Man United held to a disappointing draw by Bournemouth

Manchester United blew their chance to climb into the English Premier League’s top four, as they were held to a 1-1 draw against 10-man Bournemouth at Old Trafford on Saturday.

Rojo diverted Valencia’s 23rd minute cross to put the Red Devils ahead, before Joshua King leveled for the visitors when he converted a penalty in the 40th minute after Jones brought down Pugh.

In a game that was littered with ugly physical challenges, Bournemouth’s Surman was sent off for two bookable offences as Zlatan Ibrahimovic escaped card for elbow on Mings.

“It is not my intention to hurt someone. I didn’t know about the stamping on the head, if it was him it was him,” Zlatan said after the game.

It was the Ibrahimovic’s incident which was witnessed by Mings’ team-mate, Andrew Surman, that led to the sending off of the midfielder, who pushed the Swedish striker to the ground, and consequently shown a yellow card, which the Referee realised was his second after a long delay, and eventually pulled out his red card.

But Bournemouth hung on to earn their first league point in five games.

Read Also: Mourinho wants Ibrahimovic, rooney to stay at united

United Boss Jose Mourinho shook hands and had a chat with his Bournemouth counterpart at the final whistle, before calmly walking to the centre circle to do the same with referee Kevin Friend and his linesman.

In a post-match conference, Mourinho said referee Kevin Friend had a “good” performance, that United cannot “blame anyone other than ourselves” for not winning.

“What happened was that we played phenomenal in the first half and should have been winning 3-0 or 4-0 – then it ended up 1-1. Who can I blame? Ourselves. Nobody else. We missed big chances,” said Mourinho.

“We felt pressure of the clock running down and lost the quality of our attacking football. We didn’t lose intensity or desire but the reality is we didn’t score goals.”

Bournemouth’s keeper Artur Boruc after keeping United out with a string of fine saves, including from Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s penalty said, “It is an unbelievable result. It is very big and hopefully we can build on this, we need to collect points and we started today.

“The penalty? I just happened to pick the right direction!”

United remain sixth – one point behind fourth-placed Arsenal, until the latter play later on saturday against Liverpool at Anfield, and will not play in the league for the next two weeks because of their FA Cup and Europa League engagements.

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