Manchester United fans want Bruno Fernandes to be the club captain, according to a new poll.
The Athletic has published the results of its wide-ranging questionnaire to fans, which posed questions such as ‘Where will United finish in the Premier League this season?’, ‘Who should be the club’s captain?’, ‘Should Harry Maguire be in the starting XI?’, ‘Do you want Cristiano Ronaldo at the club next season?’ and ‘What should United do with Paul Pogba?’.
The results of the poll do not make for happy reading for Harry Maguire.
42% of voters believe that Fernandes should be captain, followed by David de Gea with 25%. Maguire comes in third with just 12% of the vote, just one ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo on 11% (percentages approximate).
The majority of fans (61.1%) do not even think Maguire deserves a place in the starting line up on current form.
Bruno’s importance to the side was also underlined by the survey. An impressive 59.7% of voters said that the Portuguese magnifico is United’s most important player.
Maguire is not the only star that comes out of the survey with a disappointing lack of faith from the fans. Only 45% of fans want Ronaldo at the club next season.
Furthermore, ‘a combined 46.3 per cent believe the now 37-year-old’s on-field contributions, including valuable late goals against Atalanta (twice) and Villarreal to help United into the Champions League last 16, can be classified as “good” or “very good” but 35.8 per cent would describe his tactical impact as “average”,’ reporter Carl Anka writes.
‘A combined 17.9 per cent believe Ronaldo to have had either a “poor” or “very poor” impact on United’s playing style over the last six months.’
However, around 64% of voters want Ronaldo to be in the starting XI for the rest of this season.
Fans would also prefer to dispense of Paul Pogba’s services next season. Around 55.5% voted to let him leave on a free, with only 44.5% imploring United to extend his contract.
It is disappointing that in general, United fans think the club would be better off without three of its top stars. However, the timing of the poll should be taken into account, coming after a poor spell of form from Maguire, a barren spell in front of goal from Ronaldo and an extended period out injured for Pogba.
Our follow up article discusses more results from The Athletic’s poll and can be found here.