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In pictures: Man Utd v Aston Villa
Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has insisted that unless Sir Jim Ratcliffe opens his wallet in upcoming transfer markets, his arrival will have very little impact on the squad. The Red Devils came from two goals down to defeat Aston Villa 3-2 on Boxing Day in the first game since confirmation that a deal was agreed upon for Ratcliffe to purchase a 25 per cent stake in the club.
But Fernandes has informed the INEOS chief that he needs to spend in the transfer market to make a real impact at United. When asked by Amazon Prime how the recent announcement had affected the players, Fernandes replied: "Not much, honestly because it's not going to change anything on the pitch apart from if they come in and they bring some new players in, they put some money in the club and bring some players in that can make a difference for us.
"OK apart from that it's up to us on the pitch to change that and change that difference that we need, because obviously with social media all the newspapers we see everything. It's impossible not to see everything
"We know what the club is going through at the moment but it's not going to change anything on the pitch. We have to focus on ourselves and focus on the team, and focus on what we can control which is ourselves and our performance."
Bruno Fernandes celebrates Manchester United's win over Aston Villa. (Image: Getty)
Fernandes was also keen to shut down one question, after he was asked how United can capitalise on such a galvanising result and performance. "I don't want to speak about it," the Portuguese playmaker responded. "We had too many post-match interviews where we spoke about this. Game by game."
The skipper did want to give some supporting words for Rasmus Hojlund, who bagged his first Premier League goal since his summer move from Atalanta in spectacular fashion, grabbing a late winner to give him a much-needed confidence boost.
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"Obviously we were really happy for Rasmus to get that first [league] goal," he added. "But not only for him, the fact it made the score 3-2 as well because we need the three points. He needs to score goals, he is eager to do it.
"All we want is for our strikers to have enough confidence to score goals. Rasmus knows that he is going to have pressure, he plays for one of the biggest clubs in the world, he knows how it is playing for this club, you get a lot of attention so you need to get used to that.
"I hope not [that is is the best day of his life as Hojlund said in his post-match interview] because I hope there is more to come, we really need him and every striker in the team to score goals."