Five best bits from Fernandes interview with Ferdinand, including ‘two times’ he nearly left Man Utd

Bruno Fernandes has hogged the spotlight this week, having first revealed in a bombshell interview with Portuguese outlet Canal 11 that Manchester United “wanted me to go” in the summer when Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal came sniffing for a potential £100m transfer.

Now, Man Utd‘s captain has sat down with a self-proclaimed “man of the people” to discuss his Old Trafford career in what has been billed as ‘his most honest interview yet’ on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast.

To save you from having to sit through the whole thing, we thought we would pick out the five best bits from the in-depth interview, which includes the “two times” Fernandes could have left Man Utd, the “six players” in Ruben Amorim’s “leadership group” and how he reacts to criticism from Roy Keane and other pundits…

How he responds to criticism from pundits…

“For me, it’s like, even like when someone criticises me, I look at it. If I see something that someone said about me, about my game, he’s not very good at this, he’s not doing very well at this.

“I go and look at that because obviously, even more for me, when it’s from ex-players, I think I look at it and say like, OK, they’ve played the game, they’ve seen the game.

“Let’s see if what they’re saying can help me to improve my game. When you guys, probably when you speak well about me, I try not to overlook that because I think as a human being, not as a player, as a human being, you tend to be like relaxed, like, oh my God, look at this.

“And obviously we know, as I said before, we talk about legends of the club, legends of the game, not just normal players.

“So it’s really important for us to understand that the balance that we have to keep in the things that we hear and the things that people think about us is very important.”

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Receiving sympathy from referees over his arm waving…

“The thing with me, and I really understand that, is the same thing with the referees, is the arms. But that’s my way of communicating. And the referees, when I had a conversation with them, they said the same thing to me, Bruno, you know the problem with you, is that you wave your arms.

“And for us, you don’t talk in a bad way to us. But the problem is, for the perspective of the stadium, it’s bad. It looks bad on us because you’re waving your arms, you’re moving your arms.

“Even when we talk like this, like close to the referee, I’m moving my arms, he’s like, Bruno, just put your arms down. We can talk, we can talk, but put your arms down.

“Because they know, the thing of me doing this, this, this, like the people in the stadium, they don’t know what I’m saying to the referee.

“I could say like, yeah, it was a good decision, but there you missed that. And they go like, Bruno, you’re telling a good thing, but people outside are thinking that you’re screaming and going crazy at me.”

Manchester United’s six-man “leadership group”…

“We have a leadership group. That is me, Harry [Maguire], Licha [Lisandro Martinez], Tom [Tom Heaton], Mazraoui [Noussair Mazraoui], and Diogo [Dalot]. We have six players.

“But obviously, we then add players in the situation that are not in the leadership group, like Casemiro, Luke Shaw, because we also want players with big responsibilities to have a say.

“But obviously, we always try these six players to, OK, guys, this is the way we want to have, where we want to be, what we want to do. And from that six, the message has to be clear for everyone else.

“We have to become a little bit of a bigger personality than the other ones, because we need to make the rules clear for everyone. But that’s not just me.

“It’s the leadership group that has to put a stamp in place, like, guys, this is what we’re going to do and mandatory for us.

“This is the way, the path and what we have to have to play at this club.”

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Having the chance to leave Manchester United “two times” and his reflections on remaining loyal…

“When I came to the club, apart from loving being here and loving the club, I think my loyalty was like in the toughest periods I had the club and I could have left in two times. I said, the club said, no, we need you. And I said, OK. You gave me something. I will give you something.

“Obviously, I think the time at the club has not been as I wanted because obviously, I wanted to lift trophies and I haven’t lifted as many as I should and I could.

“But at the same time, I think everything I’ve done for the club in a certain way was still very important and not taking anything away from other players that were here and everything. I think when we struggled the most, I stayed present to the club and I think everyone at the club, I hope is aware of that because the chances I had were very good.

“So I’m very aware that I could have done a different path. I could have gone in a different way and probably winning more trophies and people talking about me in a different way because I’ve had trophies into my cabinet. So nowadays people talk more like you are a better player or a worse player if you win or you lose trophies.”

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Opting to stay at Manchester United because they aim to “get back to the club we were before”…

“Obviously, when I speak about going and winning trophies, I stayed here because I think I still can win trophies here.

“I wouldn’t have stayed here if the club hasn’t told me our aim is still to get the highest we can be, get back to winning trophies, get back to be the club we were before.

“Because if that was not the aim then yes I wouldn’t have stayed here.

“But because I know the aim of the club is still to get back to where they want to be and where I want the club to be and that’s why I came to the club in the first place.

“So if I can help to get back there that’s all I want to do.”