Michael Carrick reportedly decided to drop Bruno Fernandes before the Portugal international criticised tactics after the 4-1 defeat at Como. Fernandes was substituted in the 67th minute and then named on the bench against Bournemouth, with the choice said to rest on his display rather than his comments. According to Caughtoffside.com.
Carrick reportedly settled on dropping Fernandes before the Como outburst
According to the Daily Mail, Carrick had reached his verdict before he became aware of what Fernandes said after the final whistle. The manager appeared prepared to leave him out on the strength of just over an hour of play against Como in the Champions League.
Fernandes has been a star player for Manchester United for many years, yet he criticised the tactics of Carrick and his coaching staff following the loss away to Como. Carrick took him off in the 67th minute, and he then started on the bench for the defeat against Bournemouth in the Premier League that weekend.
That timeline matters for how the episode is read. If the report is accurate, the substitution and the bench place were responses to Fernandes’s performance rather than a reaction to his public criticism, which changes how the sequence of events should be understood. Carrick’s handling may therefore be more defensible than many supporters allow.
One argument is that United could learn from Arsenal under Mikel Arteta, whose rebuild involved difficult and initially unpopular choices, including moving quickly to sideline Mesut Ozil and later Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The same line of thought holds that Fernandes, 32 and capable of world-class displays, risks holding the project back if he blames the manager after poor results.
