Bruno Fernandes says Man Utd thriving on one coaching tactic Carrick took from Fergie

Bruno Fernandes tells how he has thrived on a coaching tactic at Manchester United that Michael Carrick took from Alex Ferguson.

The Portuguese had a stunning second half of the last campaign under Carrick which saw him named Player of the Season by the Premier League.

He was moved into a more forward position that allowed his attacking play to thrive and part of his defensive responsibilities were removed.

And Fernandes says that Carrick has helped the team both by both injecting calmness and also tactically by giving players "responsibility".

Football now is generally more regimented but Carrick has gone back to an approach from Fergie that would allow players to make decisions on the pitch.

"He gives you a lot of calmness from what he wants from the team the way he demands, the way he coaches, he gives you a good way for going into the team with peace of mind," said Fernandes.

"But with a lot of responsibility because I think going back from the time he was here with Sir Alex he gave a lot of responsibility to the players to make decisions and choices on the pitch which have to be on you.

"He gives you the base the foundation, the rules which are like the non-negotiable ones but then he also knows and he wants us to take some responsibility in the game, knowing that things could change."

And Bruno explains the value of this in a game where it is not going as expected.

He continued: "Because you prepare as a team all week obviously but then the team could comes and does a different thing. Like you prepare to play against a team which plays 4-3-3 because it always plays 4-3-3 and then they come and do 3-5-2.

"And then you go like 'and now', the manager can't be on the pitch telling you what to do, where to press where to go.

"So it us as the players, we have the foundation have the rules, the non-negotiables and from there on we need to find a way.

"Imagine we can't press because they have changed everything and the press we had planned isn't the one we needed. So let's get compact, let's get together, they don't get into our block when we have the ball, we play our game.

"Then going into half time the manager will give us the message that he wants to give, things that we need to do differently to get a better result from the press.

"I think that is what he has given to us is this calmness and the way he prepares games is very good, but when things are not going the way we want he gave responsibility to the players to make it work then we solve it."