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Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes attributed his side’s superb 4-1 win over Real Sociedad to increasing confidence within the ranks.
United beat Sociedad in the return leg of their Europa League round of 16 clash, to advance to the quarter-finals of the competition, where they will face Lyon.
Mikel Oyarzabal’s early spot-kick gave Sociedad the lead but Fernandes responded by scoring a pair of penalties before Sociedad substitute Jon Aramburu was sent off for a reckless last-man challenge on Patrick Dorgu.
Fernandes completed his hat-trick before Diogo Dalot wrapped up a 4-1 win, and 5-2 aggregate triumph.
After the final whistle, the skipper spoke to TNT Sports and gave his verdict on the result and United’s performance.
He said, “This club is all about winning and obviously we want to perform as best as we can but as I said before, it’s all about winning. We need to win games and there’s no other option in this competition.”
“We still have a long way to go but we are confident that if we focus on every game ahead, and with the right mentality, we can win games.”
On fighting back after Sociedad got an early advantage, Fernandes answered, “It was good for us because we reacted quick and you make the game equal straight away. Obviously, the penalty was a little bit unlucky but then we get our own penalty through a great ball from Casemiro and then Rasmus gets in front of the defender and is just unlucky that he falls on him, if not it will be a goal.”
“We are really happy with the performance and the win and that’s the most important thing for us.”
Asked where United’s improvement in attacking play has come from, Fernandes replied, “With the results and performances, when you start getting a little bit more confident…I think confidence is a big thing in football and I think at this club even more because you know how much you’re in the eyes of everyone, so you need to perform at the highest level.”
“But the main thing is that we have to back ourselves in the dressing room, in the training ground. Everyone has to understand that we’re here for each other.”
Fernandes added, “I think you see it [Amorim’s philosophy] at times, but not yet the way the manager wants and how we want.”
“We’re making good progress but as I said, the progress will be seen if we get results. At this club, it’s all about results. We want to perform better, we want to play better. The manager wants us to improve the way we want to play but at the same time, he wants us to win games.”
Fernandes said about Hojlund, who was a lot better tonight, “He’s a striker. Strikers are all about goals and you’re going to be criticised by scoring or not scoring from the outside world.”
“But for us in the dressing room, we want Rasmus to score as many as he can but he won us the penalty for the first goal. He did a lot of movements to attract people in my last goal…”
“So there’s a lot of thing that he does that on the outside world you probably can’t see it but we see it. We see how much he wants it to work, how much he wants to score and I’m sure the goals will come. As soon as the first one comes, they’ll start coming more and more.”
United return to Premier League action on Sunday when they go away to the King Power Stadium to face relegation strugglers Leicester City.
Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images
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