Man Utd need to sell Bruno Fernandes before it’s too late

Bruno Fernandes is three assists from raising the Premier League bar beyond the record 20 in a season.

He has been Manchester United’s outstanding performer in this wildly fluctuating year, as he has been since his arrival from Sporting Lisbon in January 2020.

He is also a contributor to a persistent flaw that continues to throttle United’s progress, and though the following argument might be anathema to the Stretford End, if reports are correct, to the prevailing thinking at Old Trafford, a radical solution may be the best way forward.

United are keen to extend a contract that expires next season, which constitutes a full 360 on their position a year ago.

The compulsion to trade then was motivated by different factors, a team needing to generate pound notes to fund the proposed refit under Ruben Amorim.

Turns out it was Amorim as much as his starting XI that needed the reset. 

United have improved under Michael Carrick and sit just two wins from Champions League qualification with five games remaining, a scenario few predicted when Amorim walked.

There is, however, always a but.

By increments United’s performances have retreated from the bounce-back games under Carrick to reveal familiar flaws, the core of which stubbornly attach to the middle of the park.

This is, of course, the part of the pitch patrolled by Fernandes. And this is the bit that hurts. Whilst he remains central to United’s best stuff, he also contributes to the bad.

Though Fernandes was lauded for his assist in the goal that beat Chelsea, collecting another man of the match award, his was in truth a fitful, petulant performance, much of his energy given to protest and frustration.

United’s most effective player at Stamford Bridge was Kobbie Mainoo, who gave arguably his best performance since the FA Cup victory over Manchester City two years ago.

There is a linked problem here because as good as he was, Mainoo shares some of the same defensive deficiencies as Fernandes, namely neither is good in the tackle.

In a midfield three that also includes Casemiro, who is no Roy Keane, United lost an alarming amount of duels, which lifted the home crowd and kept a dysfunctional Chelsea in the ascendancy, despite the worst goalless sequence since the Normans landed, or more accurately 1912, which is bad enough.

United’s clean sheet at Chelsea was the fourth under Carrick in 12 games, which in abstract is persuasive, and only two fewer than Amorim managed in 47. Equally, Chelsea hit the woodwork three times. 

United have won only two games by a margin greater than one under Carrick and leak goals at an average fractionally more than one per match.

In other words, the margins are close and some of the wins might have ended differently.

You have to look only 30 miles west to Liverpool to understand the risk of loving too long.

The decision to extend relationships with thirty-somethings Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk were based on the majesty of their pasts rather than the reality of a diminishing present.

This is not an exact science. There is no reliable way of predicting decline, it is always a judgment based on gathering impressions over time underpinned by fading numbers.

Liverpool gambled on Salah and got it wrong. The signs are pointing to a similar outcome with Van Dijk, who is a year older and turns 35 in July.

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Fernandes is 32 in September. His market value will never be higher. His sale is the necessary sacrifice required to gain the improved balance in a part of the pitch that is hurting United most.

The wins under Carrick have come without the control necessary to sustain a Premier League challenge and progress in the Champions League.

Mad as it sounds, selling their best player could be the key to United actually getting better and unlocking all that dormant potential.