Bruno Fernandes won player of the match against Arsenal on Sunday after scoring a dipping free-kick in the 1-1 draw. He won player of the match in his previous Premier League game too. And the one before that. And the FA Cup tie in between, when he scored a beautifully taken goal against Fulham and ran to the ends of the earth and still lost, his season in microcosm.
So, given his form, this is an odd time to be having a debate about the merits of Bruno Fernandes. The conversation was started by a raging Roy Keane on Sky Sports’ The Overlap, who lost his cool with Ian Wright about Manchester United’s “f****** imposters” on the pitch. “Talent is not enough!” Keane howled. He then stood up from his stool to demonstrate his “bluffer” theory, in which players jog towards opponents to give the impression of hard work without any real intent to press or tackle.
This all seemed a little performative given the bevy of TV cameras trained on Keane, whose entire rent-a-rant business model is reliant on Manchester United being pisspoor for eternity. Keane has long taken issue with Fernandes and his emotional style of captaincy and negative body language, despite Keane himself regularly and viciously digging out his teammates on the pitch during his playing days.
Ruben Amorim certainly didn’t agree. The United manager has been brutally honest about his team since taking charge and his position on Fernandes is clear. “We need more Brunos,” he said after the Arsenal game.
But it is not just Keane shouting at clouds. An article in The Times last weekend ran the headline: “Bruno Fernandes is United’s star man but he doesn’t get into the top sides”. The subheadline explained he “lacks the real grit required of top-class footballers”.
The article cited a comment from a Premier League manager who said Fernandes wouldn’t get into the best teams, and it pushed forwards Keane’s bluffer theory, suggesting Fernandes ran and pressed like a headless chicken for effect, not for his team – that he didn’t do enough “dirty work”. The piece was printed on the same day as Fernandes’s outstanding performance against Fulham, which was unfortunate timing to say the least.
Watching Arsenal toil at Old Trafford this weekend, it was hard to believe Mikel Arteta would have picked the ineffective Mikel Merino over Fernandes if he had the choice. Even Arsenal’s outstanding pair of No 8s, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard, do not match Fernandes’s sheer weight of productivity, with 14 goal involvements in the league this season.
It is clear to the eye that Fernandes is regularly the most creative player on any given pitch, and the numbers back up that sense. His tally of 60 key passes ranks fourth in the Premier League this season (Arsenal’s highest player in the list, Rice, has made 44). Fernandes ranks first in the league for progressive passes with 225, ahead of Trent Alexander-Arnold in second with 204, and is below only Cole Palmer for shot-creating actions.
Would Arne Slot not take Fernandes as Liverpool’s No 10? Would Enzo Maresca not find a spot in Chelsea’s line-up? Would he look out of place at Bayern Munich or Barcelona? Even at Manchester City, where Fernandes’s spontaneous energy would clash with Pep Guardiola’s more cautious style, he would add something to a team who have spent so much time missing the invention of the often injured Kevin De Bruyne, a defence-splitter in a system built for control. How he would relish a target like Erling Haaland.
The idea that Fernandes is waltzing around the pitch only pretending to work hard doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either. He ranks joint-sixth for tackles made in the middle and attacking thirds this season. Last season he ranked ninth in the Premier League for total distance covered, his name alongside well-renowned grafters such as Conor Gallagher, James Ward-Prowse, Rodri and Rice. Can he really be an “imposter”, a “bluffer”, while churning through so many kilometres and making so many tackles?
And if it is true that Fernandes is an exceptionally creative player who also works hard for the cause, that leaves only one stick to beat him with: that he is not a captain, that his behaviour is a detriment to the team. And perhaps there is some credence to that argument, when he throws a strop after Alejandro Garnacho’s pass goes nowhere near him for the third time in five minutes. But then Fernandes is a world-class player in a team achieving historic proportions of bad. He is entitled to be frustrated. Indeed, perhaps he is obliged to show it. Because if the Manchester United captain didn’t show he cared, you can bet Keane would have a whole new topic to rage about.
