Bruno Fernandes praised former Manchester United team-mate Anthony Elanga on Instagram after Nottingham Forest ended Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the season.
The Reds had won all three of their matches under new head coach Arne Slot prior to the international break and headed into Saturday’s match against Forest off the back of an impressive 3-0 win over United.
But a 72nd minute goal from Callum Hudson-Odoi was enough to hand Slot his first defeat since succeeding Jurgen Klopp after the former Chelsea man was teed up by Elanga.
Elanga joined United’s academy as a teenager before going on to make 55 appearances before leaving last summer – and his contribution at Anfield didn’t go unnoticed by Fernandes. The Manchester United captain, 30, left a comment on Elanga’s social media post celebrating the win, saying simply: “That assist man.
While it was a weekend to forget for United’s arch-rivals, Erik ten Hag’s side cruised to a 3-0 win over Southampton on the coast to kickstart their season after suffering back-to-back defeats prior to the international break.
Matthijs de Ligt, Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho were on target down on the south coast as United climbed to 10th in the Premier League standings with their first win since the opening day of the season
Ten Hag had once again found himself under pressure in the build-up to Saturday’s match and things could have got worse for the Dutchman had Andre Onana not denied Cameron Archer from the penalty spot when the game was goalless.
United would go on to seal a routine win, but Ten Hag felt his team should have had more goals to their name early on. He said post-match: “I think we should have scored earlier on, we had the chances and we had the control, and we create some good chances to score the third goal earlier on.
Of course, we are happy when you bring a sub on who has an impact and he [Garnacho] was the one who downsized the opponent to 10 with a good action and then a good finish.
I think also the rest [of Garnacho’s performance], I was happy with this sub and that is how players should act from the bench and we need more from this.”
