At a time when statistics flood post-match analyzes, the numbers sometimes usurp a player’s real performance. But those of Bruno Fernandes are striking and eloquent. The Portuguese playmaker has been directly involved in 33 of Manchester United’s 64 Premier League goals since joining the club a year ago. That is 51.5% of his team’s total. Nineteen achievements. Fourteen assists. All in 31 appearances. No other player in the Premier League has done better over the same period.
Rarely has a player, who is foreign and recruited in winter, had such an impact in his first year in the Premier League. Henry had a tentative start at Arsenal. Drogba was under fire from critics at Chelsea. De Bruyne and Salah left Stamford Bridge without winning. Even Torres, author of an exceptional first season in Liverpool (22 goals and 4 assists), is far from the Portuguese.
The comparison is even truer in Manchester. Cristiano Ronaldo was only 18 when he arrived in 2003. Pogba did not have the desired effect given his record price (105 M €). Di Maria was a failure as was Alexis Sanchez. Lukaku left after two seasons.
Cantona, the “catalyst”
But what is even more striking is the effect produced by Bruno, as the supporters call him, on his new team. Before his arrival, MU took 34 points in 24 days. With him, almost as much (32), but in ten fewer matches! And if we add the 36 gleaned this season, that makes Manchester United the best team in England (68 points) since signing, far ahead of Liverpool and City (62).
Never has a newcomer transformed a club the size of United so much. None since… Eric Cantona, considered by Alex Ferguson himself as the “catalyst” of the first of his 13 titles at MU. We have to go back to 1992, November 26 to be precise.
After having stupidly offered the previous exercise to Leeds *, its other great rival with Liverpool, the Mancunian club is eighth in the standings, eliminated from the two national cups. Just two wins in 13 games, nine goals scored. The rising star of English football (Shearer) preferred the silver of Blackburn and the great recruit of the summer (Dublin) broke his leg. So Ferguson relied on the impressions of his defenders, Bruce and Pallister, rave about Cantona, buttocks in the bathwater after a game against Leeds.
“Has he lost a leg?”
An impromptu phone call from Peacocks general manager Bill Fotherby to his Mancunian counterpart Martin Edwards did the rest. The former wanted to buy Leeds kid Denis Irwin and ended up selling his best item whose relationship with the coach had reached the point of no return. The versions of the story vary according to the autobiographies. Ferguson says he spoke to Fotherby himself; Edwards that the Scotsman was next to the phone and wrote Cantona’s name on a piece of paper…
A transfer from another time, completed in half a day and for the modest sum, today, of 1.2 million pounds! Which will make Brian Kidd, Ferguson’s assistant say, “Cantona lost a leg?”
The arrival of the repentant Frenchman changed everything in Manchester. Together, they ended twenty-six years of waiting, won four titles in five years, and arguably would have achieved the royal sequel if “Canto” hadn’t rocked his famous kung fu at Selhurst Park, which deprived of the rest of the season. “He was the missing piece of the puzzle,” said Paul Ince, who saw the Frenchy land in the United locker room. He allowed everyone to raise their level. “
He’s a “winner” and it’s contagious
That’s what Fernandes did. He’s a “winner” and it’s contagious. If the French inspired the class 92 (Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Neville…), the 26-year-old Portuguese drags his people behind him. Shaw has become a good defender again, Fred has won in the middle, McTominay asserts himself as a leader, Rashford is the new king of England. Even Pogba resurfaces.
We don’t really know what’s special about Bruno Fernandes. He doesn’t have the elegance of an Özil, nor the ease of a Hazard or the dribbling of a Salah. And even less the charisma of a Cantona, raised collar defying the crowd. It still happens to disappear during a meeting but keeps this magic that can tip a match on a kick. Spitting “Canto”.
If the French fell in love with Manchester, the Portuguese dreamed of it since childhood to imitate his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo, who arrived like him from Sporting. The story of a kid who consoled himself with his ball when his older brother chased him from the room they shared to invite his friends. A kid who remembered that day in Switzerland, where his father had gone to work, who had wanted to be forgiven for his absences by offering them, to him and his brother, the tunic of their dreams, that of MU for Bruno.
What is a legend?
We do not yet know the scope of the transfer of the latter in the history of the club but that of Cantona was a major turning point. Without him MU would not have won the 1993 title, his managers might not have given Ferguson another chance after seven seasons without a crown and Cantona would have gotten angry with his coach at Leeds because it always ends like that, except to MU obviously. This is what a legend holds.
A little over a month ago, the head of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was claimed by many, weighed down by the elimination of the club from a Champions League pool that his team led yet two days from the end. Five weeks and five days later, he is leader of the Premier League, a first at this stage since 2013, the year of the club’s last title. Before challenging Liverpool at Anfield and reviving one of the greatest rivalries in English football.
If Ferguson has “come down Liverpool from his pole”, Solskjaer can prevent the Reds from going up to MU (20 titles to 19). And Bruno Fernandes is following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor by ending eight years of waiting.
* MU was the leader with a 5 point lead five days from the end.
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