IN just a handful of games, Bruno Fernandes showed, for many, what Paul Pogba should have been to Manchester United. As first impressions go, the Portuguese midfielder made a good one over February and into March before the coronavirus shutdown, very quickly becoming the main man at Old Trafford with series of sparkling performances.
In fact, Fernandes has yet to play a Premier League game for United without being awarded the club’s Man of the Match award, scoring twice and assisting three times in five outings. It’s not just the standard of the 25-year-old’s play that has excited those at Old Trafford, but the influence he seemingly has on others too.
Fernandes has made almost everyone around him better. He is a facilitator by trade and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has deployed him where he can have the greatest influence, whether that’s in a number eight role driving the ball forward from the halfway line or in a number 10 position around the edge of the opposition box.
Of course, these are areas Pogba also likes to play in, but at no point since his return to Manchester United in 2016 has the Frenchman reached the heights Fernandes has since January. The signing of Fernandes from Sporting Lisbon appeared to prove the Old Trafford club had given up on Pogba, pre-emptively replacing him before finally selling him to Juventus or Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain or whatever European super-club was prepared to drop £100m on a highly talented but frustrating player whose marketing clout often outweighs all else.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the landscape for Pogba, though, with all escape routes now apparently closed off. The narrative has changed. Solskjaer is no longer preparing for the midfielder’s departure. Instead, he must now find a way to fit Pogba into a team that may have already moved on without him.
A partnership between Fernandes and Pogba has the potential to give Manchester United their very own Gerrard-Lampard conundrum. There is little doubting the natural ability of either player, but are they too similar to play well together? Might Solskjaer be forced to pick one over the other in order to achieve some balance in the centre of the pitch?
Friday’s away game at Tottenham Hotspur, United’s first since the resumption of the Premier League season, will offer a first glimpse of what Solskjaer plans for the pair. Tactically, balance will be difficult to find, but from a physiological point of view the arrival of Fernandes might actually bring the best out of Pogba.
While Pogba has previously shown himself to be a leader, most notably driving France to World Cup glory in 2018, he has struggled with the weight of expectation on his shoulders as a Manchester United player. Having someone alongside him in Fernandes to share the spotlight might liberate Pogba. For once, it won’t all be on him.
It might only be now that United are starting to build the structure, both on and off the pitch, to harness Pogba. The Frenchman was never someone to build around. His signing should have been the finishing touch on a more holistic reconstruction job rather than the bedrock of a half-hearted attempt at moving on from the Sir Alex Ferguson age.
United now seem to have a better grasp of where they have gone wrong in the past and have a number of moves recently to make amends. Pogba might still harbour hopes that this summer will hold a mega-money transfer for him, but he has never stood a better chance of success at Old Trafford than he does now. Rather than being his replacement, Fernandes might prove to be a partner and a catalyst.
