There has been a noticeable upturn in form for Manchester United in 2020, and it seems to have coincided with the arrival of big-money midfield signing Bruno Fernandes.
The former Sporting CP star has impressed, for sure, but how much of the change can be attributed to him alone?
We’ve taken a look at United’s stats before and after the signing was completed on January 30.
Results
First off, we have the pure numbers.
United played 24 league games before Fernandes arrived, plus three in the FA Cup, five in the League Cup and six in the Europa League.
Those 38 games brought 18 wins, 10 draws (one of which led to a penalty shoot-out victory) and 10 defeats, with nine victories in the league and the same number in cup competitions. That’s a win percentage of 47.4% in all competitions, for those counting.
Since the end of January, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team has played five games in the league, one in the FA Cup and three in Europe. With six wins and three draws from those fixtures, the win percentage is up to 66.7%.
Goals
United have scored 22 times in the nine games since Fernandes’ arrival, conceding just twice: that’s an average of 2.4 goals for, and 0.2 against.
Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Club Brugge’s Emmanuel Dennis are the only players to beat a United goalkeeper in that period, and the former was fortunate with his goal to say the least.
In the 38 games before his arrival, United scored 36 times in the league and 25 times in cup games, for an average of 1.6 goals per game.
At the other end of the pitch, 36 goals conceded in all competitions (29 in the league and seven in cups) comes in at 0.95 - still less than a goal a game, but there’s been a notable change.
Expected Goals
Of course, nine games isn’t a huge sample, and it’s easy for a team to overperform in a short period.
However, we’ve taken a look at expected goals numbers (xG) from FBref.com to attempt to get a bigger picture, though data is only available for Premier League and Europa League and not domestic cups.
Before Fernandes, United had an xG of 47.4 from 30 Premier League and Europa League games, and an xGA (expected goals against) of 27.4, producing a per-game average of 1.58 and 0.91 respectively.
In short, United were reasonably in line with xG before their new man arrived, but what about the games since?
Taking out the FA Cup game against Derby, United have an xG of 14.3 and an xGA of 8, or an average of 1.8 and 1 respectively. United have still shown an improvement, but they’re much closer to their pre-Fernandes numbers than one might think, and have outperformed xG at both ends of the pitch.
Possession
Considering the position of their new man, and how comfortable he is on the ball, it’s worth also examining possession figures before and after his arrival.
Again looking at FBref data, United as a team have averaged 668.5 touches per game in the eight league and European games since Fernandes arrived from Sporting, with 26.6 per game in the opposition penalty area.
As for those 30 earlier games? 665.1 touches on average, and an average of 25.4 in the opposition area.
It might also be worth noting that the three league games in which United hit the 800 touch mark all occurred from Boxing Day onwards, suggesting United weren’t exactly coming into this from a standing start when Fernandes arrived.
Conclusion
United do seem to have improved statistically since Fernandes arrived, and the results with the Portugal international in midfield already pointed to that being the case.
However, the improvement is not quite as drastic as those results might imply; rather, it looks more like the impact of adding an accomplished player to a team which was already beginning to turn a corner.
The real test will arrive over the course of the rest of the season, and in years to come, where we’ll learn just how much Fernandes can help improve this United squad.
