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Bruno Fernandes opened up on the Manchester United tactical failings that allowed Manchester City to open the scoring in the Premier League derby at the Etihad.
An honest Bruno Fernandes candidly dissected the Manchester United problems that led to Manchester City scoring the first goal during Sunday's derby at the Etihad.
Fernandes was criticised in some quarters for allowing Phil Foden to run off him and head home the opener for City.
Erling Haaland's second half brace secured an ultimately comfortable victory for Pep Guardiola's side and leaves United with four points from four games heading into the clash with Chelsea.
And Fernandes, who was again deployed in a deeper midfield role rather than in an advanced No.10 position, spoke honestly after the game, admitting the result was not good enough while also explaining the United tactical approach and what went wrong for City's opener.
"I was trying to press Rodri because the aim for the game was for one of the midfielders to jump on Rodri and one of the defenders jumping on Foden," he explained.
"In the first moment where I can cover both, Leny (Yoro) decides to come up and I see him and try to go a little bit more towards Rodri.
"(Josko) Gvardiol does a good pass and Leny was going backwards and because of a miscommunication we end up giving them too much space to up the pitch.
"I think when we go we have to take more risks and be brave with the last line. If you see City, every time we pass the ball backwards to our centre backs, they go three against three and their line squeezes us so much and it is very difficult to break through the lines because the space is very narrow."
Fernandes accepted that City tried to outnumber United in the middle of the park on Sunday, but the midfielder believes if Ruben Amorim's side had showed the same level of tactical awareness as they did against Arsenal on the opening day of the season, things might have been different.
"We play with a back five or whatever you want to call it and we need obviously people to be aggressive in the moment of pressure and with the jumping (to press)," he added.
"City make basically a midfield four against a two so you need the ones behind you to jump like Luke was doing very well. And we did it in the first game against Arsenal. They couldn't play. That is what makes the spaces narrow for teams to play against. If you are not brave enough to do that it is very difficult."
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