Bruno: We must perform better against Palace

Saturday's visitors to Old Trafford, and current league leaders Arsenal, were the only two teams who stopped the Reds winning in January and Fernandes still laments the late loss of two points in that 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park.

United boss Erik ten Hag also bemoaned that game during his Friday media briefing for the rematch, saying: "We had a bad performance there. I wasn't happy with the performance from us. It was 90 per cent focus and energy and we dropped two points. We need to play a better game tomorrow."

When we asked Bruno this week about the manager's current mantra, he replied:  “The message at the moment is about looking at Crystal Palace, because it will be a pretty tough game.

“We have no time to rest, we have no time to disconnect, because we know how tough it is to play in the Premier League.

“We know how tough it is to play in the Carabao, in the FA Cup, in the Europa League – against Barcelona – too.

“We have to focus on Crystal Palace, because we didn’t have the result we wanted at their home, so it’s now about us to do the best we can."

As for that Wembley final waiting for us at the end of the month, it's clear that Fernandes shares Ten Hag's viewpoint on that too - that it will only really count if United go on to lift the Carabao Cup.

“About finals, obviously it’s an amazing feeling [to get there] but if you don’t win it, it’s always tough,” Bruno told us, in an exclusive interview you can watch next week.

“I used to say this in Portugal: 'you don’t play the finals, you win the finals'. Obviously being at this club it’s what people expect from you.

“Whenever we have to start thinking about that final, we have to have the mentality even higher than before in the previous games. It’s one game that can give us a really big push for the rest of the season.”

There is now one more player in the fold to help with that push, following this week's arrival of Marcel Sabitzer on loan from Bayern Munich.

Fernandes is well qualified to comment on the new signing's attributes, as someone who operates in a similar area of the field but also due to his experience of playing against the Austria international when United faced RB Leipzig twice in 2020/21.

“Yeah, my memories of that [Leipzig away game] are not good as they put us out of the Champions League, but he's a good player, a really good midfielder,” Bruno told reporters after Wednesday's win over Nottingham Forest.

“He can shoot from outside of the box, he can score great goals,” added Fernandes, continuing his assessment.

“He'll give us more options in the midfield while Christian [Eriksen] is injured. He's another one who'll make it difficult for everyone in the team to have a place.

“We know it costs a lot to have a place in the team and we have another one fighting for that position so we all have to give our best. [That includes] everyone who started in midfield [on Wednesday] - me, Casemiro and Fred.

“We're really happy to have him, we think he can help us. I think he's fully fit, he's been playing, so hopefully he'll help us a lot.”