Man United suffered another second-half slip-up as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Burnley in the Premier League.
The visitors were completely dominant in the first 45 minutes at Turf Moor, and while they had Paul Pogba’s goal to show for it they could easily have been two or three goals up at the break.
Just like against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup though, United could not replicate that performance in the second-half, and Jay Rodriguez got Burnley level less than two minutes into the second-half.
Both sides had chances to win it but had to settle for a point, a frustrating result for United against a team that have not won a match since October.
Ralf Rangnick dropped Cristiano Ronaldo to the bench for the match, revealing pre-match that he had selected Edinson Cavani due to his work rate off the ball.
The visitors thought they had the lead early in the first-half when Varane headed home from Fernandes’ free-kick, but Mike Dean ruled it out after going to the pitchside monitor, deeming Harry Maguire to have interfered with play from an offside position.
United were in front after 18 minutes though. Marcus Rashford played in Luke Shaw on the overlap, and his pull-back was calmly side-footed into the roof of the net by Pogba.
It was very nearly 2-0 just a few minutes later, when Josh Brownhill turned into his own net, but the linesman’s flag went up for a foul by Pogba in the build-up.
Nick Pope made a stunning save to deny Cavani from close-range, when the striker looked certain to score with a header, while Rashford had a couple of powerful strikes kept out by the goalkeeper as Burnley kept the deficit to one goal going into the break.
Burnley’s first shot of the match came less than two minutes into the second-half, and it was an equalising goal. Wout Weghorst did brilliantly to hold the ball up and play it through to Rodriguez, and he finished cooly past David de Gea at the near post.
Weghorst went close to scoring himself shortly after but De Gea produced a great save, before he also fired an effort into the side netting.
United increasingly pinned Burnley back as the half went on, with Rashford and Jadon Sancho getting into good positions and Ronaldo introduced off the bench.
Ben Mee produced a wonderful block to keep out Varane’s flick, after great work from Rashford to put a low ball into the box.
But the winner would not come from United, as once again a match that started with plenty of promise finished with huge frustration for them.
