Ruben Amorim’s appointment could be the key to unlocking Bruno Fernandes’ true potential – Read

But since the start of the season, Bruno Fernandes has looked every inch a weary captain, having carried his underperforming troops from all too many battlefields.

Two years of Erik ten Hag’s limited tactical acumen and inability to instil any form of stylistic identity had taken its toll on the only signing from the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era who can look himself in the mirror and say he justifies his price tag.

His record until this term was remarkable in a team lurching from one disaster to the next, but even at the peak of his United powers – as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s free-flowing attack threatened to finally restore United to something like their former glories – you still felt there was more to come from this Portuguese Magnifico.

A fresh start, under a fellow countryman he has been a very vocal supporter of, could not be more welcome and could unleash the true superstar Fernandes has always threatened to become.

Even if Ruben Amorim is yet to finalise his leap of faith that could make or break his reputation, with Ten Hag finally put out to pasture this week, Fernandes 1362 minutes and 36 shots into the campaign against a rather forgiving Leicester side on Wednesday night.

A deflected free-kick is not how Fernandes would have wanted the curse lifted, but the relief all around was palpable. This disjointed United incumbent are not known for their togetherness, but every single player surrounded their captain in the warmest of embraces Old Trafford, used to a litany of gloom of late, has seen in some time.

Judging by the standards Fernandes sets for himself, he will not have felt like a weight had been completely lifted until he had the net bulging in a more emphatic manner. His composed second-half finish after another defensive mistake, dragging the ball around a bedazzled Danny Ward in the Leicester goal, ensured the demons really were laid to rest.

Even the way Fernandes lashed the ball into the net nearly on the goal line typified the emotional cleansing this performance was doing. The celebrations were the same, with his team-mates aware he needed a second of that manner, too.

He should, in truth, have had a hat-trick, missing a glorious chance late on, but Ruud van Nistelrooy, in what will almost certainly be a rather short United tenure, has helped start a revival of potentially epic proportions.

It is makes what Amorim’s arrival so intriguing. One of the more pointed remarks in Fernandes’ recent praise of his fellow Sporting Lisbon icon was the incoming United boss “plays the best football”.

Purely as a spectacle, even if results were not always what was required, peak Solskjaer was as entertaining a watch as anything since Ferguson retired, with orchestrator-in-chief Fernandes very much front and centre.

Now, with that goalscoring drought a mere blot on the copybook and a manager who needs no telling what he can do, Fernandes can effectively start all over again.

There will be a huge shift in approach with Amorim’s penchant for a three-at-the-back setup, but there is absolutely no doubt that no matter how the rookie boos wants to play, the skipper will be the fulcrum of the entire game plan.

With goals at a premium as Ten Hag’s reign fell flat, a return to attacking intent of the Solskjaer years will be welcomed. And who knows where an unleashed attack guided a rejuvenated skipper can go.