Fara Williams column: Why Bruno Fernandes is struggling in Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United system and London City Lionesses’ survival hopes

After watching Manchester United this season, I don’t believe Bruno Fernandes is incapable of playing in that deeper role, I just don’t think the position is natural for him.

I feel that his best qualities are on show when he’s in an advanced role, and he’s been one of Man Utd’s best players over the years in that position, especially last season.

Bruno has been the most effective attacking player since joining the club, but when he’s playing in a two-man midfield, you take a lot away from his game. I don’t think Ruben Amorim is getting the best out of Bruno, which is leading to a lot of frustration from the player.

He can’t seem to impact the games in those deeper areas, and he’s getting exposed in those defensive situations.

When I started my career, I was a No. 10 and was later brought back to that No. 6 position after getting a better understanding of the game. In that role, it’s all about short and sharp movements, reading the game and anticipating things that is going on in front of you.

It’s also key to have good communication with the backline and these are different qualities compared to playing as a No. 10, where you’re thinking about the press, moving yourself into half spaces and linking up with the forward players.

There’s also the risk and reward factor, because when you’re playing in a higher position, you can take more risks with the type of passes you play, but when you’re trying to break the line in those deeper areas, that is much harder.

When I played as a No. 10 and had someone running off my shoulder, I knew I had my team-mates backing me up to cover, but when you have that situation when playing in a deeper role, before you know it, you’re drawn to the ball, and you miss your runner and the ball is in the back of the net.

Bruno is an intelligent player, and we’ve seen him play for Portugal in a two-man midfield, but the way Man Utd play is very different. He seems to struggle more when the game is stretched and that would be the case for any player to be honest.

Players know that the Man Utd centre-halves aren’t going to jump up into those spaces, so there becomes a big gap between the back line and the midfield pairing who become very exposed.

I wouldn’t like to play in that midfield right now.

For any manager that comes into the Premier League, they realise quite quickly that they need to be adaptable, and Amorim is clearly not prepared to adapt his style.

He’s quite stubborn in his philosophy and the way in which he wants to play, but if you want to do that, you need to find players best suited for the system.

I think it can easily be fixed if he changes the personnel in the system or even makes some tweaks. He wants to play this 5-2-3 and, in the Premier League, you can get exposed with a two-man midfield when the game becomes stretched, and you’ve seen that with Man Utd under Amorim.

In my opinion, you adapt that by playing two up front with Bruno as a No. 10 to add an extra body into the midfield, and then you can try and find the best two holding midfielders between Kobbie Mainoo, Manuel Ugarte and Casemiro.

In the wing-back area, he needs to find the best-suited player who can press up and be aggressive. Looking at the back three, Luke Shaw has been given way too many chances and I think he’s way past his best. But I think Amorim has to find a way to adapt, and I think just a few tweaks would be helpful for the team.

Man Utd were in the game at the Etihad before they collapsed in the second half, and I think Amorim will be holding onto the positives. He’ll be thinking that his team are fractions away from being very good, but on the flip side, they’re fractions away from being very poor.

United are getting into really good positions and it is small margins that are costing them, especially in defence.

The problem is if you don’t get the results at a club as big as Man Utd, you’re going to be in trouble.

I was impressed with London City Lionesses in their opening game at Arsenal for the first 20–25 minutes. They were really aggressive in terms of their style and press, playing with a back five and they looked competitive.

I felt that they struggled once Arsenal started to adapt especially with the rotation from Arsenal’s forwards, and they just didn’t know how to counter that. They found out quickly that the game can run away from you very quickly.

In the second game, they switched to a back four against Man Utd and they ended up opening up a lot of spaces for United. I feel that their squad is mature and experienced enough to stay in the league, without any question.

They had two really tough opening games, and they can’t be too disheartened by them, and they’ve got their ‘Welcome to the WSL’ matches out of the way now.

The manager will also learn a lot throughout this WSL journey about changing formation and adapting, but I think that the squad is too good to go down.