Better than your favourite legend yet criminally underrated; the mystery called Bruno Fernandes

Bagging 124 goal contributions in 200 games with heavy loads of splash plays and hockey assists, attracts universal acclaim but in an interesting and puzzling twist, Man United’s Portuguese schemer gets quite the opposite.

Marcus Rashford has all the rights in the world and perhaps beyond it to go celebrate his birthday by attending a party especially when the said party was pre-planned. In the real world, that would be an individual disconnecting from a bad day at the office to recalibrate for work the next day.

However, attending a party a few hours after playing poorly and being on the receiving end of a Manchester Derby shellacking, was ill advised and rightly so, the English forward deserved all the criticism he got.

Rashford’s actions were badly timed making the optics on his personality a bad one. It also communicated directly or indirectly of a guy who lacks the ability to read the room and act accordingly.

While such acts are very innocuous, somewhere in the business world, a prospective CEO or COO of a company looking for a brand ambassador would see it as a huge turn off.

Such actions communicate unreliability thus a wrong message for a brand to associate with. On Rashford’s Manchester United team, there is a player who is suffering from similar effects of bad timing though a host of factors lay outside his control.

 

For Bruno Fernandes, the only “personal responsibility” he plays in this equation is his decision to sign for the Red Devils at a time better run teams at the time, Tottenham Hotspurs and Barcelona, were actively recruiting his services.

That aside, every factor has been external and out of his hands especially the up and down form Man United has been through since he joined the team in the January transfer window of 2020.

For an attacking midfielder who has 67 goals and 57 assists in 200 games in all competitions, the 29 year old certainly doesn’t get the amount of respect he deserves.

For comparison sake, Kevin De Bruyne is considered the best at his position-attacking midfield-in the world and gets pundits and analysts consistently fawning over his passing, vision, goal scoring and overall work rate.

However, Portuguese midfielder Bruno is at par with the Belgian considering Bruno has the same goal contributions as De Bruyne (97) in the past five seasons. A few games into the 2023-2024 season, De Bruyne tagged Fernandes as a “creative machine” and ranked him ahead highly rated Martin Odegaard and James Maddison in an interview with Sky Sports.

De Bruyne’s overall goal contributions since joining Manchester City absolutely blow Fernandes’ out of the water with the former Chelsea player registering 96 goals and 153 assists.

Well, this is to be expected considering the wealth of strikers he has played with are flat out better producers than those Bruno has played with.

Running attacks with Sergio Kun Aguero and Erling Haaland are a step ahead of mediocre producers like Anthony Martial, Rashford, Wout Weghorst and an out of prime Edinson Cavani.

Cristiano Ronaldo offered a bit of hope for Fernandes to get more of his numerous chances converted into goals but the impatient first runner up (arguable though) in the GOAT debate didn’t stick around long enough to help his countryman out in this department.

As a Man United player, it is only fair to compare Fernandes to other Man United players who played in central midfield and was tasked with creative duties.

None readily comes to mind other than Paul Scholes who had 155 goals and 81 assists in 716 appearances for The Red Devils.

Extrapolating Bruno’s numbers by way of appearances compared to Scholes’ at his present rate, Bruno would score 201 goals and get 171 assists and absolutely shattering Scholes assist numbers in the process. So why is Bruno either disrespected, underrated and overlooked so much? Well here is why.

Playing Style

Fernandes’ playing style represents the new breed of playmakers in the modern way of football that values direct vertical attacking play over skilled dribblers who are a joy to watch with the ball of a generation  or two ago. The loathing for this or perhaps nostalgia to have modern day players play like Mesut Ozil, James Rodriguez and Ronaldinho are contributory factors.

De Bruyne plays the same way as Fernandes but his play is far less scrutinized due to the efficiency allied to De Bruyne’s game as a result of Man City’s free scoring sides. On the flip side, Fernandes’ passes are often wayward, misplaced and misread mainly due to his Man United’s teammates’ inability to make things happen with Bruno’s attacking intentions.

Leadership style

Manchester United legends Gary Neville and Roy Keane, both former skippers of the Red Devils, have slammed Fernandes’ leadership style in the wake of Man United’s humiliating loss to Man City at Old Trafford.

Whingeing, whining, flinging arms into the air throwing tantrums are behaviours you wouldn’t usually associate with a captain and since Bruno doesn’t fit into the category of a Patrick Vieira or Kevin De Bruyne style of leadership, he attracts a ton of criticism.

However, 4+4= 8 but that doesn’t mean 7+1 doesn’t amount to the same figure and this, seemingly is Bruno’s sin as he doesn’t offer an even keeled approach to his captaincy with a 4+4=8 style but rather leans heavily towards a more in-your face style that covers up all the other good traits he brings to the table.

Timing

Back to this issue, Bruno Fernandes picked perhaps the worst time to join the Red Devils as his time at Man United has coincided with record setting losing streaks and heavy losses often to bitter rivals Liverpool and Man City.

Winning cures all ills and adds extra shine to all members associated with it and this is why guys like Ryan Giggs, Scholes, Darren Fletcher and so many others are overly praised for their time at Old Trafford while Fernandes is given a ton of stick.

Had Bruno played in the Sir Alex Ferguson era that was rife with title winning campaigns, the Portuguese international’s goal contributions would have catapulted him to the top echelons of the club’s legendary figures.

The reasons why Bruno Fernandes is underrated and overlooked continues to remain a mystery but like the Scooby Doo Show episodes, it doesn’t take much to solve the mystery. With this piece, perhaps the lack of love Bruno receives reverses and the Portuguese finally gets the plaudits his fine displays deserve.