Bruno Fernandes has set out his position after a summer of headlines that combined a historic assist record with a public spat involving Roy Keane.<\/p>\n
Fernandes broke the Premier League single-season assist record with 21 assists, a mark originally set 23 years ago and previously equalled only once. The milestone, achieved in United\u2019s final home game of the season against Nottingham Forest, prompted renewed scrutiny from Keane. After Fernandes matched the record, he said: “There were probably moments today when I should have passed instead of shot. I\u2019m very happy for the assist, but more than that, I\u2019m happy for the win and to finish the season on a high.” Keane later responded on The Overlap\u2019s Stick to Football podcast: “How can your mindset of a footballer be going into a match to be about an individual record? He won\u2019t be winning trophies, not with that mindset of the team.” <\/p>\n
Speaking on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Fernandes rejected Keane\u2019s interpretation and accused him of misrepresenting his words. “I don\u2019t like when people lie about things, and this case you said about Roy Keane. Basically, what he said is a lie because either he saw some other interview or he can\u2019t say that I said one thing that I\u2019ve just not said. Luckily for me is everything on record,” he said. “I accept his criticism, I accept that he might like me as a player or not, like me as a person or not. But what I don\u2019t like is that he puts words in my mouth that have not been said. That\u2019s the only thing I don\u2019t like.”<\/p>\n
Fernandes added that he asked Ole Gunnar Solskj\u00e6r to put him in touch with Keane, though it was unclear if contact had been made before the interview was recorded. Keane\u2019s public reply on Instagram read: “Too much attention makes a donkey think he\u2019s a lion.”<\/p>\n
Beyond the dispute, Fernandes explained his wider priorities. “I said it before, I haven\u2019t fulfilled my dreams here at [Manchester United],” he said when asked why he rejected a reported offer from Al Hilal worth not far short of $50 million a year. He quoted his wife: “The words she said were like, ‘Have you achieved everything you wanted to achieve in your career and is this the next step you want to take for your future and for your career?'” and added: “Obviously, [the Premier League] is the league I want to be in. This is the best league in the world, this is where I\u2019m going to enjoy my football as I\u2019m not going to enjoy it in any other place so we still have dreams to fulfill.”<\/p>\n
Fernandes\u2019s creativity underpinned the record: he created 136 chances across his 35 Premier League appearances, compared to Dominik Szoboszlai\u2019s 78. He accepts criticism routinely but objects to being misquoted, saying: “[Keane] can criticize me, killing me, say that I\u2019m not good enough, that I\u2019m not a good captain for him, that I\u2019m not a good player for the club whatsoever.” United remain without a Premier League title since 2013 and have plans for the next two seasons, including ‘Project 150’, with Fernandes thought to be in talks over a new contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruno Fernandes responds to Roy Keane, outlines record assist season, rejects Saudi move for sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179,969],"tags":[1162,1637,342],"class_list":["post-14078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-assists","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14078","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=14078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}