Devils’ new talisman
Fernandes has immediately turned Solskjaer’s side into a dangerous prospect
AFTER the touch, and the vision, one of the first things the Manchester United players noticed about Bruno Fernandes was the voice. He has immediately been very vocal in training. There was no initial trepidation, as often happens when foreign players arrive in the
United dressing room.
A natural response to that, of course, is that this isn’t a normal United dressing room. It is younger and much less success-laden than pretty much any time in the last few decades.
But this is something else that
Fernandes has started to change – the very atmosphere in the dressing room. Training is also said to have gone up a level.
“Certainly
Bruno has fitted in great on the pitch, and is as important around the pitch and in the dressing room,” assistant manager Michael Carrick says.
“He has got a real presence about him and the lads have taken to him well. Importantly he has settled in well, but more importantly, he has lifted the standard and the spirit within the squad.”
Such assertiveness, of course, has been most visible on the pitch. The easiest way to put it is that Fernandes has just made United a much more dangerous prospect before the coronavirus put the breaks on United’s move up the Premier League table.
The stats say even more. Since his debut, Fernandes has provided more assists (2), created more chances (7) and had more shots (10) than any other United player in the Premier League.
As much as anything, Fernandes just imposes an attacking plan on the team, in the absence of one before.
It is a little like a lower-key version of what Luka Modric and Toni Kroos did for Real Madrid six years ago.
Their game intelligence together instantly lifted the whole team, setting a pattern of what to do in possession. It
similarly helps that Fernandes has developed an “instant connection” with players like Juan Mata.
United just have more cohesion and creativity. It helps explain why their form – and particularly that against the more defensiveminded bottom-half clubs – has taken a sudden upward turn.
The impact United have got out of Fernandes is at least comparable – in principle – to that which Jose Mourinho got out of Eden Hazard and other creative players. The idea is generally to just let them play their game, and produce.
Mourinho, for his part, had an academic rationale for it. The idea is called “guided discovery”, which is when players are encouraged to figure out solutions for themselves.
This is fine when players are on form and firing, as happened with the first few months of Chelsea’s 2014-15 team or Fernandes before the enforced break.
The problems come when there is disruption - like now. It’s when you see greater breakdowns, as happened with that Chelsea in the last few months of Mourinho’s reign, and as arguably happened to United without Paul Pogba before Fernandes arrived.
The players suddenly find that, without the kind of flow that comes from form, there is nothing to fall back on. They start to look aimless and without structure. That is what may still test United. – The Independent