Bruno Fernandes has revealed the inspirational team talk from a Manchester United legend which helped them reach another FA Cup final.
Former United midfielder Darren Fletcher, now the club’s technical director, spoke to the players before their semi final with Coventry to remind them of the “pride” in the shirt. Fletcher’s career was littered with trophies, including five Premier League titles and an FA Cup and he reminded the current stars just what it means to win silverware for United.
United captain Fernandes admitted there were mixed emotions after reaching the FA Cup final because they threw away a three-goal lead against Coventry and needed penalties to go through. But there was also a message that they want to go back to Wembley 12 months on from last year’s all-Manchester final and take revenge against City this time.
When asked what was said in the team talks by Erik ten Hag before the game and before extra time, Fernandes said: “To believe, to believe we can get into the final. It's about pride, it's about getting to an FA Cup final, you don't get here often, not all the teams get here often.
“We had Fletch speaking before the game. Fletch has been part of one of the best teams for Man United in the past years and he's been here three times at Wembley for the FA Cup, he played 12 years for the club, he was in the most successful part of the club in the last years.
“It shows you how big it is to be in the FA Cup, how difficult it is and now obviously we have to be frustrated at the way the game ended up but at the same time proud again to be in the FA Cup final and hopefully we are going to do it differently to last season.”
That in itself was revealing that a United legend can issue a reminder as powerful as anything else which was said in the build-up. But United are in a strange position that they reached a final - and yet their performance has still drawn fierce criticism for the way they surrendered a three goal lead and nearly lost in extra Time.
Fernandes admitted there were mixed feelings but said: “Obviously, it is a little bit but at the same time we have to be happy. It's two years in a row we have reached a final, we know how difficult it is to get to the final of the FA Cup. Obviously we wanted to get there in a different way, we know the result was in our hands.
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“For the first 70 minutes, we were so good, we controlled the game and then obviously well done from them, Coventry, they believed, they gave everything they could to get back to the game and they did it. We have to have huge respect for what Coventry did but we had everything on our side to get a comfortable result.”
Fernandes admitted that losing that “comfortable” position is a cause for concern and it should not happen even allowing for United having a makeshift back four of Harry Maguire and Casemiro in central defence.
Fernandes added: “It's like some moments, you can probably relax yourself for a little bit, not make the pressure as strong as you should, the game starts to get a little more split, more spaces, sometimes we might have to get a little bit more deeper, be more compact to not give much space to them.
“If we can press them. Obviously I felt the team had good moments and had good pressure that we could make pressure on them and make them have long balls.
“With Harry and Case at the back winning a lot of duels for us, it was better to press high than stay deep. But at the end, they got some lucky goals but at the same time, we have to give credit to them.”
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