Is Bruno Fernandes Manchester United’s Biggest Problem?
Manchester United’s technical director, Ruben Amorim, faces a series of challenges. The goalkeeping is unreliable, the £200 million attack struggles to score goals, and missed penalties have become a constant. But, has Bruno Fernandes, the team’s best player and captain, become the club’s biggest problem? Following the humiliating elimination from the Carabao Cup against Grimsby Town, a League Two team, the solution to bring out the best version of Fernandes might seem trivial. However, it could be the root of the problems that threaten to cost Amorim his job. Fernandes is the leader of United. During the disastrous 2024-25 season, in which the team finished in 15th place in the Premier League (their worst position since relegation in 1974) and lost the Europa League final against Tottenham, the 30-year-old player scored 19 goals and 19 assists. Without those goals and assists, United could have suffered relegation to the EFL Championship. Despite being United’s best player, the team continues to perform below expectations with him on the field. This raises questions about his compatibility with Amorim’s 3-4-3 system and whether, despite his talent, he doesn’t fit into the scheme. Mark Ogden and Ryan O’Hanlon analyze whether Fernandes is an unsolvable problem for United and if the team would be better without him.Sources: Man United, Chelsea agree £40m deal for Garnacho
Is United’s defeat to Grimsby the biggest shock in League Cup history?
Instant meme: Amorim’s tactical board at Grimsby
Does Fernandes fit into Man United’s system?
Amorim is committed to the 3-4-3 system that gave him two league titles at Sporting CP. The only variation is when he plays with a 3-4-2-1, but his team always operates with three defenders, two wing-backs and two central midfielders. Fernandes has played in advanced positions, such as one of the two players behind the center forward or as a central midfielder alongside Casemiro or Manuel Ugarte. Amorim mentioned that Kobbie Mainoo competes with Fernandes for a place in the team, suggesting that they are unlikely to play together in midfield. Fernandes lacks tactical discipline to play as a defensive midfielder, and his natural creativity leads him to abandon his position. The system does not adapt to his abilities.
Fernandes simply doesn’t fit into the system. You need a very dynamic and athletic team to have a player like that on your team. In Portugal, which plays with a 4-2-3-1, Fernandes is positioned in the center of the three attacking midfielders, with two defensive midfielders providing him with security. Despite not fitting into Amorim’s system, Fernandes still had 38 goal involvements last season.The 3-4-3 covers all areas of the field. But you need to have the right players to do it. Your wing-backs must be very athletic and your two central midfielders must be dynamic and dominant. United doesn’t have any of those qualities.
Robson
Would Fernandes adapt to the system with other players?
Instead of blaming Fernandes for not adapting to the system, is the problem with the players he plays with in midfield? Casemiro, Ugarte and Mainoo have played as central midfielders alongside Fernandes, and they all lack speed and mobility. Ugarte also struggles to distribute the ball successfully. Fernandes’ strengths are his creativity and attacking instinct, but with less mobile players alongside him, any advance can leave United exposed to counterattacks.If you had Declan Rice alongside Fernandes, he could play as a central midfielder. But if you wanted to build a team around him, you’d have to sign new players. He can’t play in midfield with Casemiro.
Robson
Fernandes can be a very influential player. But he needs to be in a team that dominates possession, and United is not doing that at the moment.
Robson
Could Fernandes be a weak link?
There are defensive weaknesses in Fernandes’ game, a problem addressed by the Portugal coach, who uses him in an offensive role, because he lacks the discipline to stay in his position. There have also been times when his lack of emotional control has affected his performance. After the 7-0 defeat to Liverpool in March 2023, Roy Keane said that Fernandes’ “body language was nothing short of embarrassing”, while Gary Neville described it as “embarrassing”. That defeat was perhaps the worst example of Fernandes’ petulance when things go wrong for his team, but it’s not the only one. Recently, Craig Burley criticized Fernandes for claiming that referee Chris Kavanagh had not apologized for tripping over him while he was preparing to take a penalty, which he missed, against Fulham.
For Robson, Fernandes’ lack of athleticism is what holds him back as a midfielder in the United team.Sometimes, when we don’t play well, he changes position and goes after the ball. But sometimes, he needs to trust his teammates a little more to allow them to do their job and help him play better.
Amorim
I don’t think you can play modern football and be a world-class player if you can’t run. As a player, he wants things to happen and wants to have the ball, which is commendable, but when things go wrong and the team is suffering, he’s usually somewhere he shouldn’t be. If the game stretches, Bruno will make things happen with the ball, but he can’t defend well enough. That’s a problem when they counterattack and you see him running. He’s not athletic enough to get back. To get the best out of him, I’d put him on the left side of a midfield three, but further forward, with two more defensive players. But we know Amorim isn’t going to do that.
Robson
The benefits of Fernandes
If we were to simplify the sport into its basic components, we would arrive at something like this: there are shots, there is creation of chances, there is movement of the ball towards the opposing field and there is recovery of possession. Let’s start with shots and goals. Since the beginning of last season in the Premier League, Fernandes has attempted 96 shots for Manchester United, 12 more than Alejandro Garnacho. He has scored eight goals, tied with Amad Diallo for the team lead, and has generated 7.8 expected goals without penalties, 0.5 more than Garnacho. What about chance creation? If we look at expected goal assists (the xG value of each shot attempted from a player’s passes), he has 8.8, 3.8 more than Diallo. And if we look at expected assists (the combined probability that each pass a player made will become a goal, regardless of whether the receiver decides to attempt a shot), it’s 8.3 for Fernandes, 4.2 for Diallo. United have attempted 146 shots from two actions of a pass completed by Fernandes, 78 more than any other player. Although Fernandes doesn’t necessarily outplay many players one-on-one, he still carries a heavy load when it comes to moving the ball forward. He has dribbled a total of 4,077 yards towards the opposing goal since the start of last season, again, significantly more than Garnacho’s 3,245 yards. In terms of passing the ball upfield, he has completed 340 progressive passes (227 more than any other United player), 225 passes into the final third (100 more than any teammate) and 87 passes into the penalty area (49 more than the next best in the club).Well, then he’s getting more shots than anyone, he’s creating better chances than anyone and he’s moving the ball upfield more often than anyone. Surely, he’ll take a break once United lose the ball, and that must have some knock-on effects on how the team defends, right?
Incorrect! Only Noussair Mazraoui made more tackles + interceptions (149) than Fernandes’ 115 since the start of last season, and nobody came close to the 227 times the United captain has recovered a loose ball. Oh, and according to Gradient data, Fernandes pressed an opposing player more often last season than any other player in the Premier League.Is it a sign of dysfunction throughout the club when one player does everything more often than everyone else? Of course. But if United decides to do without Fernandes, they will not only be replacing a single player. They will be replacing their most dangerous goalscorer, their most creative passer, their most important player in build-up, and their most active defensive presence.
Should Man United rebuild without Fernandes?
There has been a long-standing interest in Fernandes from Saudi Pro League clubs, dating back to the summer of 2024, when he seriously considered leaving Old Trafford before signing a new three-year contract. Al Hilal offered Fernandes a lucrative deal to move to Saudi Arabia earlier this summer, and United were willing to listen to offers of around £100 million, but Fernandes once again rejected the opportunity to move to the Middle East. Al Ittihad is the latest Saudi club to have made an offer to Fernandes before a possible late transfer before the deadline, but it seems unlikely that attempt will succeed. But with United in need of funds for signings to rebuild the squad, would it really be a hard blow to lose Fernandes for a substantial fee? If Fernandes were to leave, United could sign Baleba and/or Wharton and address the problem of the lack of athleticism in their midfield. Amorim would be left without his best player and captain, but perhaps United could become a more complete team.However, when asked about the possibility of Fernandes leaving for Al Hilal in May, Amorim insisted that he wanted Fernandes to stay. “We want to keep the best players,” said Amorim. “And Bruno is clearly one of the best players in the world. We want Bruno here.”
Despite Fernandes’ flaws, Robson says it’s hard to imagine they’d be better off without him.No, I don’t think it would be better because there isn’t enough creativity in the team as it is. Really, the answer is the players around Bruno rather than Bruno himself.
Robson
