Bruno Fernandes: "It's the staff's decision to not press man-to-man and sometimes leave a little bit of space behind to get the ball in the first moment - to wait for them, to give them the ball. But sometimes when you give the ball too much to these teams they get confidence."
posted by u/Blodgharm · 2026-10-21 19:03 UTC
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## Top comments
1. u/AutoModerator · 2026-10-21 19:04 UTC
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2. u/Fuey42 · 2026-10-21 19:05 UTC
Captain just threw the manager under the bus.
3. u/noble_plebian · 2026-10-21 19:07 UTC
When shit isn’t working and the manager doesn’t change it I can’t blame them. He’s been playing our Captain out of position as well.
4. u/bhagwa-floyd · 2026-10-21 19:21 UTC
Shit never works at United with any manager after a while, because it is the players who down the tools.
5. u/MundaneTonight437 · 2026-10-21 19:44 UTC
They also consistently make terrible manager desicions. I think it is like 3 or 4 seasons in a row now I have celebrated Man uniteds manager desicions as a liverpool fan. Manager is shit to average, has an ok finish to the season. And they keep him. Soljaer, Den Haag, amorim, Carrick. Was happy to see all of them stay in charge at the start of the next season. All obviously poor descions every time.
6. u/manofcult · 2026-10-21 19:53 UTC
Other than the caretakers. Ten haag and amorim were having good success as managers at the time before united. I think its only hindsight to call them bad now.
7. u/Whispperr · 2026-10-21 22:31 UTC
Amorim is a pretty big talking point in our fanbase, a lot of us think he wasn't given a proper chance the way they gave him an ultimatum to come and pick up a team in 14th and implement a new system while the season was ongoing. Our players never downed tools on him either, a lot were sad he was sacked. Him and ETH also did good work in removing the toxic personalities.
ETH biggest issue is that he wanted to do the transfers himself, which is why we got so many Ajax ex players then (Antony, Mazraoui, De Ligt, Licha, we chased De Jong for an entire summer). That was more on the board, any good board would never give the manager full control over it.
8. u/Impressive-Sense1776 · 2026-10-22 01:19 UTC
Purely speculation but the way Amorim came out seemingly out of nowhere with that whole "I'm the manager not the head coach" along with Lisandro Martinez's recent outburst points to something really toxic going on beyond the dressing room that ultimately leads to crappy performances on the pitch.
9. u/evethedog · 2026-10-21 19:58 UTC
I think he means how the club continue to back the managers long after most of their fans have lost faith
10. u/supterfuge · 2026-10-21 20:58 UTC
To be fair it's a tough line to thread. Fanbases can be extremely reactionnary and players can react poorly to changes.
Now everyone only sees that things are going extremely smoothly, but in the early year of PSG's treble season, things weren't looking good. He had mamnaged the last year of Mbappe and the play wasn't bad but was extremely boring, and players were always leashed by the instructions because possession was key. It became even worse without Mbappe to score goals out of nowhere. We struggled in the CL and were at risk of elimination that could have really meant Luis Enrique out by february 2025.
What we know happened :
Luis Enrique and Dembele had an argument that led to Luis Enrique not calling him for the Arsenal game.
Dembele ended up reacting positively to the whole exchange, was reintegrated and repositionned as a 9, became one of the teams leader in the treble and the repeat CL and won a ballon d'or. We turned the season around in january 2025 in the CL against City which was the real night this cycle began.
What I've concluded (I have no sources here but that seems a likely turn of events considering what we saw then and after those events) is that the players were frustrated because they couldn't attack how they wanted, and Luis Enrique wanted them to master the basics of what he wanted them to do before unleashing them. Dembele took one for the team and expressed this sentiment, and Luis Enrique told them something along the lines of "Ok, I'll let you attack more and give you more freedom, but if I see you slip up defensively, fun's over" and then it turned out that it made them much more hungry and this more effective to defend.
So really, what would have happened if the rest of the team had antagonized the coach, if the leader of the team had been a shithead instead of Dembele who vocalized those desires from the squad, if the fans or the board had been a little less patient, etc.
You do want to give your coach some chance to be able to turn it around when things get rough
11. u/mohub21 · 2026-10-21 20:16 UTC
This is it. Our execs are awful. ETH is on the hot seat all season, and was probably going to get fired if we lost the FA cup final. So what do we do? keep him anyways and fire him before Christmas.
12. u/TylerBlozak · 2026-10-21 20:53 UTC
Especially with how Amorim is getting along in Italy atm.
The man is clearly a brilliant young manager in the right situation.
13. u/tz_2240 · 2026-10-21 21:12 UTC
He definitely is, I don’t think the team downed tools under him. In fact, he got rid of those personalities that have downed tools in the past, or aren’t committed, Garna and Rashford come to mind.
14. u/MeteorSwarmGallifrey · 2026-10-21 19:57 UTC
Meh, they didn't down tools for Amorim or Ole, those got fired for separate reasons.
Carrick and his staff just clearly aren't coaching this squad properly. The team are not as fit as they used to be, do not press at all, and the tactics are bonkers.
15. u/RepresentativeBox881 · 2026-10-21 19:09 UTC
Which position is he playing?
16. u/StardustFromReinmuth · 2026-10-21 19:12 UTC
He's been running Bruno and Tielemans as the furthest forward players these past 3 games. Literally haven't got a clue.
17. u/fastfowards · 2026-10-21 19:23 UTC
He’s gone for fergie’s trick of shoving his best players into the side even if it’s out of position and relying on their quality to win games. The difference is that those united teams had unbelievable quality and the right mentality.
18. u/theotheramerican · 2026-10-21 19:42 UTC
People say this but Fergie also had solid strategies. You don't win so much by just "shoving his best players into the side." What a simplistic way of viewing his management career.
19. u/thelastskier · 2026-10-21 19:48 UTC
Yeah, this. I remember the man putting bloody John O'Shea on as a striker sometimes and it still somehow worked.
20. u/MeteorSwarmGallifrey · 2026-10-21 19:54 UTC
Yeah the famous example is him shoving Rooney out wide to accommodate Ronaldo and Tevez/Berbatov. But the difference then is that it was prime Wayne Fucking Rooney, and the rest of the squad was stacked. Carrick is trying the same trick but forgetting he's not as good a manager as Fergie and the squad is not as adaptable as Fergie's was.