Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes stood shivering in the freezing temperatures outside Viktoria Plzen’s stadium on Thursday evening, his side having come from a goal down to win 2-1 and record a first European away win since March 2023.
“It was a good performance overall,” he told The National following a victory that keeps United unbeaten in this season's Europa League and on course for a place in the knockout round.
“We could have been better in the final third. The man marking from them was a tough one. We needed to run away from their players, support the guys in front to do a third man run and then try to find the space in behind. I think in the first half we did it a little bit better. Second half we left the game be more a transition game as they wanted.”
The winner came after Fernandes played a clever ball along the ground from a free-kick towards Danish striker Rasmus Hojlund, who scored his second of the game.
“I saw Rasmus there, he understood the sign, then he made a sign where he wanted the ball,” explained Fernandes. “Then he’s done a great control, I just made the pass. It’s just a great control from him and a great finish. It was just a simple pass and he made it look good.”
Hojlund was one of several substitutes who lifted United’s performance from the mediocre to acceptable.
“We always have players that can impact the game,” said Fernandes. “It became a transition game, so I think we’re quite good in that because we have a lot of space, we have a lot of good players. We have players that can take their player on. We have good passers in behind, so it becomes more natural for us to get chances but also to get more exposed.”
United are 13th in the Premier League after their worst start since 1986/87. Winning the Europa League is likely to be the best route into European competition next season,
“Our focus has to be on the next game and in the Europa League we want to go as far as possible and obviously try to win the competition, because we know that we are one of the teams that everyone expects to be further into the last games and we want to go until the end and win the competition,” said Fernandes.
“We can’t hide from that, but we need to think game by game because we didn’t start well this season in the Premier League or in the Europa League, so we have to put the focus on that.”
That next game is at Manchester City on Sunday. United are mid-table, City are hopelessly out of form having won only once in their last 10 matches. Does that mean the game is there for United’s taking?
“It doesn’t change anything for us because we have to think about ourselves,” said Fernandes. “We all know that this is a huge game and they have huge players; they’re probably not winning as much as everyone would expect them to do. But we must focus on ourselves because we’re not being at the level we want to be also, so we can’t think about the momentum of the others.
"We know it’s City, huge derby. We know what it means for the fans and it means a lot for us too, so we just must go to the game and win without thinking about who we have ahead.”
United have the rare luxury of every player being back in training. Coach Ruben Amorim also says that his players will continue to help goalkeeper Andre Onana, who has made mistakes in the last two games.
Amorim also urged caution on the assumption that City are weaker.
"No, no, no, no,” he said. “The great teams can respond in any moment and I think they are in a better place than us in type of understanding the game, the way they play, the confidence they have. Even in this kind of moments, we have a lot to focus on in our team. Of course we have a strategy to try to win the game with the strategy like it should be. But we are focused just on our team.”
Have United made enough improvements under Amorim in the last month to get a result?
“It’s not to get the results at the Etihad, it is to try to win games,” said Fernandes. “That’s what we want to improve. Obviously we play City and we want to win the game and it doesn’t matter if it was another game, we will try to win in the same way. We know they have great players. It doesn’t matter the momentum they are in. We must think about ourselves, what we can do to hurt them to win the game, and that’s all.”
