Bruno Fernandes ‘different from the others’ as risk-taker counters Pogba’s absence at Man Utd

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The Portugal international midfielder has made an immediate impact at Old Trafford and intends to take his game to even greater heights in the future

Bruno Fernandes considers himself to be “different from the others” at Manchester United, with the Portuguese helping to fill the void created by Paul Pogba’s fitness struggles.

The Red Devils found themselves in the market for creative inspiration during the January transfer window.

Having seen World Cup winner Pogba restricted to just eight appearances by injury, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was eager to find more energy and goal threat in his engine room.

Fernandes has provided that, with the 25-year-old quickly becoming a talismanic presence, but he is eager to point out that he is not cover or a replacement for anybody.

He believes that he provides a skill set at Old Trafford that nobody else has, with his game based on calculated risks and striving for continuous improvement.

"I think I'm a different player from the others," Fernandes told Sky Sports.

"Everyone has a different mould to play, maybe I take more risks, maybe other players don't take as many, maybe I shoot more, some players pass more, some of the players make more tackles, everyone is different in a club. Some players are similar but they're never the same player.

"I'm a player who normally likes to take the risk, give the last pass and try to give more assists to my team-mates so I need to take the risk. It doesn't matter for me if someone off the field is not happy about my pass, I will respect it but I will keep trying.

"Normally, everyone says the guys who are good on the ball are not good enough off the ball. I try to be better with the ball but also have in my mind these kinds of thing like the reaction when I lose it, being hungry when things don't go wrong and hungry when you pass and it goes to your partner, but it's not good enough and you need to do a little bit more.

"I think I look at the details because if you want to be better and one of the best, you need to look at the details. It's not about finishing the game and if you get an assist and have a good game, you don't need to watch the game to see if you made some mistakes or not.

"And when you think 'today I didn't play really well so I need to watch everything and see where I did my mistakes'. Sometimes, when I feel like I played a bad game, I don't watch [it back]. I have in my mind that I need to do better and I know what I did wrong because you know what is the wrong pass, the wrong shot, the wrong decision and when you do well, you have to look.

"Maybe you have an assist but you need to look at if that assist can be better because sometimes, it be better but you can't do better. It's difficult to explain but think I need to look at the details to be better."

Fernandes has contributed three goals and four assists to the United cause across Premier League and Europa League competition, but is currently taking in an enforced break alongside the rest of his Red Devils colleagues as English and European football shuts down amid the coronavirus outbreak.

2020-03-14 18:00:02

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