Bruno Fernandes offers vision of a thrusting United midfield after so long

Back in my student days, when I was an editor on the campus newspaper, we ran a regular feature called “George W Bush’s Thought Of The Week”. It was an empty box with a blue border. We were 19 and, as it turned out, not as funny as we thought we were.

For much of the last decade you could make a similar joke about Manchester United’s midfield: an entity that seemed to be defined as much by its absence as by its presence. Through the Fletcher years, the Fellaini years, the Schneiderlin years and more latterly the McTominay years, United’s midfield has felt like a metaphysical puzzle: if it doesn’t do anything, can it actually be said to exist? Even the world-record capture of Paul Pogba seemed only to exacerbate the problem: a sort of footballing anti-matter that merely highlighted the paucity of his context.

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At the heart of this debate is a deceptively simple question: do you want the ball? Every midfielder says they do, of course, but you can always tell. Pogba really wants it. Jordan Henderson doesn’t. David Beckham couldn’t do without it. Frank Lampard wanted to want it but deep down you could tell he didn’t. Paul Scholes wasn’t that fussed.

United’s problem, and one that certainly pre-dates the Ole Gunnar Solskjær era, is that they have too few midfielders who genuinely seem to want the ball. Scott McTominay doesn’t want it. Jesse Lingard doesn’t want it. This, perhaps, is why so much of their play is funnelled uselessly up the channels: the centre a sort of exclusion zone, a flaw to be concealed rather than an opportunity to be exploited.

Teams like Chelsea bring this issue into sharp focus. Like United, Chelsea may be going through their own transitional moment: players being phased in, players being phased out. Still, for all their travails at either end of the pitch, midfield is one area in which they are not lacking. N’Golo Kanté, Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho, Mason Mount, Ross Barkley. Christian Pulisic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek to return. Ball-wanters, one and all.

It was the first three of these who started this game, with Mount replacing the injured Kanté early in the first half. And initially at least it was Kovacic pulling the strings, injecting pace into Chelsea’s attacks, making the first real chance for Reece James on five minutes.

What of United’s midfield three? Fred definitely wants the ball. Often this eagerness manifests itself in a heavy first touch that he then has to recover from, further reinforcing his reputation as a tackler rather than a passer. But he’s willing, and with a little time and little love should well flourish.

Nemanja Matic gathers in the ball with the world-weariness of a man who really, really doesn’t want it. As it rolls to his feet, you can see him look up half-accusingly, as if to say: “Whose ball is this?” The answer to this question is almost invariably Luke Shaw’s, and accordingly the ball will find its way to him via a casual, half-hearted pass that allows the opposition plenty of time to put him under pressure.

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And so into this vaudeville steps Bruno Fernandes, United’s new £60m playmaker. Like a Hollywood actor parachuted into a daytime soap opera in an attempt to drum up ratings, Fernandes is entering an intrinsically morose club with the express objective of providing the creative spark. He can’t do it on his own, of course. There was a moment in the first half when he picked the ball up in midfield and looked up to see – well, very little. Ahead of him Daniel James and Anthony Martial were marked out of the picture. Behind him Fred and Matic were both making encouraging faces but offering very little else in the way of material support. This is, you suspect, how it will be for a while.

But as United settled into the game, taking the lead through Martial – a move that fittingly skirted the edge of the pitch as if funnelled that way by a tour guide – you got glimpses of how it was all meant to work. Fernandes picking up the ball in deep, moving it on quickly, and then getting himself forward to supplement the attack. Fred lurking; Matic bolting the gate. Not to mention Fernandes’s set-piece delivery, which provides United with an edge they have too often lacked in recent years. His immaculate delivery on to the head of Harry Maguire put United 2-0 up and made the game safe.

In modern football it is your midfield, above all, that represents the sort of team you want to be. For some time now United’s has been an analogue of their own stunted ambition: too much touchline-hugging, not enough bravery, not enough creativity. Two games is far too small a sample size to be making definitive judgments. But on this early evidence the kinetic Fernandes may just point the way towards a brighter future.