By Victor Kanayo
It took a long strike from a debutant Joshua Zirkzee for Manchester United to get a 1-0 victory against Fulham on matchday one of the English Premier League.
The match seemed destined for a draw until Zirkzee’s dramatic intervention in the 87th minute.
The young striker latched onto a pinpoint assist from Ghanarcho and slotted home the winner, sending the Old Trafford faithful into raptures.
This narrow victory marks a perfect start to the season for Manchester United, who will look to build on this momentum in their upcoming fixtures.
Manager Erik ten Hag in a post match interview told BBC: “I think the performance was ok. The win is very pleasing, To start the season with a win is always important. We are not ready as a squad, as a team, many players are not up to full fitness. We only had 10 days with this team training together.
“I expect more from this team, but we have a foundation we can build on.
“The performance is good, over 90 minutes of course there is room for improvement. But I think all over the performance and execution of the game plan was very good.”
On Zirkzee’s goal, he said “It was very important to get the first goal as a striker. For him it is very pleasing because strikers have to score. That is the first ability you have to show when you come as a striker to a new club.
“Of course trophies we take on board, that is for the history, no-one can take this away from you. We start on zero going into the next season and we are very ambitious, we want to win more trophies. We want to compete in every league we play in and now we have a platform.”
With the triumph, United now have more wins (22) and more points (70) from their opening games of Premier League campaigns than any other side.
Not even the high-octane display of Nigeria’s duo – Alex Iwobi and Calvin Bassey was good enough to salvage points for Fulham.
