Manchester United suffered their tenth Premier League defeat of the season on Saturday evening against Fulham.

The match ended 2-1 for the visitors, as they picked up just their second away win of the entire season courtesy of a last-gasp effort from Alex Iwobi that simply stunned the Old Trafford faitfhul.

Erik ten Hag has come under immense scrutiny for his side’s vulnerability at the back, as they faced 17 shots throughout the clash.

Harry Maguire was United’s biggest attacking threat, which really does sum up how much they’re going to struggle without the injured Rasmus Hojlund, with everyone in attack struggling to impact the match.

Scott McTominay’s performance against Fulham

The Dutch boss has called upon Scott McTominay countless times already this season to scrape a goal and even three points at times.

The Scotland international scored twice in additional time against Brentford earlier on in the season, and only two weeks ago, he came off the bench to score the winner against Aston Villa.

In an attempt to bolster the attack, McTominay replaced Omari Forson – who was making his first start – just eight minutes after the break. However, he wasn’t exactly able to repeat his previous heroics.

In truth, the 27-year-old was extremely ineffective playing as almost a striker, where he was simply marked out of the game. Over the 46 minutes that he was on the field, the midfielder had a dismal 56% pass accuracy, 0.07 expected goals and assists, and just one shot, which should have been pulled back for one of the United players queuing up.

McTominay offered nothing yesterday, but there was one player who had a late cameo that should have been on the pitch much earlier, if not from the first minute.

Amad Diallo’s game versus Fulham in numbers

With the view of salvaging anything from the game, Ten Hag threw Amad Diallo onto the field in the 80th minute for Kobbie Mainoo, but the 21-year-old may just have been able to inspire his side to victory if he had been trusted to come on earlier instead of McTominay.

Instantly, the “top-class” winger, as he was previously described by scout Jacek Kulig, brought intensity to the field, showing the desire to get his team back in the contest.

Although he only played 19 minutes total, Diallo certainly did enough to make Ten Hag ponder including him in the starting XI against Nottingham Forest next week, and the table below shows a handful of his key statistics.

Minutes

19

Touches

22

Pass accuracy

81%

Successful dribbles

1/2

Ground duels won

3/4

Tackles

2

The Ivory Coast star was heavily involved in the play, boasting 22 touches, one more than McTominay, despite playing 27 fewer minutes. Diallo also showed great combination play, having an 81% pass accuracy rate, while attempting to provide a source of creativity through his dribbling.

The forward was also working extremely hard to regain control for his side in a vital part of the game, winning two tackles and three of his four ground duels.

To be honest, the former Sunderland star was handed an extremely difficult task to break down the Fulham low-block, which saw almost their full team camped in their own box, but he was instantly more influential than almost all of his teammates on the field.