Manchester United’s fixture against Greek-Cypriot side Omonia should have been easy. The attackers, however, seemed incapable of striking the ball past Francis Uzoho.
The lack of ruthlessness and cut-throat goal creation against a team of a similar UEFA standard to a League Two side begged the question: what were the forwards doing?
According to the statistics, however, one attacker looks to have enjoyed a great day out – albeit, on paper.
Bruno Fernandes played the whole ninety minutes yesterday.
He scored an impressive 87% pass completion rate; somewhat unfamiliar for the number ten’s risky style of play.
Furthermore, he created seven chances, two of which were considered as big chances, i.e., passing to someone who shoots from close-range or from a favourable position.
He also played six accurate long balls from an attempted seven, as well as intercepting the ball twice from opposition.
On paper, this all looks very impressive for an all-round attacking midfield display, leading to Sofascore rating Fernandes’ evening with 8.6 overall. This is, in fact, Fernandes’ highest rating awarded by the website.
Fernandes’ stellar performance for Portugal against Czech Republic last month did not even receive such adulation. He was given an 8.3 for scoring one goal and assisting another (scored by fellow Red Diogo Dalot).
Looking closer into the details suggests the need to exercise caution over such hyperbolic metric-based ratings.
Fernandes lost possession on 24 occasions. As Red Billy wrote in the Peoples Person’s post-match ratings – wasteful.
It was also noted that there was ‘none of the usual counterbalancing magic’. Evidence for this is that Fernandes had one shot on target out of an attempted five, whilst he only completed one successful dribble.
Hardly the master of puppets performance that fans had become guilty of taking for granted.
Playing against a fellow Portuguese-speaking Bruno on Sunday, Fernandes will need to raise his technical game to match Guimarães’ tiptop form in pulling the midfield strings for Newcastle United.
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