‘F***ing imposter’ deserves Keane U-turn after dragging willing Man Utd stars up to his level
Manchester United looked lethargic and short of ideas against Crystal Palace before Bruno Fernandes took the game by the scruff of the neck. He’s still required to drag his teammates up to his level but at least in this team, with Benjamin Sesko, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, that’s a worthwhile pursuit.
The big positive for Michael Carrick following United’s wholly unconvincing victory over Everton on Monday, aside from three points, the old ‘winning when playing badly’ adage and the astonishingly good goal they scored, will have been the performance of Leny Yoro in the absence of Lisandro Martinez.
His transfer was seen as a significant coup for United amid Real Madrid interest, with Rio Ferdinand getting particularly carried away before being “flattened” by a damning stat more than a year into his Red Devils career.
“Wow… wow. That is a mad stat. That’s just flattened me,” he said. “What am I hearing? I’m trying to have a good, positive moment here, trying to get some positivity.”
After Yoro provided the assist to earn a point at Fulham in the second game of his second season, United were still yet to win a game against a current Premier League side with the young Frenchman in the starting lineup. The only victories in the previous campaign came over Southampton and Ipswich, both of whom were relegated.
He put that right in the very next game against Burnley and the victory at Everton followed further wins over Sunderland, Brighton and Crystal Palace with Yoro at the heart of the Red Devils defence.
He’s no longer the jinx he once was but there have been few occasions when he’s looked truly comfortable. Even against Everton, a game which would rank highly in terms of his best performances as a United player, few would have watched believing him to be The Future Of Manchester United as was hoped when they splashed big cash on him in the summer of 2024.
Most United fans will have been hoping for the speedy return of Martinez and cursing their luck at his absence after four minutes at Old Trafford on Sunday.
The ‘not looking at the ball from a set piece’ bit looks particularly silly when the cross is more chipped than driven to the back post and the ball is in the air for what feels like a couple of minutes before the oblivious defender takes note of where it is. Flying straight towards Maxence Lacroix’s bonce in this case, while Yoro scrambled to get close enough to knock him off balance, failed miserably and was left rooted to the floor while the Crystal Palace centre-back directed his header into the far post.
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Focusing on man rather than ball obviously works – every team does it. But only when you remain touch-tight to the player you’re marking. Yoro never was, floundered and ended up looking far more foolish than if he had just challenged Lacroix for the ball.
Old Trafford was flat. It was like a game in the Ruben Amorim doldrums; not one at the end of a run of five wins and a draw under Carrick. Fernandes felt it too.
After an uncharacteristically ineffective performance from the United skipper against Everton, Fernandes recognised the need to do the heavy lifting after 30 minutes of inertia from his side against Palace.
Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and – more recently – Benjamin Sesko have borne some of that attacking, creative load, but looked like any of the numerous inadequate forwards Fernandes has played with previously at United here, requiring the Portuguese playmaker to pull on his big boy pants and attempt to turn a 427th game as a Red Devils player in United’s favour on his own.
His dipping free-kick forced an excellent fingertip save from Dean Henderson, who made just one further stop in the first half, from a Sesko header following a Fernandes cross. Casemiro headed United’s best chance wide from a Fernandes free-kick that the United captain won himself with a nutmeg.
It was a typical “f*** it, I’ll do it then” response from a man who must be acknowledged not only as one of the Premier League’s best players but also one of the very best leaders, and Fernandes turned the game on its head with one superb pass early in the second half.
The key to it was him rapping the pass first-time into Cunha, which caught Lacroix unawares and allowed the Brazilian to roll the Palace defender, get ahead of him and draw a foul which resulted in a penalty and a cruel but reasonable DOGSO red card.
Fernandes converted from the spot and there was only going to be one winner from then on as a Palace side which had been wilting in any case were struggling to handle the heat that Fernandes then managed to conduct to his teammates.
It was a little under a year ago that Roy Keane last questioned Bruno Fernandes’ captaincy, labelling him a “f***ing imposter”, claiming “talent isn’t enough” and insisting he’s “not a fighter”, in what has been a leader-denying vendetta from one of United’s greatest-ever skippers against the incumbent pretty much since Fernandes was appointed as Harry Maguire’s successor in the summer of 2023. We wonder what Keane thinks now.
Because the big difference between this United side and what Fernandes had to put up with previously is that there are now players capable of being dragged up to somewhere close to his level. He may still be required to do the dragging, as was the case here against Palace, but it’s now a worthwhile effort, as proven by Sesko’s excellent movement in the box and header from the captain’s delightful cross to win this game and move United up to third in the Premier League.
Fernandes remains United’s best and most important player, but the uptick in quality around him at the top end of the pitch means that him leading by example and looking to turn games around ends not in frustrated arm flailing and sulking but in goals and points, and should mean a dramatic change in how he’s viewed as a Premier League captain.
