Bruno Fernandes says Manchester United must use the pain of Sunday’s 6-3 derby defeat as fuel for improvement after admitting attitude and belief was lacking from the outset at Manchester City.
A run of four straight Premier League wins under Erik ten Hag came to a shuddering halt on enemy turf as Erling Haaland and Phil Foden both scored hat-tricks in a one-sided encounter at the Etihad Stadium.
Anthony Martial grabbed two after Antony had scored a stunning consolation, but the damage was already done by that point as United limped into half-time four goals down for the second time this season.
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 2, 2022
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That 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Brentford in August kicked Ten Hag’s men into life and Fernandes said the same must happen this time.
“I think the attitude and the belief from the beginning was not the best and I think it was that that caused us many problems and made us concede early goals,” the stand-in skipper said at the Etihad Stadium.
“After we have to run back the result and obviously I think the second half was much better.
“We keep control more, we control more the game. Whenever we have the ball we are more brave.
“Obviously we’re down on the result, so we had to take some risks – and obviously when you take that risk you score straight away, you try to go a little bit more (attacking) and you concede more goals. Against teams like City, you can’t give that much space to them.
“Obviously we are really disappointed but now it’s time to focus on the next game and understand that we have to get back in the performances that we did before – in the belief and everything, in the togetherness principle – and understand that this cannot get us down.
“It has to make us improve for the future.”
Put to Fernandes that it is a process under Ten Hag and the loss acted as a reminder that there remain improvements to make, he said: “That’s obvious after this result.
“We knew that it was going to be a tough game, but we had tough games before and we have won it.
“So, I think it’s about mentality, attitude, togetherness and belief in the process.”
The loss at City was the worst possible start to a hectic October schedule that sees United play nine fixtures across domestic and continental competitions.
Ten Hag’s side return to Premier League action at Everton on Sunday evening, but first comes Thursday’s Europa League match against Omonia Nicosia in Cyprus.
“(Playing so many games) is a good thing,” Fernandes told MUTV.
“You don’t have that much time to recover, but at the same time you have to understand that you have a chance to get a result, a good result, a good performance to give more confidence to the team.
“It’s about now going to the Europa League and winning the next game, and all the games that are coming for us.”
