Utd gain, but Bruno in pain

Nottingham Forest’s Felipe (right) holds Manchester Utd’s Bruno Fernandes by the neck after the duo were involved in a hard tackle

Erik ten Hag accused Nottingham Forest of deliberately targeting Bruno Fernandes in Manchester United's FA Cup fifth-round win on Wednesday night as he slammed "pathetic" criticism of the midfielder.

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Manchester United's Casemiro (right) scores the match-winning goal against Nottingham Forest during their FA Cup pre-quarterfinal encounter at the City Ground in Nottingham on Wednesday. Pics/AFP

Fernandes featured in United's 1-0 victory at the City Ground despite a "serious injury" suffered in last weekend's loss against Fulham. The Portugal star delivered the free-kick that Casemiro converted in the 89th minute to seal a quarter-final clash with bitter rivals Liverpool. Fernandes was on the receiving end of robust challenges from Forest throughout the 90 minutes, just days after United's captain was the butt of social media jokes following his injury against Fulham. Fulham's official TikTok account poked fun at him for appearing to feign the problem on Saturday, but Ten Hag said Fernandes has often played through the pain barrier after the kind of rough tackling he was subjected to by Forest, which left him limping at full-time. "You saw that Forest was targeting him. It was a serious injury. There were many fouls on him. When he had the ball, they were really tight on him. Then I see media criticism and social media is pathetic. He has a serious injury, but he continued to play on Saturday and today also he fought. He has a very high pain threshold. Last year, he did also something similar against Spurs and it shows his leadership," said Ten Hag.

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