Roy Keane tears Bruno Fernandes and Man Utd stars apart in angry rant | Football | Sport
Roy Keane was furious with the behaviour of United’s stars (Image: Stick to Football)
Roy Keane has delivered a blistering criticism of Manchester United’s players and Bruno Fernandes for placing greater importance on the United captain’s assist tally than securing victory. The United legend targeted his former club and raised questions about their mindset, given the focus on Fernandes’ statistics rather than the result itself.
Fernandes matched the Premier League assist record after recording his 20th of the season against Nottingham Forest to set up Bryan Mbeumo. The Portugal international equalled the mark previously set by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. Keane was astonished by the mentality shown by the United squad and insisted that focus should only turn to the ‘sideshow’ after achieving silverware.
“You’re going to get assists in that position he plays. 20 would be better if you’re winning trophies,” Keane said on Stick to Football.
“When you’re the captain of the club and you’re supposed to be driving the club forward, do not be getting bogged down by your role in the team, just assists. I think what I heard at United at the weekend, I was raging with it.
“The whole chat about his assists and players talking about assists. He got interviewed after the match, and I was watching and everyone was talking about assists. The game was about his assists.
“After the game he got interviewed and he said in his interview, the captain of Man United, ‘A few times I should have shot but I made them passes’ [Fernandes actually said he should have passed rather than shot].
“How can your mindset about football be going into a match and talking about an individual record? He’s going to get all of them stats anyway but to become the main point of Manchester United‘s performance at the weekend, I was cringing with all of them.
“And all of the players going over to him when he got the assist. What about the guy who scored the goal?”
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Bruno Fernandes equalled the Premier League assist record. (Image: Getty Images)
Gary Neville interjected and said: “There was nothing on the game, United had finished in the Champions League, Forest had already stayed up.”
But Keane fired back: “If your mindset is like that going into the game, what’s to say it’s not like that in other games? You say there’s nothing in the game, there’s always something on the game. There was 70,000 at the match yesterday.
“I’m just saying, all the players talking about Bruno’s assists, when you’re not winning anything. If you’re winning stuff and players are getting individual awards, fantastic. Golden Boot, thumbs up to that, player of the year, no problem. But that’s further down the line. The priority is the team.
“Man United’s priority this weekend was Bruno getting an assist. Not winning a football match. Not strikers getting goals or defenders or being good at set pieces or keeping a clean sheet. There’s other parts of football that are really important so for one player to get bogged down with assist and his team aren’t winning anything, that’s my issue.
“That will happen anyway. Bruno will get loads of assists the position he plays and he’s got runners ahead of them.
“What’s the point? What’s the point? You’re part of a team game. What’s the priority of the team? To try to win. Of course, he’s doing his job, he’s a brilliant player, and he’s player of the year, he’s getting the rewards, and in the summer, he’ll probably get another new deal because he’s threatening to go to Saudi Arabia. We’ve been down this road before. He’s got previous.
“So for a player to get assists and that becoming the priority, that will come when you’re team is focused on trying to win the big prizes and keeping clean sheets.
“If they win the league next year and he gets 20 assists, I’ll say ‘You know what, well done Man United on winning the league and Bruno, well done’. That’s a little sideshow. That can’t become the main show.”
