Ruben Amorim moved quickly to calm concerns over Bruno Fernandes after a momentary knock during the second half, confirming the Manchester United captain completed the full 90 minutes. Fernandes has finished 90 minutes in 11 of his 13 Premier League appearances this season and was able to see out the match.<\/p>\n
There was a brief scare when Fernandes appeared to sustain a knock, but Amorim indicated the issue was minor. \u201cIt was a kick. I was shouting at him because he needs to talk with the bench but he said it was a kick so everything is okay,\u201d Amorim explained to TNT Sports after the final whistle.<\/p>\n
Everything points to Fernandes being the starting XI as normal when the Red Devils host West Ham United in the Premier League on Thursday night. Tactical choices have placed Fernandes in a more conventional central midfield role rather than the No. 10 position he was previously known for. With Amorim seemingly lacking trust in the likes of Manuel Ugarte and Kobbie Mainoo, Fernandes has been deployed further away from goal.<\/p>\n
That shift has altered his statistical output. It is just two goals across all competitions (including a lack of European games), and he is on course to be his least prolific season in red, which stood at 10 in 2021\u201322. The change in responsibilities means Fernandes’s influence is less likely to show up in the goals and assists that defined his earlier years at the club.<\/p>\n
Fernandes has accepted the change and presented a pragmatic view of his role. \u201cI like playing football, regardless of the position, I\u2019ll do my best,\u201d Fernandes explained while away with Portugal in October. \u201cEveryone has their favourite positions. In a space with a lot of quality, you have to adapt. I played these positions with Jorge Jesus at Sporting CP.<\/p>\n
Amorim\u2019s assessment and Fernandes\u2019 availability suggest the midfielder will remain a central figure in the team while adapting to the manager\u2019s tactical demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim says Fernandes only suffered a kick; he finished the game and should start against West Ham..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1081,342,1006],"class_list":["post-4822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-captaincy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4822","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=4822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}