Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes praised his teammates for the manner of their comeback victory over Aston Villa - but insisted that there was no correlation between a Red Devils resurgence and the fact they were playing in front of Sir David Brailsford, two days after Ineoscompleted their minority share takeover deal of the club.
Sat in the stands for the first match since that deal was completed, Brailsford is expected to have a position of influence over football matters, but would not have been impressed by a first half which saw Villa leading by two at the interval.
However, Alejandro Garnacho scored twice and Rasmus Hojlund finally netted his first Premier League goal - after more than 1,000 goalless minutes in the competition - to turn the match around and had United three points. The home players were spurred on only by the need for improvement though, said Fernandes, not by new faces in the boardroom.
“Everyone in the team understood we had to keep pushing and knew what we needed to do. We knew if we could get the first goal of the second half we could change things,” Fernandes said on Amazon Prime Video after the match.
“We’ve been training a lot to get our chances and goals. As a Man United player you know you’re going to be criticised but you have to know how to deal with that and play at this level.
“[The Ineos deal affected the squad] not too much, because it’s not going to change anything we do on the pitch, unless they put money and bring some players for us. But it has to be us [that] makes the difference we need.
“The papers and social media we see everything, it’s impossible not to. We know what the club is going through but we have to focus on what we can control and on our performances.”
Erik ten Hag, also speaking to Prime, added that he told the team at the half-time break that they had already shown their quality in previous matches so should simply continue to do that to mount a revival against Villa.
Despite going in two down, the Dutch boss believed his side had played well throughout the first 45 minutes and noted that the first goal after the restart would be all-important.
“You’re losing by two set plays; maybe we’re not so focused [for them] but I thought first half we played quite well. We said keep believing, do what we did and do it even more. Get to 2-1 and see what happens,” he said.
“We are competitive with Arsenal. We are competitive with Liverpool. So if we play our best we can do it against anyone. Today we showed we have the personality and it was a very good team performance. I’m so happy the strikers scored, it’s what we needed and we’re capable.
“They have to show it every game, be accountable and keep believing.”
Match-winner Hojlund acknowledged his happiness at breaking his Premier League duck, meanwhile. “It’s been a while but I’m happy, the happiest man alive right now - you can see on the celebrations. Like the manager said [previously], I’ve scored a couple in the Champions League but it’s been a while - hopefully I can build on that now.”
