Rooney reserved his sharpest words for the one Manchester United player he said should have been covering when Roma opened the scoring at Old Trafford. Diogo Dalot had pushed up on the left; the space behind him was Fernandes’ to fill.
“For the first goal, if you’re playing in a system, when Dalot goes higher, Bruno should go into that position,” Rooney said on Amazon Prime at the break, per Football365. “He has to run back, you’re the captain of the football club, run back and take responsibility.”
It was a pointed note about seniority as much as positioning. Fernandes wears the armband; Rooney wore it before him.
‘Shot to bits’ at half-time
Matías Soulé had put Roma ahead inside 11 minutes, with Donyell Malen adding a penalty soon after. By the whistle, Old Trafford had booed its own team off.
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Rooney’s verdict was bleak: “The team have just run out of ideas. There’s no confidence or belief, the team is shot to bits.”
The second half went another way entirely. Fernandes pulled one back from the penalty spot before Matheus Cunha’s brace secured a 3-2 comeback that ended a nine-game winless run and gave manager Michael Carrick his first Champions League win in charge.
Fernandes fires back on live TV
Fernandes used the final whistle to answer the mood around the club. He told Amazon Prime the win was not about rescuing anyone: “We don’t need to save anyone’s job. The club needed that win. The players needed that win.”
In the same interview he swore live on air, telling viewers “it doesn’t change my aim to win every f***ing game that I have ahead of me” and prompting an on-air apology from presenter Gabby Logan.
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Fernandes had been dropped by Carrick last month after Manchester United’s defeat to Como. He accepted the call, telling GiveMeSport the manager “took a decision of making myself on the bench because I wasn’t performing. And that’s fair.”
A night that cost Cunha too
Cunha’s heroics ended with a red card in the closing stages. The match-winner will be suspended for United’s next Champions League fixture, and Carrick returns to Premier League business on Saturday at home to Aston Villa with the Brazilian available again.
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