Man Utd made five changes as they defeated Manchester City at Old Trafford at the weekend.
The 31-year-old led by example as he returned to his favoured attacking midfield position and grabbed a brilliant assist when Bryan Mbeumo opened the scoring. Fernandes was a constant threat on the ball in a creative sense, but also covered plenty of ground and contributed a huge amount defensively.
Fernandes was utilised in a deeper central midfield role under previous head coach Ruben Amorim, and while he still played well in that position, he has looked even better since he moved further up the pitch. Carrick was impressed with what he saw from Fernandes against City, in particular, the defensive cover he provided alongside Mbeumo.
Read More
Carrick hails Fernandes after formation change
Bruno Fernandes is expected to play as an attacking midfielder for the remainder of the season under Michael Carrick and has set the bar high with his performance against Man City.
The Portugal international was arguably the standout performer on the pitch and he was praised by Fernandes for the key role he played in the win. Asked about the recent change of position, Carrick told reporters: "I've spoke to Bruno, I've known him a long time now and I thought he was fantastic today, the way he played the position, he's so clever and he takes up spaces.
"They had a big disciplined role, him and Bryan defensively as well, to protect the team from anything coming through the middle as much as possible, so it wasn't all kind of playing and positivity to that point, but he's just got so much quality, Bruno can adapt and playing in that position, he's a real threat and he made the difference."
Fernandes will look to build upon his fine performance when United travel to face Arsenal next weekend, and Carrick believes his side have laid solid foundations for another win. He added: "That's the challenge ultimately, you know, and I think it needs to be a version of normal, you know, certainly we're not going to have games with the emotion and the feeling of everything that today brought. I think we all understand that, but there's definitely a level of levels of standards and expectation that we need to live up to from ourselves as much as anyone on the outside, so I'm fairly aware of that. Consistency is the key to any success, and if you can find that then you're on to a winner. So that's our challenge, you know, we've got to find a way of doing that. Big one next week obviously, you know, another tough one, but on the back of today we've got a good foundation to build on."
Continue Reading