Whether or not they landed their priority targets, Manchester United did complete a major overhaul of the midfield this summer.
Already looking incredibly light in the middle of the park last season before throwing in the exit of Casemiro and Manuel Ugarte’s season-ending ACL injury, United spent £140million on the signings of Andrey Santos from Chelsea, Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa and Carlos Baleba from Brighton in the final week of the window.
Such was the focus on the midfield, United failed to sign a defender or another forward to help support Benjamin Sesko, with only backup goalkeeper Karl Darlow arriving elsewhere as a free agent.
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The pressure is on Michael Carrick to kick on from a brilliant tenure as caretaker manager last year, but questions will soon be answered whether the Glazers and INEOS have given him the tools to succeed.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star Sport, via Grosvenor Casinos, Strachan wasn’t overly impressed by United’s midfield rebuild, and expressed his concerns that the burden of winning games still relies on the shoulders of Bruno Fernandes off the back of his match-winning hat-trick against Ipswich.
On United’s transfer work, Strachan said: “Yep, Fine. Yeah, just fine. Tielemans is a good player, I get that, but we’re still relying on Bruno Fernandes in terms of imagination, goals.
“The problem is, if I were Bruno Fernandes playing these games, I’d probably be thinking to myself, ‘I hope somebody actually makes a goal today or scores a goal that I’m not involved in,’ because at the back of his mind he’s getting fed up with always being him, him, him all the time, and the responsibility is phenomenal.”
Fernandes broke the Premier League assist record last season with 21 and was named PFA Players’ Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year and Premier League Player of the Season. But Strachan feels it’s too much responsibility on the captain’s shoulders again.
“Okay, you’re the captain. I’ve got that. The captain there has to look about and see if he can make everybody else better. He does it by playing as well as he can.
“But I would like to see some responsibility get shared around the team. I think if you look at Arsenal, Saka comes in, Odegaard comes in, other players come in. It’s a more rounded team where there’s more going on.
“There seems to be more responsibility taken. You know, even Rice, you see him in the games and, ‘Alright, I’ll drive them on, push them in there.’ At this moment, for Man United, I don’t see that for the rest of the team.
“And I’m sure they don’t stand by and go, ‘On you go, Bruno,’ but I would like to see the rest of the team going, ‘I’m going to be the man of the match today. I’m going to be the best player on the pitch.’ Then if you’re not like that, you can always go back to being a teammate.
“Bruno Fernandes, I’m sure he would like to get some more help, that’s for sure, and imagination and goals.”