Bruno Fernandes exclusive: We can’t help but believe in Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United plans

Bruno Fernandes is exhausted; “

No wonder the Manchester United captain was exhausted when he walked into their Carrington training ground: he was the goalscorer, the first shot on target in the penalty shootout, and what is associated with his relentless performance is his reputation as a ‘flower’ The role of the deliverer – honour, recognition and honour. Gratitude – Thank you to your deserving teammates.

After the victory at the Emirates Stadium, Bruno turned the focus away from himself to the fine performances of Altay Bayindil, particularly from the penalty spot, where he produced a goalkeeping masterclass, and Joshua Zier Kezer’s redemption arc.

“I want everyone to be happy. I want everyone to feel a part of it, to feel involved,” Fernandez said sky sports news Before the morning after victory.

“When you’re in a good moment, a high moment, I’d rather give it to another player – not because I don’t want to have that moment, because obviously every player wants his honours, his flowers and his moments of glory – but that’s how I live my life.

“I do think that for a team to be successful, everyone needs to be at the same level of happiness. Even knowing that some players are playing less minutes than others, you need to find a way to push them in certain moments. , to make them feel like they are as important as me.”

Fernandez was particularly pleased with Zirkzee, who endured the humiliation of being taken off in the 33rd minute of the defeat to Newcastle, to the cheers of his own supporters, but fired the decisive penalty A penalty kick kept the defending champion in the game.

“The script has been around for a long time,” Bruno said with a smile. “You know, when you’re a good person, when you do the right thing, you might have bad moments, but in the end it all comes out strong.

“The staff decided to pick five players to take penalties and they put Josh at the end. The only thing that came to my mind was telling the players the script was done. So from that moment on it was all done against Newcastle for us to do Be prepared to give Josh his moment, his honor and his flowers in this moment.

“We can talk about whatever people want to talk about, like ‘Penalty, it was easy’. That’s how we got the penalty.” Artai saved Martin Odegaard’s penalty (in normal time), having yet to miss a penalty in his career, and then Josh came out under the pressure of everything he’d been through. And let us win. “

This was more than just a United victory story, the “how” and “who” proved yet again Ruben Amorim’s theory that the problem is not his system but effort and application.

It was encouraging to see his side perform well off the ball and grow in resolve against Arsenal, rather than languishing when Diogo Dalot was sent off. United appear to be painting a picture of resurgence in a game at Anfield that they could have snatched in the death against Liverpool.

Bruno warned, however, that it was the brushstrokes against each team, not just the club’s rivals, that determined whether the picture was complete or an artificial illusion.

“We can’t look at the names, we can’t look at the badges, we can’t look at the table, who’s in front of us or below us. We just have to look at ourselves and understand that we’re playing for a big club. We have to set a standard for ourselves, That’s the minimum standard we want to achieve and that’s where we have to continue to work to get the best out of everyone. “

Against Liverpool and Arsenal we spent a long time at Carrington laying out Amorim’s blueprint before we were able to bounce back. Interestingly, Bruno tends to add psychological elements as the greater explainer of these performances.

“It always helps when you have a little more time to train and prepare for games,” he said. “It’s important, but I think in these two games, it’s more – and the manager said this to us – it’s more about the passion, the desire, and everything you put into the game and what you have I want to win the game so much.

“I think everyone is very clear about what he wants, what he wants from us positionally, tactically and everything. I think we’re getting to the level he wants now with hard running, passion and a desire to win. Hungry. “So I think we still have a lot to improve on in those two areas, but I’m pretty sure we’re ready.

“But now we have a big game and everyone can look at it in a different way and maybe from an outsider’s perspective, ‘Manchester United are in a good moment right now. They’re at home against Southampton. They’re going to Beat them of course, but we can’t think so because Southampton are fighting for their lives.

“They want to stay in the Premier League and they really need the points. But we need to turn that around and look at ourselves and say we need the points more than they do too. We have to think ‘we need more points than they do and that has to be us every time A goal of the game, the opponents needed it badly but we needed it more than they did.”

Manchester United have certainly returned to life, action and pride. At Anfield, Lisandro Martinez pointed to his head to explain the difference in his team. Bruno’s lines about mindset and intention are from the same book. Has Amorim’s reality check on relegation taken away the spark?

“No, no, no,” Bruno chuckled, then returned to his serious demeanor. “Obviously I know what the manager means and Licha (Martinez) is right – it’s about mentality. You go to the game against Liverpool and you know, it’s an important game. You have to “Be prepared for every game. “Your brain remembers every detail the manager tells you; everything they do, everything we train.

“Maybe in some games, you don’t play against good teams and you think you don’t need to be as conscious and maybe you’re mentally disconnected for five seconds. In the Premier League, against good teams, five seconds There were just too many clocks. “Any team, Southampton is one of those games where I don’t want any of us to be off the line for five seconds because they have good players and they have quality.

“They could have scored more points than they are in the table. I’m not saying they are a big team. They are a better team than us and we shouldn’t win the game. We have to win the game we should Pay attention to every moment, every second of the game because if we do that, the way we prepare for the game, both tactically and technically, if we do what we’ve been doing, I’m pretty sure we’re going to win the game. “

The obvious improvement for United is their intensity and defensive shape. If there’s one area where Amorim still needs to make strides, it’s on offense.

“The coach keeps telling us a lot that we have to score more goals,” Bruno nodded. “It’s a fact because we are a team that has the ability to score goals. I know we have a lot of young players in front of us but we have the ability and we have to score goals because Rasmus has the ability to score goals. Josh has Ability, Amad has a lot of ability, Joe Rahi, Anthony, me, even midfielders who sometimes play deeper, like Kobe, Manu, Casa or Christian, they are all players who score goals.

“So we have a lot of players who are capable of scoring goals. Just like yesterday, Carlos, the head coach’s assistant, came to talk to me before the game and told me that we need more desire to get into the penalty area and make the team better. “When we were on the counterattack we needed to make a run and then Garnacho received the ball and then Garner received the ball from Gabriel. The mind is like, “Run as fast as you can into the box because you know Ghana is fast and will get there before you, so you need to run as fast as you can because you need to score.” The desire to defend the goal must be matched by the desire to score. The desire is the same and this is where the manager wants us to improve and I think we still have a lot to improve because our team has a lot of ability to score goals. The goals we showed were not what we achieved here. “

The gloom has partly lifted for Manchester United, who sit just seven points outside the relegation zone and enter the new year with their worst league position since 1989.

“When you’re not getting results, when you’re not getting performances, it’s really easy to start losing faith in everything you’re doing,” Bruno said. He added: “But I think that’s one thing Good thing about us as a team – we keep the belief in what we’re doing, the training we’ve been receiving and where we want to go as a team, where the staff want us to go as a team and we want to improve What a team.

“That’s what gives us more credit now because we’ve been doing the same thing and people might be thinking, ‘Oh the manager has to change this back to three or five, it’s not going to work. We need defenders. “

“You know, every time you lose or every time something goes wrong, everyone has a different opinion on what you should do differently. But obviously the manager has his own ideas and we understand that. As players at the moment, we really The understanding is that he really believes this, so there’s no way you can’t believe it.

“So everything he says to you, everything he tries to pass on to you – him and his staff – everything he does makes us really believe in what we’re doing. Even when you drop the ball or you There was a goal in the game, whether it was a setback or whatever, he just wanted us to understand that if we do it the right way, what we’re doing will bring results.

“That’s the most important thing for us in this period, we’re not getting results and it’s difficult. As you said, it’s really tough here when we don’t win games but when you win games here it’s It is huge and brilliant.

“So we have to understand that if we can maintain this level, this performance and get the clearest result, the fans will support us. We will have a big push, just like yesterday – Emirates There were 8,000 spectators.

“We have to get back to where we were in the past, every team that comes here is terrified of any moment United scores a goal or hurts them. We have to be united with our fans and get that back. “As a team we need to be patient. , believe in the process, and we need the fans to have the same patience and believe in the players, because we have to prove that we can do it. We do it every three days and we need them to get behind. We want to do this. “