The Bruno Fernandes Paradox: Why Man Utd’s best player presents a tactical dilemma

Before attempting to diagnose whatever the problem is with Manchester United this week, you have to remember two things. First, there is definitely not just one problem at this football club. And second, however many there might be, Bruno Fernandes is not one of them.

It is always worth stressing that, especially on these rare occasions when he is less of a help and more of a hindrance to his side’s chances of winning, as he was at Craven Cottage on Sunday.

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Take last season, for example. It was arguably Fernandes’ best for United, certainly since his first full campaign, but it did not start well. He had only registered one league assist by the October international break, against Southampton. His first goal came once Erik ten Hag had been sacked.

Then, as now, the safe bet was that Fernandes would come good and eventually, that bet paid off. But then, unlike now, he was not playing as part of a two-man midfield.

It would be easy to pin Sunday’s deflating 1-1 draw and performance at Fulham on Fernandes. He contributed to the game’s two most decisive moments: his first-half penalty miss, ballooned high over the crossbar, and his failure to track the run of Emile Smith Rowe, who arrived late to convert the 73rd-minute equaliser.

Bruno Fernandes misses his penalty at Fulham (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)

What was more worrying for the weeks and months to come, though, was the ease with which Fulham repeatedly overran United’s midfield: a midfield composed of Fernandes and Casemiro, then Fernandes and Mason Mount, and later Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte. But always Fernandes.

That was Marco Silva’s game plan from the off, as Alex Iwobi later confirmed. “We knew that we would be able to get behind their two midfielders and that their centre-backs would want to jump,” he told Sky Sports post-match. “We exploited that today.”

Ruben Amorim said Fernandes’ penalty miss was partly a result of him having “so much responsibility”, but United’s head coach has entrusted his captain with more and more responsibility over the past nine months, particularly from a tactical perspective.

Amorim began deploying Fernandes deeper last season to help with United’s uncertain build-up play, but then his influence would be missed nearer the opposition’s penalty box.

Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo were signed, in part, to share that burden, but an overlooked aspect of United’s summer business has been how two of the only players who demonstrated an ability to perform within Amorim’s system have been all but locked into unnatural positions to accommodate it.

Few would argue that Cunha and Mbeumo were unnecessary additions after a Premier League record low of 44 league goals last season, but there was always a risk that moving Fernandes deeper and Amad to right wing-back would nerf what little creativity United had last term.

Yes, poor finishing cost Amorim dearly — no top-flight side under-performed their expected goals by more — and so proven goalscorers were necessary, but a cumulative expected goals (xG) of just 52.6 was still bottom-half worthy. It demonstrated that fashioning chances was an issue as well.

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And it has remained a problem in the new campaign. United piled up the shots against Arsenal last weekend, but it was hard to classify any of them as clear-cut chances. As dominant as they were, they rarely looked like they would make their superiority tell.

A week later, apart from during a bright opening quarter of an hour when Cunha was unlucky not to open the scoring, Amorim’s side were otherwise blunted by Fulham. Silva dismissed the sum total of United’s attacking threat in the second half as “set pieces, nothing more”. It was a fair comment.

The only ‘big chance’ that United created on Sunday, as defined by Opta, was from a long boot downfield by goalkeeper Altay Bayindir. Fernandes, by contrast, set up just one shot on goal, for Cunha in the very first minute, and even then only from range.

The United captain’s deeper position — as shown in his touch map below — becomes hard to justify if it results in such a creative drop-off. It becomes even less defensible when it threatens to stunt the development of a potentially special talent raised through the academy.

Kobbie Mainoo, who was on the bench against Arsenal, was an unused substitute again on Sunday. Why? Simple. “He’s fighting for the position now with Bruno,” Amorim later confirmed.

He had not considered a Fernandes-Mainoo partnership at any point at Craven Cottage, then, and seemingly will not in future. It is not hard to imagine that midfield pairing being just as easily overrun as the others Amorim tried on Sunday, but Fernandes and Mainoo’s skill sets are different enough to question why they are competing for the same spot, and whether that role truly suits either. United fitting their best player, their most promising academy graduate and a new, £200million ($270m) front three into the same line-up suddenly looks entirely impractical — at least in this system.

Ruben Amorim has a tactical problem to solve in midfield (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

But if United chose this path by signing two big-money attacking midfielders this summer, so too did Fernandes by turning down Al Hilal’s offer to play in the Saudi Pro League.

Over the weekend, reports that another Saudi Arabian club — Al Ittihad — are considering a move for the 30-year-old began to emerge, but United do not expect Fernandes to leave before next Monday’s deadline. Sources in Saudi Arabia are equally sceptical that the links have much substance.

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Fernandes made his decision to stay at Old Trafford at the very start of this transfer window and there is no reason to believe he will not end it as a United player.

In which case, United need to devise a way to accentuate his many strengths and mask his few weaknesses. That may mean finding the right midfield partnership, or rethinking this deeper role altogether. What’s certain is that Amorim already has plenty of problems to solve without turning his best and most important player into one, too.

(Top photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

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