Bruno Fernandes has heavily criticised Manchester United’s performance in their shock Champions League defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir and insists they will bounce back against Everton.
The Red Devils went behind after some shambolic defending, leaving Demba Ba unmarked from their own corner to open the scoring before Edin Visca doubled the lead, with Anthony Martial’s header a mere consolation as the Turkish side ran out 2-1 winners.
United’s defeat undoes much of their good work in beating PSG and RB Leipzig and Fernandes admits their performance was nowhere near good enough on Wednesday night.
‘Everything goes wrong, we did everything wrong,’ the Portuguese midfielder told MUTV after the game.
‘The intensity was not good since the beginning of the game. They found a goal early and, after, the game was complicated for us.
‘We tried until the end but the problem was [that] I think we came later into the game.
‘We can do much better; everyone feels that. We know we can’t concede goals like that, but now it’s time to look [at] what we did wrong, to make it better in the next game.’
He added: ‘You know when you score a goal and you go 2-1 before the ending of the first half, you go to the break a little more confident.
‘And I think we come out in the second half, we play, and we tried it, but we didn’t create a lot of chances. We didn’t shoot on goal.
‘We had the ball, we tried to play, we tried to create the spaces, but they defended well, they did a very good game. They sacrificed; everyone sacrificed for the team. And so it was hard for us.’
Although Fernandes was hugely disappointed with the performance and result against Basaksehir he is still confident in the team’s potential and believes this is a mere blip.
He continued: ‘We need to look: one week ago, everyone was talking about we’re going well, we’re doing amazing games. We won against Newcastle, we won against Paris, we beat Leipzig. We draw against Chelsea in one game when we can win.
‘This game was important for us – winning the game to be comfortable in the table. Of course, making one or a few points again we [would have almost] passed [qualified from] the group. But now it’s the same.
‘We are in a good position. We need to do the same: going for every game, trying to win, and it will not be different in the Champions League.’
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