Manchester United are now eight competitive games into their first season under manager Erik ten Hag and while it hasn’t been plain sailing, they are on a run of four straight wins in the league and now have their first points on the board in this year’s Europa League campaign.
That being said, starring midfielder and fan favourite Bruno Fernandes has given more of an insight into the Dutchman’s coaching philosophy, alluding to ‘strict’ new rules and a change in atmosphere around the club.
Speaking in an exclusive with The Athletic‘s Adam Crafton, the 28-year-old playmaker revealed that, ‘first of all, he has an idea. He has a style’ and that the players have to stick to his overarching vision if they are looking to get into and stay in his team.
As he goes on to explain: “You have to follow [ten Hag’s] rules. He is strict on that. And I like that. He has brought discipline, which is something I think we missed in the past. Everyone must be on the same page.”
The ‘Portuguese Magnifico’, who was United’s player of the year in 2020/21 with an incredible 28 goals and 17 assists in his debut season, drew comparisons between the former Ajax coach’s principles and that of his closest rivals in Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.
“That is what Pep and Klopp have been doing for years”, says Fernandes, “because they have stability in the club and in the way they choose the transfer market and build the team, which is really important for them to get the rewards.”
United’s newly minted no. 8 recognised ten Hag’s plans to be pragmatic in the transfer window and purchase with purpose early, citing a press conference where he insisted that he did not want to bring players ‘just for the sake of it’ and that they must fit the blueprints of what he is trying to build.
Not only is the suggestion that the club have been guilty of this in the past – to the tune of more than a billion pounds in the past decade, no less – but Bruno himself believes ‘it is something the club needs’ moving forward.
Addressing on his own dip in performances over the last two seasons, admitting he regularly fluctuates between, bad games, really good games’ and ‘normal games, the ever-creative outlet says there is still plenty of work to be done before the team is all singing from the same hymn sheet.
“We still have a margin to improve and he needs time to get the most out of us with his idea of playing. I believe we will get to the point with him where we are established as a team and everyone is on the same page.”
Even on his off days, Fernandes still plays a vital role in this current Red Devils side and has regularly deputised for Harry Maguire, now sidelined from the squad since the arrival of Lisandro Martínez who has shored up the Man United defence alongside Raphaël Varane.
Fernandes also went on to discuss Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the man who brought him to the club, noting that he did ‘great things’ during his tenure and that the players must share some responsibility for his eventual sacking.
He even touched on short-lived interim coach and would-be consultant, Ralf Rangnick, who lasted just six months at Old Trafford before abandoning the project to become Austria’s national team coach.
Once again, Bruno suggested that his turbulent time at United was more because ‘confidence was low’ among the players and, therefore, they couldn’t put his ‘intensity and pressing’ into action, not to mention many of them being Solskjær signings who were brought in with ‘different ideas’ in mind.
The attacking midfielder summarised things by circling back to the somewhat unexpected win over Liverpool, arguing that ‘nobody was betting on Man United, only ourselves’. He believes that the team must now treat the rest of the season with the same mental attitude: being supportive, positive and ‘demanding of each other in a good way’.
Featured Image: Bruno Fernandes (via Instagram)
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Pep Guardiola hints at when Manchester City fans can expect to see their latest arrival
Danny Jones
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given supporters a rough timeline as to when they can expect to see their new signing, or at least their latest arrival, make his first appearance.
The Blues wrapped up the January transfer window with four major signings: their new attacking number seven, Omar Marmoush (who has already bagged a hattrick on his home debut) promising defensive duo, Abdukodir Khusanov and Brazilian Vitor Reis, as well as their ‘mini-Rodri’, Nico Gonzalez.
However, the club has had another late arrival who was technically signed back at the start of last year but who has spent for the last 12 months or so loaned back to his previous parent club, River Plate in Argentina, waiting to make the move over to the Etihad Stadium – and now he’s here in Manchester.
Speaking on his touchdown in 0161, Pep said Claudio Echeverri won’t be thrown into first-team action straight away but did give a rough estimate as to when City fans could expect him to get involved. You can see him discussing the integration plan in his post-match press conference following the Spurs win.
The mention was only brief but there’s still plenty of reason for Man City fans to be excited by the late January signing.
“Yeah, he [Claudio Echeverri] is going to start to train and mainly will be for the end of the season, maybe the [Club] World Cup and as soon as possible [that] he arrives he can adapt quick for the future.”
As mentioned, the 19-year-old Argentinian attacking midfielder from Resistencia officially put pen to paper with CFG back in January 2024 and was quickly dubbed ‘the next Messi’.
Now, although the football world is often quick to jump the gun with these things and he isn’t the first and certainly won’t be last to be slapped with this premature title, he’s done more to back up these claims since then than he has rubbish them.
Starring at the 2025 Under-20 South American Championships, netting six goals in nine games to finish the tournament as the second highest scorer thanks to notable braces against Brazil and Uruguay as the young Argentine’s finished as runners up.
He also notched 48 senior appearances for River Plate thus far, netting four goals and grabbing eight assists in that time, not to mention having already captained his national team at the 2023 Under 17s World Cup, where he scored another five.
Safe to say there’s plenty of talent to be tapped in this lad.
Once again, Echeverri won’t go straight into the senior set-up for a little while yet, barring a major injury crisis, but he’ll be a more than exciting addition to the City Football Academy and for future first-team lineups for years to come.
Who knows, maybe he’ll be included in an FA Cup matchday squad? Nevertheless, you can expect him to not just come of the bench but hopefully show what he can do at the Club World Cup this summer.
City‘s first fixture as reigning champions of the competition will be against Moroccan side Wydad AC on 18 June 2025.
You can watch Echeverri’s first full interview as a Man City player down below:
The new Man City signing is excited to be finally be part of the club 13 months on from agreeing his contract.
‘Nothing is eternal’: Is Pep Guardiola hinting at the end of Manchester City’s supremacy?
Danny Jones
Pep Guardiola looks to have suggested that more than a decade of Manchester City’s supremacy and Premier League dominance at the very least might be coming to an end.
Speaking in his post-match press interviews after City were knocked out of the Champions League by serial European Cup winners Real Madrid, Guardiola cut a somewhat more deflated figure than usual following the 3-1 defeat.
A Kylian Mbappe hattrick which was closed out within an hour of play was enough to stretch the aggregate score to 6-3 over the two legs and Madrid doubling their lead across the tie proved yet again why, not unlike City domestically over the last decade, they’re the kings of the continental competition.
In contrast, however, Pep seemed to accept the loss much more easily than perhaps we’ve seen in the past and rather than appearing familiarly frustrated or defiant in the press conference; instead, he seemed rather reflective, responding to one reporter: “Nothing is eternal”.
🗣️ "Nothing is eternal" – Pep Guardiola.
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Insisting that they have to decide whether a significant rebuild is needed to keep competing at the very top level consistently as they have done since the 54-year-old arrived back in 2016, he argued that it is only with that they’ll be able to determine what comes next.
As for the result itself, he made no bones about Carlo Ancelotti’s side having “deserved it”, stating simply that “the best team won” and that fans and players alike have to “accept the reality: they were better.”
Having been a familiar foe for Pep long before he arrived in Manchester, both at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – not to mention City having faced Los Blancos a dozen times before Tuesday night since 2012 – there have been less surprising outcomes for supporters to come to terms with.
“With time, the club and everyone is going to accept what it is but for now we have 30/40 games for the Premier League next season to try and be here [in the Champions League] and to improve. Nothing is eternal”, said the Catalan coaching genius.
On the other hand, he also went on to add that it was merely a reflection on the night itself and not what his team have achieved in recent years.
He went on to remark that “when we were playing outstanding it hurt more” to be knocked out of the UCL when he felt they deserved to stay in it, but still insisted: “We have been unbelievable and we have to try step by step to get better from today.” Tonight just wasn’t the night.
Who knows? Perhaps it was just some more melodrama from a manager with an undeniable flare for pageantry and playing into/in the face of narratives when he doesn’t come out on top – which hasn’t happened all that often until their dip in form this season.
Plus, there’s certainly still plenty for him and the fans to be positive about; not only has the arrival of their ‘Egyptian Prince’ and the media’s Mo Salah successor, Omar Marmoush, got plenty of people excited – especially after that first-half hattrick against Newcastle – but so too have the other January signings.
In fact, for all of his downplaying in this particular presser (which you can hear in full HERE), it felt like there were only upsides after their victory over Newcastle, even going so far as to dub new signing Nico Gonzalez a ‘mini-Rodri‘.
You can watch the highlights from the game down below:
Pep is right, nothing is eternal – but sometimes you just come up against talents like Mbappe and there’s very little anyone can do about it.
Danny Jones -
20th September 2022 
