Bruno Fernandes has admitted that he still makes a mistake that both Ruben Amorim and Erik ten Hag have told him about at Manchester United.
Manchester United have had many underwhelming signings in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era but Bruno Fernandes has rarely disappointed since his arrival.
Now the club captain, Fernandes arrived at Old Trafford in January 2020 and immediately had a significant impact on the team.
He is still putting up brilliant numbers five years later, even when playing in a deeper role, and remains the club’s most important player.
Yet, despite his consistency and ability, Fernandes has sometimes been criticised for his insistence to do too much on the pitch and he knows about that.
Fernandes reveals what Ten Hag and Amorim told him about one mistake
Fernandes is a player who wants to leave everything out on the pitch. He will consistently press, run to defend, attack, try and create chances. He wants to do it all.
That is always admirable at United but we have sometimes seen that Fernandes plays worse when he is trying to do everything, and he has explained how both Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim have spoken to him about the importance of giving some responsibility to others in the team.
“I still do sometimes that kind of mistake,” Fernandes said when asked by Rio Ferdinand about this. “You want to do so much and when you’re losing, you think you’re going to solve all of the problems.
“I had this conversation with the manager already, not just him but with Erik also. They really care about me as a person so they talk to me, both of them were very good with it.
“They said, ‘Bruno, I know you’re doing this because you care so much but you need to pass the responsibility to others, you can’t try and solve all the problems because you end up putting yourself in a bad position’.
“I’m trying to overdo things and it becomes overcomplicated.”
Fernandes still makes this mistake
Fernandes does now have teammates who should be taking the burden off him and taking more responsibility. Players like Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo were brought in for that exact reason.
But like he said, Fernandes still sometimes takes too much responsibility. Most of the time, it comes at the other end of the field, where he tries to progress the ball forward from the backline.
“But we have players in the backline who have qualities to do that so I need to trust them.”
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He has to trust his defenders to bring the ball forward more so he is in a position to create danger in the midfield, rather than picking the ball up in the deepest position of the pitch.
“Teams that want us to play from the back… when they are not pressing our centre-backs, I think I need to leave them to be the ones to be creative and take responsibility,” continued Fernandes.
“I find it hard because not everyone is comfortable playing the ball between the lines. It’s a difficult ball even if it doesn’t look difficult.
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