Bruno Fernandes has said that Manchester United showed their 'fight' during Saturday's late victory over Fulham in the Premier League.
The Red Devils entered the contest at Craven Cottage off the back of successive 3-0 home defeats to Manchester City and Newcastle United in the Premier League and EFL Cup respectively.
There was major pressure on Man United head coach Erik ten Hag to deliver a positive result against Fulham, but it did appear that the points were going to be shared in the English capital.
Scott McTominay had an early goal controversially disallowed following a VAR check, with Harry Maguire penalised for offside when he made an attempt to reach the ball before Alejandro Garnacho delivered into the Scottish midfielder.
Fernandes won it for Man United in second-half stoppage time, though, picking out the bottom corner after managing to work the space to get a shot away.
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There has been criticism of the team's character this season, but their captain said that the 20-time English champions showed 'belief and fight' in the clash with Marco Silva's side.
"With the goal you could see the belief of everyone, fighting for that ball. Everyone was fighting and at the end I could get the shot for the goal and the three points," Fernandes told BBC Sport.
"It's really important, we know the position we are in. We need to get results, it was massively important for us to get the three points today. We need to get points to start building something, we have to start somewhere because we've got big games coming."
Fernandes also praised the Man United defenders, with Maguire and Jonny Evans impressing in the middle of the defence.
Maguire and Evans were again selected as the two centre-backs despite Varane being available, with the latter only featuring as a substitute late on.
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"He (Maguire) was good, he was important for us today with the long balls. But we also need to give credit to Jonny [Evans] as well and Rafael [Varane] when he came on, he was ready to fight for the team," he added.
"Everyone has been important, I don't want to focus too much on one player but everyone has been too critical of Harry and he's doing really well now. I hope he can stay at this level."
Man United will now head to Copenhagen for a key Champions League encounter next week.
"Every game is important now. We know we have to win that game [at Copenhagen] to get through the group. We have to show the same passion and quality that we showed today. I know we have even more than we showed today," Fernandes added on Saturday afternoon.
The win at Fulham moved the Red Devils into sixth position in the Premier League table, and they have still not drawn a single match in any competition this season.
Matt Law
