It’s the 71st minute of Manchester United’s home game with Aston Villa last month. Michael Carrick’s side are drawing 1-1 with their rival for a Champions League spot. Casemiro plays the ball short to Bruno Fernandes, who is loitering near the touchline in front of the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand.
Perhaps loitering is the wrong word. Fernandes is scanning. He’s alert to everything. He’s aware of everything going on around him on the pitch. He’s probably just about the most intelligent footballer in the Premier League. His mind works frighteningly fast.
As Casemiro’s pass is rolling towards him, Fernandes sees Matheus Cunha start to make a run off the shoulder of Ezri Konsa, who is no slouch. Fernandes does not take a touch. He plays the pass first time, arrowing it inside Konsa. Konsa is beaten and the pass is so beautifully weighted that Cunha does not have to break stride. Cunha scores.
Rinse that and repeat it. Over the course of this season, Fernandes has made 18 assists for his club, a mark that has even eclipsed David Beckham’s previous record for United set in 1999-2000. If Fernandes can create two more goals in United’s remaining five games, he will match the all-time Premier League record shared by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne.
No one else even comes close to him for the number of goals he has created for team-mates this season. Rayan Cherki, at Manchester City, and Jarrod Bowen, at West Ham, are next on 10.
Fernandes has been wonderful to watch this season. Even when he was shackled by the deeper-lying position he was asked to occupy by Ruben Amorim earlier in the season, he was still a constant in terms of his quality and the example he set to his team-mates. He has been a beacon of class in a United season that has had many difficult moments.
Fernandes has been wonderful to watch this season. He has been a beacon of class in a United season that has had many difficult moments
Matheus Cunha thanks Fernandes for assisting his goal against Aston Villa. No one else comes close to Fernandes for the number of goals – 18 – he has created for team-mates this season
There have been times in the past when I felt the attitude of Fernandes towards referees, his constant complaining and his impassioned protesting, spoiled his talent in a United shirt and took away from his game. He was not my idea of what the captain of the side should be.
But that has changed. This year, for many reasons, he has become a real leader in a team that desperately needed his leadership. And some of his football has been sublime.
He is not a player in a team that is going to win the title but there is no one I have enjoyed watching more than him this season and that is why I am casting my vote for him as the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer of the Year.
There are plenty of other excellent candidates. Declan Rice has been outstanding at Arsenal, Bernardo Silva has been inspirational at Manchester City and Igor Thiago has been the season’s breakout star at Brentford.
And if I could vote for a runner-up in the FWA poll, which will close next week, it would go to Archie Gray at Spurs, a young lad marooned in an awful team at a club in disarray. He is just about the only player at Tottenham whose reputation has been enhanced this season.
Sometimes, it has seemed as if Gray has been asked to play in every outfield position in the Tottenham side and he has done it with class and style, dedication to a team ethic and an ability beyond his years. What a player he is becoming.
But Fernandes has been the season’s outstanding player. He has been United’s best player pretty much from the moment he joined the club from Sporting Lisbon in 2020. He has played through a time of upheaval at Old Trafford but his commitment to the team has not wavered.
I admire that about him, too. There were rumours earlier this season that United wanted to cash in on him and sell him to Saudi Arabia but Fernandes has never agitated for a move anywhere, even though his talent deserved a better platform than the one United have been able to give him.
Fernandes is the only United player who would get in any other team in the Premier League and yet he has always remained loyal to the club even when he must have despaired of the direction United were taking, as managers and interim managers and interim interims have come and gone.
There is still some talk that United might want to sell him in the summer to finance a rebuild but that would be a horrible mistake from a club that has made a litany of horrible mistakes over the last decade or more.
United should have learned by now that they need to build their team around Fernandes, not think about selling him. Michael Carrick, the caretaker manager, saw that straight away and acted on it. It helped to transform United’s season. It’s another reason why the club should make Carrick the permanent manager.
Fernandes has been the best of United through one of the less successful eras of the club’s history. He has carried the team at times, taking the pressure of that on his shoulders. It is through him, as much as anyone, that the tide finally appears to be turning at Old Trafford.
This year, for many reasons, Fernandes has become a real leader in a team that desperately needed his leadership
Michael Carrick knew straight away that he needed to build the United team around Fernandes
The last time a United player won the FWA award was in 2009-10 when it went to Wayne Rooney, and Rooney conducted a fascinating interview with Fernandes about his time with the club for the BBC last week.
Fernandes talked about why he never considered moving away from United and why he wanted to create a lasting legacy for himself at the club by leading them to either the Premier League or the Champions League trophy.
He identified his best moment in a United shirt so far as his assist for Kobbie Mainoo in the 2024 FA Cup final victory over Manchester City. It feels typical of him that he should have chosen a pass that created a goal for someone else to grab the headlines.
McFarlane should not be blaming the media for Chelsea’s plight
Chelsea’s caretaker manager, Calum McFarlane, already appears to have developed an adversarial relationship with the media.
When I asked him last week whether his shortfall in coaching badges might affect his authority over the players, he bristled. ‘What badges?’ he shot back.
When I asked Calum McFarlane last week whether his shortfall in coaching badges might affect his authority over the players, he bristled. ‘What badges?’ he shot back
If McFarlane really doesn’t know what badges he needs to coach in the Premier League, then he is even less experienced than we thought.
Credit to him for getting a tune out of his team in the FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United at Wembley on Sunday. It was a fine achievement and he managed it with aplomb.
But two things: if McFarlane is looking to blame someone for the demise of Liam Rosenior, he should be blaming the hierarchy at Chelsea, not the media. And even though it’s McFarlane on the touchline, we all know who’s in charge after the way Rosenior was disposed of.
The players – and the army of five sporting directors – run the show at Chelsea.
