Bruno Fernandes has been clear about what he wants from Manchester United as speculation over his future continues. With one year remaining on his contract, and a club option for a further 12 months, Fernandes has already declined a mega-money approach from Al Hilal and is now focusing on what matters to him at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
The midfielder framed his objective in stark terms, pointing to the standards the club once held when Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge and comparing the role he plays to a past creative fulcrum such as Paul Scholes. It has been 13 years since United last won the Premier League, a drought Fernandes describes as “not normal” for the club.<\/p>\n
Fernandes has been among the division\u2019s most influential players this season. He has provided 16 assists and needs five more before the season\u2019s end to break the record of 20 currently held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. He has scored eight Premier League goals, been United\u2019s player of the match on numerous occasions, and leads the league in chances created (101) and passes into the penalty area (248).<\/p>\n
In a sit-down interview with The Telegraph Fernandes did not give a definitive answer about his long-term plans but explained the conversations he has had with the club\u2019s hierarchy and what drives him. “Everyone that comes to Man Utd wants to win every trophy … you want to fight for all of them,” he said. “We went to three finals and didn\u2019t win. That can happen. But at least you\u2019ve been there in the fight. We were close. And what I said to the club every time that I spoke with them, what I want from the time I\u2019m here, I want to compete. Because if I compete, I will be close to winning.<\/p>\n
“If I don\u2019t compete, there\u2019s no chance I\u2019m going to get close to anything. So, the main thing that the club understood is this: it\u2019s 2013 that they last won the Premier League. That\u2019s too long for a club like Man Utd … [it] is not normal.”<\/p>\n
He added: “What I always say to the club is: \u2018You can\u2019t promise me that I\u2019m going to win the Premier League. That\u2019s impossible. But if you promise me that we\u2019re going to be competitive and we\u2019re going to be there at the end … that\u2019s all I need to know. Because then it\u2019s on me to become the best version of myself, to help everyone around to become the best version of themselves, to become the club we want to be.” Fernandes\u2019s play, even during a period when United struggled for positive results under former manager Ruben Amorim, has underlined that demand. “In my head it\u2019s already an image of what we\u2019ve worked on during the week,” Fernandes said of his style of play. “The most difficult part is that you have to react, but also adapt your idea for the player you have ahead of you. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fernandes says his single demand of Man Utd is clear: the club must be competitive for trophies. too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,969],"tags":[1081,1162,342],"class_list":["post-11612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}