Bruno Fernandes exclusive: There’s no way for us not to believe in Ruben Amorim’s Man Utd plan

Bruno Fernandes is exhausted; his legs a little heavy and his mind spent from the “suffering” it took to evict Arsenal from the FA Cup on penalties, having been a man down from 62 minutes.

It is no wonder Manchester United's captain has walked into their Carrington training base sapped: he was the goalscorer, first off the mark in the shootout, and attached to his relentless performance was his role as the deliverer of "flowers" - honour, recognition and thanks - to deserving team-mates.

In the aftermath of the victory at the Emirates, Bruno shifted any focus from himself to a colossal display from Altay Bayindir, who produced a goalkeeping masterclass particularly from the spot, and Joshua Zirkzee's redemption arc.

"I like everyone to be happy. I want everyone to feel a part, to feel involved," Fernandes tells Live Sportly News the morning after the victory before.

"When you are in a good moment, in a high moment, I rather give that to other players - not because I don't want to have that moment, because obviously every player wants to have his credit, his flowers and his moments of joy - but this is just the way I live my life.

"I do really think for a team to be successful, it needs everyone to be at the same level of happiness. Even knowing that some players will play less than others, you need to find a way to push them in certain moments for them to feel that they are as much important as I am."

Fernandes was particularly pleased for Zirkzee, who endured the ignominy of being hauled off on 33 minutes in the defeat to Newcastle to a smattering of cheers from his own supporters, but dispatched the decisive penalty to keep the defending champions in the tournament.

"The script was already there for a long time," Bruno smiles. "You know, when when you are a good person, when you do the right things, you can have bad moments but at the end everything will come through strong.

"It was a decision by the staff to pick the five players to have the penalty and they put Josh last. And the only thing it came into my mind was to tell the players that the script is done. So everything is done since that moment against Newcastle that prepared us to, in this moment, give Josh his moment and his credit and his flowers.

"We can talk about whatever people want to talk about, like 'penalties, it's easy.' It's how we got to penalties. Altay saved the penalty [in normal time] from Martin Odegaard who hadn't missed one in his professional career yet. And then Josh, in a moment of pressure with everything he's been through in his mind, steps up and and gives us the win."

It was more than a tale of triumph for United, with the 'how' and the 'who' providing another testament to Ruben Amorim's theory that it was not his system that was an issue, but effort and application.

The manner in which his side worked off the ball against Arsenal and increased their resolve rather than wilted when Diogo Dalot got sent off was encouraging. Aligned with a chest-out, combative draw at Anfield in a game they could have stolen at the death against Liverpool, United seem to be painting a portrait of resurgence.

Bruno, however, warns it is the brush strokes against every team and not just the club's rivals that will decide whether the picture is completed or an artificial illusion.

"We can't look at names, we can't look at badges, we can't look at the table, whoever is in front or below us. We just need to look at ourselves and understand that we play for a massive club and we have to set a standard for ourselves. That this is where we want to be minimum and where we have to go still to get the best out of everyone."

The resilience against Liverpool and Arsenal followed extended time on the Carrington pitches to work on Amorim's blueprint. Interestingly, Bruno sways towards an uptick in the psychological elements as a bigger explainer for those performances.

"It helps always when you have time to train and to prepare the games a little bit more," he offers. "It's important but I think in these two games was more about - and the manager said this to us - it's more about the passion, the desire, everything you put into the game in terms of how much you want to win the game.

"I think everyone is really aware of what he wants and he demands from us position-wise, tactical-wise and everything. I think we are now getting into the level that he wants effort-wise, with running and passion and desire to win games. So I think we still have a lot to improve for me in both aspects. But we will do it. And I'm pretty sure that we are in a good path to do it.

"But now we have a massive game where everyone could look at in a different way and probably look at it from the outside and say, 'United now is in a good moment. They've got Southampton at home. They will beat them for sure, but we can't think that way because Southampton is fighting for their lives.

"They want to stay in the Premier League and they really need points. But we need to turn this around and look at ourselves and say that we also need really, really, really need points more than them. We have to think that 'we need points more than them' and it has to be our aim for every game that we go through. The opponent needs it so much, but we need it more than them."

United have certainly been jolted back into life, into action, into a sense of pride. At Anfield, Lisandro Martinez pointed to his head to explain what the difference had been for the team. Bruno's lines about mentality and intension are from the same book. Was Amorim's reality check of a relegation scrap the spark?

"No, no, no," Bruno chuckles before returning to serious mode. "Obviously I know what the manager meant with that and what Licha (Martinez) said is right - it's about the mentality. You go to the game against Liverpool and you know, it's a massive game. You're going to be prepared for every detail. Your mind will remember every detail that the manager told you; every movement, every thing that they do, every thing that we trained.

"And probably in some games where you don't play against the big teams and you think you don't need to be as much aware and probably you mentally disconnect for five seconds. And in the Premier League, five seconds is too much against any team. And Southampton is one of that games where I don't want any of us for five seconds to disconnect because they have good players, they have qualities.

"They could have got more points than they have in the table. I'm not saying that they are a big team. That they are a team that is better than us and we should not win the game. We have to win the game. We should be concerned about every moment and every second through the game because if we do that, and then with everything; the way we prepare the game, tactical-wise and technical-wise, if we do what we've been doing, I'm pretty sure that we'll win the game."

United's noted improvements have been in their intensity and defensive shape. If there is one area Amorim still needs to see great strides from, it is in attack.

"The manager has been telling us a lot that we have to score more goals," Bruno nods. "And that's true because we are a team that has the capability of scoring goals. I know we have a lot of young players in front but we have qualities and we have to score goals because Rasmus is capable of scoring goals. Josh is capable, Amad is capable. Garnacho Rashy, Antony, me and even the midfielders that sometimes play a bit deeper like Kobbie or Manu or Casa or Christian, they're all players with goals in them.

"So we have a lot of players that have the capability of scoring goals. Like yesterday, Carlos came to talk with me - the assistant of the manager before the game - telling me that we need more desire to run into the box, to make the run, to get in there. When we are on the counter, we need to run. And the goal comes a little bit from that. Garnacho recovers the ball, then Diogo jumps, then Garna gets the ball from Gabriel. And in my mind was just like, 'just run as quick as you can to get into the box because you know Garna is quick and is going to get there before you. So you need to run as fast as you can because you need to score.' And that desire to defend our goal has to be the same desire to score goals. And this is something that the manager wants us to improve. And I think we have a lot to improve because we have so much quality in our team to score more goals that what we've been showing. This is not really the level we have here."

The clouds have partially lifted on a dark spell for United, where they were just seven points off the drop zone and headed into the new year in their worst league position since 1989.

"It's really easy when you don't get results, when you don't get the performance that you start losing belief on everything you've been doing," Bruno says, adding: "but I think that was one of the good things we had as a team - we kept the belief on what we are doing, on what we've been training and where we want to go as a team, where the staff wants us to go as a team, what we want to improve as a team.

"And that is what is giving us now some more credit because we've been doing the same things that people probably will think like, 'oh, the manager has to change this back three or back five, it doesn't work. We need to go back four. We need one more striker.'

"You know, every time you lose or every time something goes wrong, everyone has an opinion about what you should do differently. But obviously the manager has his own idea and we understand. What we do really understand as players at the moment is that he really believes in this. So there is no way that it makes you not believe it.

"So everything he says to you, everything he tries to pass to you - him and his staff - he does it in a way that we really believe on what we are doing in. Even in games where you concede a goal or you have a setback or whatever, he just wants us to understand that the things we're doing they will bring results if we do it in the right way.

"And that's the most important thing we had in this period where we were not getting results was difficult. As you said, it's really tough here when you we're not winning games, but it's massive and brilliant when you're winning games here too.

"So we just have to understand that if we can keep this level, this performance, and most obviously get the results, the fans will be behind us. There will be a big push for us, as there was yesterday - 8,000 at Emirates.

"And we have to bring this back that we had in the past where every team that was coming here felt fear of any moment United could score a goal or could hurt them. And we have to bring this back in togetherness with the fans, with the patience that we need to have as a team to believe in the process. We need the fans to have the same patience, to believe in the players because we can deliver. They have seen it. We have to prove that we can deliver it every three days and we will do it. And we need them to be behind us to do that."

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