Reports suggest that Al-Hilal are prepared to offer Manchester United £100m for Bruno Fernandes.
While there’ll be no statue of Fernandes next to the Holy Trinity of Best, Law and Charlton, the United skipper is the closest thing the club have to a modern-day great, but after five-and-a-half years at Old Trafford, there’s every chance Fernandes leaves with little to show for his time there beyond an EFL Cup and an FA Cup winners’ medal, and the loyalty Fernandes has shown has been to the detriment of his trophy cabinet.
Fernandes has received a bizarre amount of criticism during his time with the Red Devils considering he endeavours to pound every blade of grass and has often been the team’s only real creative outlet.
He won’t win any fans outside of Manchester with his arm-waving antics, feigning injury and constantly being in referees’ faces, but as a footballer, Fernandes has been superb.
Off the pitch, too, many have spoken of Fernandes’s influence, going out of his way to help nurture younger players, as well as supporting United staff members.
Another sign of Fernandes’s leadership is that he said he won’t push to leave, but will depart if that’s what the club deems is the best course of action. It’s a remarkable and rare act of selflessness from a player, neither pushing to leave not insisting he stays, but doing whatever the club wants.
While Fernandes is basically irreplaceable thus making the offer easier to reject at first glance, United need to break a long-term habit and look to the next few years. The club have frequently bought players for the here and now, and almost never go on to make any sort of profit on the players they buy.
In the last decade, United have signed the likes of Fred, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Anthony Martial, Donny van de Beek, Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Casemiro for around £500m, recouping around £75m.
For their ludicrous outlay, United have no Premier League titles or runs to the latter stages of the UEFA Champions and haven’t turned a profit on any of the aforementioned players. They’re still trying to get Casemiro off the books as well as the likes of Andre Onana, Rasmus Hojlund and Antony, who’ll all be sold for significant losses when their time comes.
It’s never an easy decision to make when a club offers a mega fee for your best player; Philippe Coutinho was Liverpool’s best player at the time of his departure, which was far from a universally popular move at the time. Eighteen months later, Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League.
The move worked out superbly for the Reds. To paraphrase Brad Pitt in Moneyball, Liverpool couldn’t replace Coutinho, but they could recreate him in the aggregate. The move allowed Jurgen Klopp to play his preferred midfield three and helped to fund the moves for Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Alisson, and they were a far better team for the Brazilian’s departure.
Fernandes has attributes that will be very difficult to replace. He’s an extremely forward-thinking passer who runs himself into the ground, but his lack of pace and occasionally poor decision making means he’s a risk to play in a midfield two, while United are already investing in the number 10 role with Matheus Cunha.
Ruben Amorim needs a striker more than anything else; he could also do with at least one central midfielder, another number 10 and potentially a replacement for Onana, and that money won’t just come out of thin air.
Manchester United are not a Liverpool who can drop £100m+ on one elite player to keep them at the top of the game; they’re now forced into a position other clubs voluntarily take, in that they need to buy players for less than they’re worth and sell them for more than they’re worth. The need to create a financial platform that allows them to build
Whether the INEOS team are shrewd enough to do that remains to be seen, though the new regime are showing more emphasis in signing younger, more unproven players on the cheap.
Chido Obi, Sekou Kone and Ayden Heaven cost peanuts but could form key parts of future United squads; Heaven has already shown he’s near first-team level, while Kone will likely receive minutes next season.
The club are years away from being in a position to challenge for titles; it will require serious squad building which will only come from making consistently smart decisions in the transfer market.
While it would be an emotional farewell, selling Fernandes would be the first step.
