Two over-enthusiastic fans invaded the pitch in Baku on Tuesday night and ran straight to Bruno Fernandes, who seemed shocked initially, but remained calm to get selfies clicked.
Mere minutes remained of the World Cup qualifier between Azerbaijan and visiting Portugal, and one more sublime Fernandes display ensured the minor irritant of selfie-seeking invaders stayed a footnote. One aspect, however, stared in the face. Fans have already homed in on Cristiano Ronaldo’s successor in the Portugal national team.
Both will feature in Manchester United’s home fixture against Newcastle on Saturday.
Fernandes, who supposedly played a key role in Ronaldo’s ‘homecoming’, is not one to warm the bench on the evening when his national teammate will take a bow once again at Old Trafford after 12 years, out of which Fernandes has been involved since January 2020.
On the completion of his first full season, when United finished second in the Premier League and the Europa League, Bruno said, “We all want to win trophies. It’s not just me, but I think all the players here want to win. Sometimes it’s possible, sometimes not. We went to the finals of Europa League, of course, it’s frustrating for us two seasons in a row and being almost there. And I think it’s time to take the next step.
“The team has been better. But it is not enough to be better if you don’t get the trophies. it will never be enough. So I think we are ready, we understand what we have to do and probably if we did not win the Europa League the last season was because something is missing in our performance and we have to learn from that.”
After the first few weeks at the club, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer described the Portuguese attacking midfielder as a “box opener”. A season later Fernandes responded with 18 goals and 12 assists in the Premier League.
“He (Ole) is expecting the same from me, as from anyone else. Of course, he talks about what I did wrong last season, what I did well, and what I have to improve. I like to talk with my players at half time, the players who play normally in my position, who are on the bench — sometimes I go to them and ask, where do you think the space is? From outside – do you think I should search another space to take the ball?”
A poor start to the last season left United playing catch-up throughout. This time, they have managed two wins out of three so far and Fernandes revealed the initial plan.
“Ole has said already — you can lose the chance to be a contender for the title if you lose the first few games because you dropped so many points in the beginning.”
On the not-so-happy outing at the Euro 2020, Fernandes bluntly accepted that they did not perform well.
“It was not good enough for me, for Portugal. We should do more. We know we can do more. Unfortunately, we went out against a good team. I think probably the best game we played in the Euros was against Belgium and we went out. I think probably in that game we played really well defensively. Pressing the ball, created a great many but the ball didn’t go in. We went out ín the Round of 16.
"Personally, of course, I have the feeling like I could do more but it is what it is. And now it’s time to do better. I did reflect on the Euros. I have had time to do that and now is a new chance for me to do something better. So for me the focus now is doing well in the Premier League.”
Spotlight may shift a little towards Ronaldo from Saturday and one waits to see how the combination blossoms under Solskjaer.
