Former Manchester United full-back Patrice Evra has urged Erik ten Hag to take drastic action over Bruno Fernandes if the Red Devils skipper doesn’t break his bad “habit”.
Fernandes has come in for plenty of criticism in the wake of United’s 7-0 mauling at Liverpool and Evra reckons Ten Hag needs to nip his bad behaviour and attitude in the bud.
The former United left-back says the Dutch boss should consider dropping the United captain.
“Honestly, it was embarrassing. I don’t want to just pick Bruno, I love Bruno as a player, but his body language, this is not the first game it was like that. And I see him arguing with players sometimes,” he told Vibe with Five.
“He has this thing and he needs to get rid of that. Paul Pogba used to have this also at Juventus, and Allegri benched him because of that. Sometimes it’s a habit, sometimes it’s not like Bruno is a bad person or whatever, it’s just a habit.
“I feel like no manager has taught him you can’t do that. Like Rio can tell you, I remember when Nani wasn’t crossing the ball to Wayne [Rooney], you remember Wayne the way he was shouting.
“That’s when after the fans start hating Nani a little bit. So me, when I see this body language, as a manager, those players won’t play in my team. No matter if they are good, because this is disrespectful, they give up.”
Red Devils legend Gary Neville has also took issue with the 28-year-old for his antics on Sunday.
“You can have a bad game, this place can do that to you sometimes, we’ve seen it over history, but there were signs in that second half and things that I saw in that second half which were a disgrace,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“I must start with Bruno Fernandes because I’ve had enough of him throwing his arms around at his teammates. I’ve had enough of him not running back. He whinges at everybody. Going down – he got pushed down in his chest and goes down holding his face.
“He’s got to put in a captain’s performance out there, that wasn’t a captain’s performance by a Manchester United player. Erik ten Hag will deal with them very strongly in the next 24, 48 hours.
“He’s done that this season a few times, and I hope that normal service will have resumed by the end of next week, but they’ve got to own that performance today and they’ve got to own that result because they’ve lost seven nil at Anfield in a Manchester United shirt – it is a disgrace.”
