Bruno Fernandes voted Premier League Player of the Season: What's next?
Bruno Fernandes has been voted the Premier League Player of the Season following a record-equaling season leading Manchester United into third place on the PL table. Fernandes, 31, has one game to break a three-way tie with Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne for the PL record for most assists in a single season (20). He's also scored eight goals and all of the stats come despite playing in a more defensive role under Ruben Amorim prior to the appointment of Michael Carrick.
MORE — Michael Carrick promoted to permanent role at Man Utd Since returning from a hamstring injury on January 7, Fernandes has only failed to register a goal or an assist in four PL games. He has three goals and 13 assists in that run of 17 games. Fernandes is the first Red Devil to win the award since Nemanja Matic in 2010-11, and joins Peter Schmeichel, Dwight Yorke, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney, as winners from Manchester United.
What’s next for Bruno Fernandes after Premier League Player of the Season run? Fernandes has one year left on his contract and United could, of course, make some decent money on a sale if he wasn't going to stay in Manchester for the long-term. At his age, ironically, a drop to a deeper-lying role could be on the horizon, but United will be doing everything they can to keep the Portuguese in town for a longer term.
Losing Fernandes and Casemiro in the same summer would threaten to overturn Michael Carrick's apple cart, especially as the club is likely set to sell a number of players this summer. All of this buries the lede that Fernandes is an elite player and hopefully will want to stay in Manchester for both Champions League and legacy reasons. Fernandes has a chance to experience and provide a true renaissance at United, the type that could take somewhat under-heralded career there and rightly boost it into statue territory.
He's in the all-time top 20 for assists and did so with striker instability over much of his time at Old Trafford.