Bruno Fernandes is exhausted; his legs were a little heavy and his mind was exhausted from the 'suffering' it took to put Arsenal out of the FA Cup on penalties, having already been a man down in the 62nd minute.
It's no wonder that the Manchester United captain walked into their Carrington training base: he was the goalscorer, first off the goal line in the shootout, and attached to his ruthless performance was his role as deliverer of 'flowers' – honour, recognition and thanks – to deserving teammates.
In the aftermath of the Emirates victory, Bruno shifted all the focus from himself to a colossal performance from Altay Bayindir, who produced a goalkeeping masterclass especially from the spot, and Joshua Zirkzee's redemption arc.
“I want everyone to be happy. I want everyone to feel involved,” Fernandes told Sky Sports News the morning after the win.
“When you are in a good moment, in a high moment, I prefer to give it to other players – not because I don't want to have that moment, because obviously every player wants to have his honor, his flowers and his moments of happiness.” joy – but this is just the way I live my life.
“I really think for a team to be successful, everyone has to be at the same level of happiness. Even if you know some players will play less than others, you have to find a way to push them at certain times. the feeling that they are just as important as I am.”
Fernandes was particularly happy for Zirkzee, who endured the ignominy of being sent off in the 33rd minute of the defeat to Newcastle to the cheers of his own supporters, but sent in the decisive penalty to keep the defending champions in the tournament.
“The script had been there for a long time,” Bruno laughs. “You know, if you're a good person and you do the right things, you may have bad moments, but in the end everything will come out strong.
“It was a staff decision to choose the five players who would receive the penalty and they put Josh last. And all I thought about was telling the players that the script was ready. So everything has been done since that moment against Newcastle that prepared us to give Josh his moment, his honor and his flowers in this moment.
“We can talk about whatever people want to talk about, like 'fines, that's easy.' That's how we came to penalties. Altay saved the penalty [in normal time] by Martin Odegaard who had not missed one in his professional career. And then Josh, in a moment of pressure with everything he's been going through in his head, steps up and gives us the win.”
It was more than a story of triumph for United, with the 'how' and the 'who' providing further evidence of Ruben Amorim's theory that it was not his system that was a problem, but the effort and its application.
The way his side cleared the ball against Arsenal and their resolve increased rather than withered when Diogo Dalot was sent off was encouraging. In line with a combative draw at Anfield in a match they could have stolen at the death against Liverpool, United look to be painting a portrait of revival.
However, Bruno warns that it is the brush against each team and not just the club's rivals that will decide whether the picture is complete or an artificial illusion.
“We can't look at names, we can't look at badges, we can't look at the table, whoever is in front of us or below us. We just have to look at ourselves and understand that we play for a huge club.” and we need to set the standard for ourselves that this is where we want to be minimally and where we still need to go to get the best out of everyone.
The resilience against Liverpool and Arsenal followed a longer period of time on the fields of Carrington to work on Amorim's blueprint. Interestingly enough, Bruno leans towards an increase in the psychological elements as a greater explanation for those performances.
“It always helps if you have time to train and prepare for the matches a little better,” he offers. “It's important, but I think in these two games it was more – and the manager said this to us – it's more about the passion, the desire, everything you put into the game, in terms of how much you like the want to win a match.
“I think everyone is really aware of what he wants and he demands from us in terms of position, tactically and all that. I think we are now getting to the level that he wants in terms of effort, with running and passion and the desire to win So I think we still have a lot to improve on both aspects, but we will do it. And I'm pretty sure we're on the right track to achieve that.
“But now we've got a huge game that everyone could look at in a different way and probably watch from the outside and say, 'United are in a good moment now. They've got Southampton at home. They'll beat them.' Sure, but we can't think like that because Southampton are fighting for their lives.
“They want to stay in the Premier League and they really need points. But we have to turn this around and look at ourselves and say that we really, really, really need more points than them too. We have to think that 'we' have more points than them' and it has to be our goal for every match we play. The opponent needs it so much, but we need it more than them.'
United have certainly found themselves back in life, in action, in a sense of pride. At Anfield, Lisandro Martinez pointed to his head to explain what the difference had been to the team. Bruno's rules about mentality and intention come from the same book. Was Amorim's reality check of a relegation ban the spark?
“No, no, no,” Bruno chuckles before turning serious again. “Obviously I know what the manager meant by that and what Licha (Martinez) said is right: it's about the mentality. You go to the game against Liverpool and you know, it's a huge game. You'll be prepared for every game are.” detail. Your mind remembers every detail the manager told you, every move, everything they do, everything we trained.
“And probably in some games where you're not playing against the big teams and you think you don't have to be so aware and you probably mentally lose connection for five seconds. And in the Premier League, five seconds is too much against any team. And Southampton is one of those games where I don't want any of us to disconnect for five seconds because they have good players, they have quality.
“They could have gotten more points than they have in the table. I'm not saying they are a big team. That they are a team better than us and we shouldn't win the game. We have to win the game. We have to worry about every moment and every second during the game because if we do that, and then with everything how we prepare the game, tactically and technically, if we do what we did I'm pretty sure we going to win the match.”
United's notable improvements have been in intensity and defensive form. If there is one area where Amorim still needs to make major progress, it is the offense.
“The manager has told us a lot that we have to score more goals,” Bruno nods. “And that's true because we are a team that has the ability to score goals. I know we have a lot of young players up front, but we have qualities and we have to score goals because Rasmus is capable of scoring goals. Josh is capable, Amad is capable, Garnacho Rashy, Antony, me and even the midfielders who sometimes play a bit deeper, like Kobbie or Manu or Casa or Christian, they are all players with goals in them.
“So we have a lot of players who have the ability to score goals. Like yesterday, Carlos came to talk to me – the manager's assistant before the match – and told me that we need more desire to run into the penalty area, to the running, to get in there. When we're on the counter, we have to run. And the goal comes a little bit from there quickly.' as best you can to get into the penalty area because you know Garna is fast and will get there before you so you have to run as fast as you can because you have to score.” And that desire to defend our goal must be the same desire to score goals. And this is something that the manager wants us to improve. And I think we can improve a lot because we have so much quality in our team to do more scoring This is not really the level we have here.”
The clouds have partly lifted after a dark period for United, where they were just seven points clear of the drop zone and entered the new year in their worst league position since 1989.
“It's very easy when you don't get results, when you don't get the performance, that you start to lose confidence in everything you've done,” says Bruno, adding: “but I think that's one of the good things we had as a team – we kept believing in what we do, in what we have trained and where we want to go as a team, where the staff wants us to go as a team, what we want to improve as a team a squad.
“And that's what gives us a little more credit now, because we've done the same things that people will probably think, 'oh, the manager has to change this three or five ago, that doesn't work.' We still have to bring back a striker.'
“You know, every time you lose or every time something goes wrong, everyone has an opinion about what to do differently. But obviously the manager has his own idea and we understand that. What we really understand as players at the moment , is that he really believes in this. So it's impossible that you don't believe it.
“So everything he says to you, everything he tries to pass on to you, to him and his staff, he does it in a way where we really believe in what we are doing. Even in games where you concede a goal or a setback or whatever, he just wants us to understand that the things we do will produce results if we do them the right way.
“And that's the most important thing we had in this period where we didn't get results, it was difficult. Like you said, it's really difficult here when we don't win games, but it's huge and brilliant when you win games here too.
“So we have to understand that if we can maintain this level and this performance, and obviously get the results, the fans will be behind us. There will be a lot of pressure for us, just like yesterday: 8,000 at Emirates.”
“And we have to bring this back to what we had in the past, when every team that came here felt the fear of every moment that United could score a goal or hurt them. And we have to bring this back to solidarity with the fans , with the patience that we have to have as a team to believe in the process. We need the fans to have the same patience, to believe in the players because we can deliver. We have to prove that we can deliver every three days and we will. And we have They need to stay behind us to do that.”
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