Paul Scholes says there are several Manchester City stars who deserve to named as PFA Player of the Year before Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes.
United star Fernandes has been hugely impressive as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side have taken up a spot in second place behind City, although his output in the bigger games has been questioned.
Scholes thinks that this season's Player of the Year should come from Pep Guardiola's champions-elect, even though Fernandes is "in the mix" for the award.
"What he’s brought to this United team has been special," he told Optus Sport.
"He creates goals, scores – not in the big games! – but in a lot of them.
"Ultimately, at Man Utd you are there to win titles and big games and he has to be a bigger influence than that.
"I could give him a bit of an excuse with United’s centre-halves – to me, they need protecting too much, especially in the big games against proper forward players.
"(The central midfielders) sit too deep and he doesn’t get the support from the midfield players, which is important to him.
"It is not just the ability he has got, he needs bodies around him to take people away, so he can come into spaces, be a player who is controlling midfield, and that brings the best out of him.
"This will be a problem for United until they solve it. They need to sign a centre-half who is dominant, takes the ball off people, look what City have done with [Ruben] Dias… all the teams that have won the league in recent years: [Vincent] Kompany, [Virgil] Van Dijk.
"He should be right in the mix (for PFA Player of the Year), there is no doubt about that, but I am always a believer the best players are the players playing for the team that wins the league and there are a few City players I’d go for before Bruno."
Who should win Player of the Year? Have your say below.
