Bruno targets Europa League glory

Under the floodlights at Juventus's Allianz Stadium in Turin, the Reds were rampant, securing a four-goal lead going into the second leg with La Real next week.

Bruno Fernandes scored both before and after the interval in the Round-of-32 encounter with the Basque outfit, sending Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men in front midway through the first half before doubling our lead ahead of the hour mark. After the 26-year-old's two strikes, Marcus Rashford and Daniel James also fired home to complete a highly convincing European triumph away from home.

The man with the brace was, unsurprisingly, in high demand for the media post-match. When asked about what he was most pleased with following the Europa League win, Bruno was particularly clear in his answer, emphasising that the job is only halfway done. 

"The result of course," our no. 18 told BT Sport.

"It’s about winning, we want to win the games and today we did everything well. The result is on our side but we have the second leg and still have a tough game to come at our home. We want to win again to go through. We know 4-0 is a good result but we have to be aware of what Real Sociedad can do and be ready for the second leg."

The Portuguese magnifico opened the scoring in the 27th minute, after pouncing on a long ball from Marcus Rashford. Real Sociedad's goalkeeper Álex Remiro collided with two defenders, leaving the goal open for our no. 18 to finish calmly.

"I just waited for the right moment for the ball to come down and wait for the right moment to kick it," the midfielder recalled. "In that moment, you can take a wrong shot and the ball goes out so I just waited for the right time."

For his second goal of the night in Italy, our top goalscorer beat the offside line by a fine margin with Daniel James in close proximity.

"I was expecting a touch from Dan to me," said Bruno. "When he got the ball, I think it was to control it, but I will give him the assist.

"I saw the keeper was coming out. If you kick well on the first touch, it’s difficult for the keeper to react and luckily for me, it was a goal."

With two strikes in Turin, Bruno has now made an astonishing 33 goal contributions this campaign, with 21 goals and 12 assists. It has truly been a remarkable season so far for the Portuguese playmaker and the man on fire has no intention of cooling down.

"My target is scoring the most goals I can and obviously get as many assists for my team-mates to score too," he said.

"The position I play in is to do that, to assist, and score when you can. The most important for me though, the target, is the trophies. Winning trophies is more important than scoring goals."

The goalscorer hopes the impressive performance against a strong La Liga side can spur United on for the weeks ahead, with crucial games in the Premier League, Europa League and Emirates FA Cup all coming up for the Reds.

"We don’t have to look at the results. We have to look at the performance," Bruno said, before emphasising the importance of constant improvement.

"We know we haven’t performed well in some games but still, in some games, we have not got the result we wanted after performing well. We need to understand that we have to grow up, get better and better and, of course, the most important thing is the results. They give you a bit more confidence to go into the next game and try to win again."