Bruno Fernandes faces a race against time to be fit for Manchester United’s trip to Tottenham as Erik ten Hag warned his side to be wary of a Spurs team who would be “mad” after their 6-1 thrashing by Newcastle.
The United vice-captain was in a protective boot and used crutches after the FA Cup semi-final win over Brighton after suffering an ankle injury at Wembley.
But he was back in training on Wednesday offering United hope that Fernandes, who has only sat out three games this season, will be available. They lost their last game without the Portuguese 3-0 when he was suspended for last week’s Europa League second leg against Sevilla.
“We have to see how Bruno Fernandes is, we don’t know yet,” said Ten Hag. “He is a question mark. It is more often that players, we protect them [for] prevention but it has to settle. You have seen he played a full game and it happened in the first half. Thursday is quick but we have to see from now what is possible.”
Tottenham sacked their caretaker manager Cristian Stellini on Monday, after going 5-0 down in 21 minutes at St James’ Park in what the Italian described as the worst performance he had ever seen.
Ryan Mason is now in interim charge and Ten Hag said Spurs could use the hammering as a motivation to hit back.
He explained: “It happened with all the great teams, even Real Madrid, but it’s obvious that they had a really bad defeat and they are mad. That can be fuel for bounce back, yeah, but it is about us. An opponent can never be more hungry than us and that is how we have to prepare the game, to be ready to go on the front foot.”
