Bruno Fernandes made his 300th appearance for Manchester United in the weekend 4-2 win over Brighton & Hove Albion, becoming only the second Portuguese player for the club to reach that mark after Cristiano Ronaldo. The pair spent 18 months together at Old Trafford following Ronaldo\u2019s return in 2021, and while their on-field relationship provoked debate at times, they remain close off the pitch. “I spoke with Cristiano about the situation, Saudi and everything,” Fernandes recently admitted.<\/p>\n
Fernandes chose to stay at United rather than leave and that decision brought an inevitable milestone in 2025\u201326. He is the 52nd player in club history to reach 300 games, a total he amassed quickly thanks to a strong injury record. At his current rate, the midfielder “will soon top Ronaldo\u2019s haul of 346 United games,” a comparison that has prompted analysis of their respective records.<\/p>\n
The statistical picture is mixed. Both players reached 300 appearances, but Fernandes has more starts (284) than Ronaldo had at that point (250). Ronaldo scored 124 goals in his first 300 United matches, 50 of which came from the bench, while Fernandes has 100 goals and 87 assists, giving him 20 more assists than Ronaldo\u2019s 67.<\/p>\n
Minutes-based metrics favour Ronaldo. Fernandes averages 255 minutes per goal compared to Ronaldo\u2019s 185.3, and Fernandes records a goal contribution every 136.4 minutes against Ronaldo\u2019s 120.3. Ronaldo\u2019s first 300 appearances included major trophies: three Premier League titles and both domestic cups. Fernandes has also contributed to silverware, lifting the EFL Cup and FA Cup under Erik ten Hag, both victories arriving after Ronaldo\u2019s move to Al Nassr at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo\u2019s pathway included extended success at Real Madrid and Juventus between his United spells, and his 300th United appearance came 14 years after his 200th. Fernandes has matched the milestone in a different context: often carrying a team that has not always matched Ronaldo\u2019s collective achievements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruno Fernandes reached 300 Manchester United games; his statistics now invite comparison to Ronaldo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179],"tags":[1162,342,452],"class_list":["post-4093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","tag-analytics","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-cristiano-ronaldo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093","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=4093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}