By Oliver bennet | Football Writer, Sportspherearena
Four goals. One assist. Seven appearances. On paper, Bruno Fernandes is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do at Manchester United this season. Then you check who those four goals came against — Ipswich Town, freshly promoted and already doomed, and Sabah, the champions of Azerbaijan in a competition United were supposed to win comfortably. Strip those two fixtures out and United’s most important player has contributed nothing in open competitive football all season.
That’s not a slump. That’s a number with nowhere left to hide.
Every one of Bruno Fernandes’ four goals and one assist this season has come against Ipswich Town or Azerbaijani champions Sabah — not a single Premier League contender.
Manchester United arrive at the international break having played seven matches. They’ve been knocked out of the Carabao Cup, dropped into the bottom half of the Premier League, and handed Gary Neville a fresh reason to go scorched-earth on Sky Sports. Bookmakers have already started shortening Michael Carrick’s odds to be the next Premier League manager sacked. None of that is new for this football club. What is new — or should be alarming, at least — is that the one player United have always been able to point to when things went wrong is no longer the exception. He’s part of the pattern.
Fernandes’ underperformance isn’t really about Fernandes. It’s about what happens to a talismanic playmaker when the rebuild around him collapses in real time, and Carrick either can’t or won’t change course.
Also Read: The Tapes Alex Ferguson Never Meant to Last This Lon
The summer that made this inevitable
Start with the midfield United actually built. Close to £50m went on Andrey Santos in the summer — a player who was a backup at Chelsea before making the move. Six months on, Santos has started competitive matches twice: the stunning league defeat at Hull, and the Brighton humiliation. Two starts. Two defeats. That is not a coincidence a club can talk its way around forever.
Carrick’s answer has been to lean on Youri Tielemans instead, pairing him with Kobbie Mainoo in the pivot. The problem is that Tielemans hasn’t offered much either. He was part of a Manchester United midfield picked apart at the MKM Stadium in a defeat that will follow Carrick around for a while, then played the full 90 minutes in the Brighton defeat without leaving a mark. Nobody at Old Trafford is currently asking whether Tielemans is the answer. They’re asking whether there was ever a question he was supposed to be answering in the first place.
Carlos Baleba, signed as insurance, is still waiting for his debut.
So when Fernandes drops deep to collect the ball in dangerous areas, the midfield behind him offers almost nothing. He’s not just United’s most creative player this season — for long stretches, he’s the only one.
A front four with no working parts
The attacking picture is no better, and this is where Carrick’s own choices start to matter more than anyone else’s. Around Fernandes, he has preferred Matheus Cunha as a false-nine type centre-forward with Bryan Mbeumo out wide. It’s an experiment that hasn’t returned goals, and with Benjamin Sesko freshly injured again just as he looked to be finding form, and Amad Diallo also sidelined, Carrick’s hand has been somewhat forced.
But “somewhat forced” doesn’t explain the bigger issue: United have barely changed shape or personnel from week to week, regardless of results. A manager promoted from interim to permanent off the back of a strong finish under different circumstances is now running an attack that isn’t working, with a front four that keeps starving its best player of service, and doing almost nothing to interrupt the pattern.
Andrey Santos, a near-£50m summer signing, has made two competitive starts for Manchester United this season. Both ended in defeat.
There are things to like, to be fair to this Carrick side. Senne Lammens has been a calm, capable presence in goal, largely untroubled by his role in Lisandro Martinez’s own goal at Craven Cottage. Kobbie Mainoo has looked like a footballer again. Shea Lacey scored on his debut against Brighton, which is one of the few pieces of good news from a match United still lost. None of it changes the shape of the season so far.
Also Read: Michael Carrick Didn’t Inherit This Crisis. He’s Built It Himself.
The captain, the crowd and the pressure that’s coming
Marcus Rashford, back at Old Trafford after Barcelona chose not to make his loan permanent, has a point to prove and hasn’t found it yet. The back line is in need of real surgery. And Carrick himself has only half-answered questions about the pressure building around him and his players’ visible lack of energy — the kind of media handling that tends to look fine right up until results force the issue.
Manchester United have been eliminated from the Carabao Cup and sit in the bottom half of the Premier League after seven matches under Michael Carrick.
This is the context Fernandes is operating in: a midfield rebuild that hasn’t worked, a front four that isn’t creating chances for him, and a manager who hasn’t shown much appetite for changing any of it. His numbers look fine in a vacuum. They collapse the moment you check the opposition column.
None of this means Fernandes should be dropped, benched, or stripped of the armband. It means the conversation United’s fans are having about their captain is the wrong conversation. The right one is about whether Carrick’s setup is capable of getting anything out of him at all — and right now, the evidence says no.
United’s front four under Carrick has featured minimal changes despite seven matches without sustained attacking output.
Where this season is heading
Whether this Manchester United side is good enough to finish in Europe is genuinely up for debate, and that in itself tells you how far this club has fallen from where it expects to be. A seventh-placed finish looks realistic on the current evidence — not a disaster by the standards of the last few years, but not the platform Carrick was supposed to be building on either.
Fernandes will get goals again. He usually does. The bigger question is whether Carrick fixes what’s actually broken around him before those numbers start mattering in games United can’t afford to lose.
FAQ
Why is Bruno Fernandes struggling for Manchester United this season?
Fernandes has four goals and one assist in seven appearances, but every contribution has come against newly promoted Ipswich Town or Azerbaijani champions Sabah — not a single Premier League contender, highlighting United’s over-reliance on him in weaker games only.
What is Michael Carrick’s record as Manchester United manager so far?
Carrick has overseen seven matches this season, in which United were eliminated from the Carabao Cup and dropped into the bottom half of the Premier League table, prompting bookmakers to shorten his odds in the sack race.
Which Manchester United signings have struggled this season?
Andrey Santos, signed for close to £50m from Chelsea where he was a backup, has made only two competitive starts — both defeats, against Hull and Brighton — while Youri Tielemans has also struggled to make an attacking impact.
Where might Manchester United finish in the Premier League this season?
Based on current form, a seventh-placed finish looks realistic, with European qualification very much in doubt unless Michael Carrick addresses the midfield rebuild and attacking setup around Bruno Fernandes.
Also Read:
