize the lead within the twenty seventh minute when Fernandes pounced on a mix-up between Sociedad goalkeeper Alex Remiro and defender Robin Le Normand, as they tried to clear Rashford’s clipped go, to fit in.

Solskjaer’s males doubled their benefit 12 minutes into the second interval as Fernandes stroked house his twenty first objective of the season in all competitions after Daniel James had laid off Rashford’s ball.

The hassle was initially dominated out for offside earlier than the linesman’s resolution was overruled by VAR.

United continued to play at a tempo Sociedad couldn’t cope with and Rashford lastly bought his objective within the sixty fifth minute following a blistering counter-attack began by goalkeeper Dean Henderson.

The tie was certainly put to mattress within the last minute of regular time as James raced clear and fired into the underside nook.

– Bale strikes –

Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett had mentioned on Wednesday the Wales winger was “in the direction of the top of his profession”, after Tottenham supervisor Jose Mourinho had questioned the participant’s Instagram publish suggesting he was in good well being regardless of being unavailable for Spurs’ FA Cup defeat at Everton final week.

However Bale notched his first Tottenham help since April 2013 to tee up Son Heung-min for the opening objective in Budapest towards Wolfsberg, earlier than drilling within the second earlier than the half-hour mark.

A beautiful particular person strike from Lucas Moura prolonged Spurs’ first-half lead, and though Michael Liendl pulled one again for the Austrians with a second-half penalty, the English membership have one foot within the subsequent spherical after Carlos Vinicius’ 88th-minute objective.

“I’ve a extremely shut relationship with him (Bale),” mentioned Son. “I’m very pleased he’s getting sport time and scored a objective and bought an help. I actually get pleasure from taking part in with him.”

Mourinho has by no means misplaced a knockout tie within the competitors, which he gained with Porto in 2003 and Man United in 2017.

AC Milan, who haven’t reached the quarter-finals of any European competitors for the reason that 2011-12 Champions League, needed to accept a 2-2 draw at Purple Star Belgrade.

Milan, who face Inter in a top-of-the-table Serie A derby on Sunday, have been pegged again as Milan Pavkov netted a dramatic 93rd-minute leveller for Purple Star, who performed the closing phases with 10 males.

Leicester, sitting third within the Premier League, have been held to a goalless draw at Slavia Prague, however there was loads of pleasure elsewhere.

Patrik Schick scored twice as Bayer Leverkusen fought again from three targets down solely to lose 4-3 to Younger Boys in Bern, whereas Olympiakos beat PSV Eindhoven 4-2 in Piraeus.

Dinamo Zagreb edged out Krasnodar 3-2 in Russia and Edin Dzeko’s early objective helped Roma to a 2-0 win at 10-man Braga.

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