Bruno Fernandes stunner gives Manchester United victory at Burnley

Bruno Fernandes’s star quality: only this savedManchester Unitedfrom a fourth consecutive defeat as their patchy early season form continued.

In this slump United have been shapeless, directionless, injury-plagued and forgetful of how to win. Not since Erik ten Hag’s misfiring unit reversed a 2-0 deficit to overcome Nottingham Forest 3-2 in late August have three points been theirs.

“Today we know we have to win. I’m aware of it, the players are aware of it,” Ten Hag had declared and his team walked their manager’s talk. But, only just, requiring the moment of Fernandes’s brilliance rather than a crushing display in which any discernible style of play was clear.

Under the Saturday night lights Burnley got at United – often along the flanks. Marcus Rashford tracked Connor Roberts along the Clarets’ right, gave up, then saw the No 14 drop in a cross that Zeki Amdouni headed down and André Onana dived right to steer away. Next came a surge on the opposite side, from the turbo-heeled Luca Koleosho, who had Diogo Dalot felling him and going into the book.

As has been the pattern United were easily breached. The next time Amdouni took aim it was from behind the visitors lines: Burnley’s centre-forward defeated Onana but not his left post and United survived.

Ten Hag shuffled his depleted pack once more and came up with Hannibal Mejbri as a No 10 and the 35-year-old Jonny Evans at centre-back – the Northern Irishman filling in for Lisandro Martínez, who was the latest United man to go down (to a minor, unspecified problem).

Mejbri twice played colleagues in: Rashford, who missed from near-in; and Rasmus Højlund, whose close control was clumsy near goal, too. Only Fernandes worked James Trafford, via a fierce left-foot shot the keeper repelled.