Ex-Man Utd assistant says Red Devils would be 'just above the relegation zone' without Bruno Fernandes

Manchester United have been warned they cannot afford to go into next season's Champions League campaign without their captain and star player Bruno Fernandes.

United secured a return to Europe next season with a thrilling 3-2 win over arch rivals Liverpool at Old Trafford earlier this month, a feat which has strengthened Michael Carrick's case to land the manager's job permanently.

Central to United's resurgence under Carrick has been Fernandes, who has scored eight goals and provided 19 assists in the Premier League this season, those exploits earning him the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award.

United could have cashed in on Fernandes last summer, with a £100million offer on the table from the Saudi Pro League, but both parties were in agreement he should stay, and the club have reaped the benefits of that decision, with Champions League qualification worth an estimated £60m in additional revenue.

But there is expected to be renewed interest in United's 31-year-old talisman this summer, who has a year left on his contract, with the option for an additional year. Crucially, Fernandes is understood to have a release clause of around £57m in his contract, which can only be triggered by clubs outside of England.

That clause is set to spark a scramble for his signature this summer, but Rene Meulensteen, who worked as Sir Alex Ferguson's first-team coach at United for six years, say the Red Devils must do all they can to hold on to Fernandes and ensure he leads them back into Europe next season.

“You have to look at both sides of it, because £100million - or whatever - is obviously a massive amount of money and if you listen to certain rumours coming out of Old Trafford, they're saying they don't have any money, so there's that in your pocket straight away,” said Meulensteen.

“But Bruno is by far the most important player United have. If you take him out of the equation, his goals and his assists, then you deduct all the points he's been responsible for, then United are hovering just above the relegation zone again.

“So he's by far the most important guy and he's been outstanding, even in situations when United weren't great and were actually poor, but he's been galvanised under Michael and that situation has been even better for Bruno.

“I'm sure he enjoys his football much more now because he's an out-and-out winner, which is why you sometimes get this petulant behaviour that he still has sometimes, you know, moaning at the referee and whatever else, but that's purely because he's such a winner and it's all about winning for him.

"If things aren't going his way, he throws his dummy out of the pram, but if I was Michael, I would definitely try to hold on to him, because he's been responsible for more than 20 goals.

“The players who came in last summer have done well at United – Bryan Mbuemo had a good spell, Matheus Cunha has done some great stuff, but Bruno is head and shoulders above the rest.”

READ MORE: Paul Pogba says Bruno Fernandes would be a Ballon d'Or contender at another club

Some Carrick criticism 'doesn't carry weight'

Despite Carrick's record of 10 wins, two defeats and three draws in 15 games since taking over from Ruben Amorim in January, some former United players – in particular Roy Keane, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville – have been critical of the 44-year-old and questioned whether he is the right man to take the club forward beyond this season.

Keane has been involved in a war of words with Carrick's wife Lisa, after he criticised her husband's “flat” performance in a Champions League tie back in 2014.

That criticism prompted an angry response from Carrick's wife on social media at the time and the feud resurfaced this year, when Keane said of her “she's got a bit of a big mouth sometimes – she's probably doing the team talk!”.

Against that backdrop, Meulensteen said criticism of Carrick is only valid if it is grounded in objective views, rather than personal feuds.

Asked if such criticism was fair, Meulensteen said: “If somebody doesn't like someone, for whatever reason, then that criticism doesn't carry a lot of value.

“I don't know, but I've heard that Roy has possibly said that Michael isn't the man to carry United forward. But Michael has done a great job so far, so in that respect he's proven Roy wrong.

“But that might be the thing they all think that, as a manager, he has possibly not done enough, to guarantee the way forward again, which is United challenging for the title and doing well in the Champions League.

“That's possibly why [there has been criticism of Carrick] from what I can gather, but I don't think Michael will be very affected by it, because that's the sort of person he is.

“But you always have to see, if someone has some criticism, in what kind of context it's being made, whether or not it's constructive criticism that's said with the right intention. But if you just air criticism for whatever reason – because you don't like something – then it doesn't carry a lot of weight in my opinion.”

For his part, Meulensteen says Carrick "couldn't have done any more, with regards to what they expected of him," to earn himself the United job on a full-time basis.

“I think that was obviously getting Champions League football, as well I think a better brand of football, and I think he's achieved both.