Nigeria international, Alex Iwobi has been voted as Fulham’s Man of the Match despite his side’s 1-0 loss to Manchester United on Saturday.
Operating in a slightly deeper role as a number eight, Iwobi was a major contributor to Fulham’s attacking threat, which often helped the team to utilize counter attacks, by carrying the ball up the pitch smoothly and quickly.
Iwobi’s four successful dribbles was a game high, while he also had three shots – a number that no United player topped – and had a pass accuracy of 90.9 per cent.
There was little between Iwobi and his midfield partner, João Palhinha for the MOTM accolade, with the pair taking 30.7% and 26.4% of the vote, respectively.
Meanwhile, Fulham manager, Marco Silva revealed that he fielded both Iwobi and Andreas Pereira in midfield against Manchester United to give Fulham more creativity in their 1-0 defeat at Craven Cottage.
Fulham had the better chances in a cagey affair but were ultimately beaten following a late Bruno Fernandes strike.
Iwobi and Pereira had previously only started alongside one another in the 3-1 win against bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United last month, with Silva opting for more defensive alternatives in recent matches against Tottenham and Brighton.
“It was to be more dynamic, to try to be more creative,” Silva explained.
“When you look at the team sheet you think this is a really offensive team to play against Man United. We knew it, but we accepted the type of game we were facing and we wanted to be more creative in certain areas of the pitch
“We wanted to use Alex and Andreas in the pocket areas that we like to use to create wide triangles.
“In the first minutes of the match we had some problems [with the formation] when Man United went direct and won some second balls. They tried to punish us but we adjusted to help Alex be more ready for the second balls with Joao [Palhinha] and from that moment we started to control them really well.”
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
