The phrase 'hero-ball' has been used a lot when describing the style of Bruno Fernandes by Manchester United fans, positively when it works but over the past few weeks in a more detrimental sense as the team have failed to truly kick on under Ralf Rangnick.
The goals are not flowing and this has led to some United fans calling for their 'Portuguese Magnifico' to be dropped in favour of the likes of Donny van de Beek, Mason Greenwood or Jadon Sancho, depending on how the manager decides to set up the team.
'Possession lost' is a truly deceptive measure when it comes to creative players, as it is their job to try the passes which either reach the attackers to create a chance or are swept up by the opposition's defence.
So when fans on social media are complaining that against Newcastle United Fernandes lost possession 26 times, they should maybe ask themselves why.
It might not have helped that Marcus Rashford lost possession 20 times in the same game and his dribbling was something that was seriously questioned throughout the match, which may alter fans' perceptions of how possession is lost.
But it also may be that since he joined, Rangnick has emphasised that he wants his team to control the game, so statistic-based sites posting lost possession with a worried or concerned emoji but absolutely no context other than that will leave some fans worried that Fernandes might be the problem.
'Heroball' implies selfishness. It implies that Fernandes wants to steal the headlines and save the day with his passing. But that is an unfair assessment when you look more closely at the numbers and actually paints a player who has actually become more of a team player than ever before. All he has received for his troubles is being increasingly labelled an issue for this team.
Fernandes was averaging 3.3 shots per 90 minutes played according to Sofascore last season, but this has reduced to 2.2 this season, maybe due to the player playing deeper to create for his teammates.
As of the 1st December, Sqwawka posted a table that showed Fernandes at the top of the Premier League chance creation statistics with 44 for his team, Trent Alexander-Arnold followed closely behind as expected with 42, but where only six of Fernandes' chances came from set-pieces, 20 of the Liverpool defender's were created in this way.
But the Portuguese midfielder only had three assists to Alexander-Arnold's seven and that number has not increased for Fernandes in the month that followed.
So it doesn't seem to be a problem from the Portuguese but more the strikers that he is looking to supply. United have not been clinical this season.
Against Aston Villa in the league, they had 28 shots and against West Ham United in the Carabao Cup they had 27 and in both of those games, they failed to score and lost the games and in the case of the cup game, one chance of a piece of silverware that went up in smoke.
And over the past few games, it just seems to be getting worse. Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood and to some extent Edinson Cavani are all culpable here, failing to make the necessary movement to create openings for the team's creative players to give them chances to score.
So we're left with Fernandes, either isolated out wide or in the middle of the park, trying to force passes to strikers whose efforts appear half-hearted at best currently and we're supposed to think that he is the problem? I can't arrive at that conclusion and I don't think Rangnick will either.
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