Fernandes dissects derby day defeat

Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has broken down the details of our 3-0 defeat to City.

The Portugal international was interviewed by Sky Sports at the Etihad Stadium and provided forensic answers when quizzed on the nature of the loss, the tactics and, in particular, the way the opening goal, by Phil Foden, came about.

Erling Haaland scored twice in the second half, to compound the Reds’ misery, and there was no way back at that point, despite a raft of chances being created in the closing stages.

While cutting a frustrated figure, Bruno fronted up to provide his analysis of what had gone wrong on the day. 

“You have to look at what we did well,” said Fernandes. “It was obviously not enough because you want to win football games, not see the positives from the game. What we did here was not enough to get the result. All we have to got to take from this game is obviously to look at what we need to do better and go forward to the next game.

“We need to score goals and not to concede. It is the main thing of football. We keep creating chances to score and we are not able to score as many as we wanted. We have to be more in control of certain situations. We conceded three goals that should have been avoided. For the first one [by Foden], we need to be more brave. When we go in full pressure in one-v-ones, City take that risk against us today. We need to do the same. 

“The second goal was from a throw-in and we need to be much more aware in that moment. The third goal, a thing like that can happen, but we need to be in a better position to not being countered like that.”

When asked what part he played in allowing Foden to have a free header in the box for the opener, Bruno provided incredible detail in his response.

“I was trying to press Rodri,” he explained. “Because the aim before the game was one of the midfielders to drop on Rodri and one of the defenders jumping on Foden. In the moment I can cover both, Leny [Yoro] decides to come up. When I look at him, I see he comes up, so I try to go a little bit more towards Rodri. [Josko] Gvardiol does a good pass to Foden and Leny is going backwards because our miscommunication.

“We end up giving too much space for them to go up the pitch. It’s what I mean when I say to take more risk and we have to be more brave, with the last line being a little bit more high, as you see City. Every time we passed the ball backwards to our centre-backs, it was three-v-three and the line squeezes so much, it’s difficult to play through the lines as the space between them are very narrow.

“We play with a back five, sometimes a back four or three, whatever you want to call it. We need people to be very aggressive in the moments of pressure. We need to get the moment to jump in otherwise, otherwise the midfielders get overloaded. Look at City, with Rodri, Tijjani [Reijnders], Bernardo [Silva] coming in. They had Foden to make basically four against the two men. So you need the ones in behind you to jump, Luke [Shaw] was doing well on Tijjani. We did it well against Arsenal. They didn’t find the spaces to play, it’s what makes the space very narrow for team to play against a team that is very aggressive when you go on the front foot.

“If you’re not brave enough to do that, it’s very difficult and they will find spaces and gaps because you’re playing a team that is not a bad opponent. When you play team with that quality, they will find small gaps and play the balls.”

When asked if he still thinks United are moving forwards, despite this setback, the skipper made his point clearly.

“The result is very bad,” he admitted. “Very bad on us. But I think there are two ways of looking at this game. The goals could have been avoided from our side. On the ball, we were very positive and very brave playing the ball forward.

“When creating our chances, we could have been a little more clean with our chances, but we’re not getting anything from that.

“So we wanted what City got – three points – and it doesn’t matter how they get it. City were smart to get the goals in the way they did. They’re a very good team, with very good players so, obviously, compliment to them.”

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