Featured Image Credit: Sky Sports
Topics: Bruno Fernandes, Ruben Amorim, Manchester United, Football, Premier League
Ryan Smart
Topics: Bruno Fernandes, Ruben Amorim, Manchester United, Football, Premier League
Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes gave a definitive response when questioned about his team's tactical setup during their 3-0 defeat to Manchester City.
City ran out convincing winners at the Etihad Stadium, with Phil Foden scoring an early header before Erling Haaland netted a brace.
Foden was left unmarked in the area for City's first, while a misplaced pass from Luke Shaw allowed Haaland to run the length of United's half unchallenged for his second goal.
The Norwegian had earlier missed an opening goal after Manuel Ugarte's backward pass was too short for Matthijs de Ligt, leaving the centre-back having to stretch but only succeeding in giving the ball away.
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Fernandes had little influence on the game going forward, with the midfielder once again playing in a more defensive role alongside Ugarte.
The result piles more pressure onto manager Ruben Amorim, who is still yet to win consecutive Premier League games as United boss since taking over in December of last year.
As he often does after a big game defeat, Fernandes put himself forward for media duty and faced some difficult questions about United's system and the performances of his team-mates.
"What we did today was not enough to get the result, and that's all we have to take from this game," he told Sky Sports reporter Patrick Davison.
"We need to score goals and not concede - that's the main thing of football. We keep creating chances to score but we're not able to score as many as we wanted, and I think we have to be more in control in certain situations. We gave three goals away that we have avoided."
When Davison questioned whether Fernandes sensed that City were trying to 'overwhelm' United's midfield pairing, he replied: "No, because we play with a back five, or sometimes with a four or a three, whatever you want to call it.
"We need people to be very aggressive in the moment of pressure. We need to get the moments of jumping because if not, the midfielders get under load.
"If you look at City, they had Rodri, Tiji [Reijnders], Bernardo coming in, Foden. They make basically a midfield four against a two. So you need the ones in behind you to jump, like Luke [Shaw] was doing very well on Tiji. We did it in the first game against Arsenal, that's why they didn't play. They couldn't find the spaces to play.
"That's what makes the spaces very narrow to play against a team that is very aggressive to play on the front foot. If you're not brave enough to do that, they will find the spaces to play because we're playing against a top opponent.
"The result is very bad, and it's very bad on us, but I think it's two ways of looking at the game. The goals could have been avoided on our side, but on the ball we were very positive, very brave, playing the ball forward.
"When we created our chances, we could have been a bit more clean. You don't get anything from that. We wanted what City got, which was three points."