Paul Scholes is absolutely emphatic about where Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes should be playing. “He is the most creative player on the team, he should be playing as the No 10, there is no doubt about that,” he tells Sky Sports.
“But he is being asked to do something different. It is normal for a No 10 like he is to be able to do it for two or three games, to fill in when a midfielder is injured or suspended or something. But then you get a little bit bored of going back into position to defend.”
It is the voice of experience. “I did both roles. As a No 10, the last thing you want to think about is defending. Once you go back into a two in midfield, all of a sudden you are thinking about defence, about what your runner is doing. It’s a totally different mindset.”
![Man Utd legend Paul Scholes has launched a new podcast called The Good, The Bad and The Football [Credit: Vasily Agrenenko]](https://e0.365dm.com/25/09/768x432/skysports-paul-scholes-good-bad-and-football_7017968.jpg?20250912150438)
Man Utd legend Scholes has launched a new podcast called The Good, The Bad and The Football [Credit: Vasily Agrenenko]
There is a view now that Scholes was a natural deep-lying playmaker, England’s answer to Andrea Pirlo or Xavi Hernandez. It is true that he took on that role late in his career but, now 50 and reflecting on his career, it is not necessarily how he sees himself.
“When I first came into the team I was a centre-forward,” he recalls. And while Sir Alex Ferguson had always insisted that he would end up playing as a central midfielder, that took time. “I ended up playing as a No 10 for three, four, five years, which I loved.”
Fernandes should operate as a No 10 for Man Utd, says Scholes
They were some of his happiest and most successful years. “Defending was not my strong point. I didn’t like having to think about defending and as a No 10 you didn’t have to. All you think about is getting your team to play, creating chances, scoring goals.”
In truth, the obsession with possession was never his. When watching old clips, he has been known to groan at the sight of himself passing backwards. “It was not until my late twenties when I went into that controlling role as the manager wanted me to do.”
Mentality shift when playing deeper
It required a mentality shift. “I remember a game against Bayern Munich in the Champions League where he did not really want me to go over the halfway line, which was something different for me, because we were getting done in Europe quite a bit.”
Scholes’ job was not to unlock the opposition but to stifle them. “He wanted us to just be controlled and not vacate that area. It was something new for me to learn.” Even now, he still recalls his surprise at the United manager’s reaction to his performance.
“I remember after that game, I had not had a shot on goal and I don’t think I created a chance. I didn’t do anything attacking wise very well. He said, ‘Brilliant, that is what I wanted from you’. From that day on, it just seemed to grow. I became used to the role.”
Fernandes’ heatmaps show that he is playing deeper under Amorim
As such, you might expect Scholes to be an advocate for Fernandes making the same positional journey. The United skipper turned 31 this month, after all. Instead, it seems he would prefer the Portuguese playmaker to be the one still trying that killer pass.
“That is the way I was brought up. That is the way the manager wanted us to play. Pass forward and run forward. It was all about playing attacking, being entertaining. So, to go back, just passing it back, I hate seeing it now and I hated seeing it when I did it.”
Fernandes has still created the most chances this season
‘Wayne was the better footballer’
In a wide-ranging conversation at a Manchester pub where he is even volunteering to pull pints to help promote his new podcast The Good, the Bad and the Football with fellow Class of ’92 graduate Nicky Butt, Scholes touches on subjects old and new.
He has been following the debate about the relative merits of Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney as teenagers. Scholes played with both. Owen even nicked the ball off his toe when scoring his wonder goal against Argentina in 1998. “He could have left it for me.”
His own view? Succinct but definitive. “At that age, Michael was the better goalscorer, Wayne was the better footballer.”
But he is keen to stress that Owen was a phenomenon in his own right, his pace setting him apart from the rest. “With Michael in the early days, I just had to look and he would spin in behind and I just had to hit the ball into 20 yards of space. It was an easy job.”
Easy for Scholes, perhaps. He had a connection with many top-class strikers for club and country. “As a midfield player you need to know your players’ strengths.” But Ruud van Nistelrooy was his favourite. “I had the feeling that I knew what he wanted to do.”
Scholes rates Ruud van Nistelrooy as his favourite Manchester United striker
‘More hopeful than confident’ on Amorim
Scholes wonders whether too much is being expected of the latest United striker Benjamin Sesko. Will he really be able to succeed where Rasmus Hojlund failed? “He is a 22-year-old kid replacing someone of a very similar ilk. It is a difficult job to adapt.”
He would have liked the club to opt for a more experienced goalkeeper such as Emiliano Martinez too. “He would have been a lot safer.” And that is crucial. Scholes saw up close the difficulties that the club faced in trying to find a replacement for Peter Schmeichel.
He is reluctant to criticise Massimo Taibi too much. “He made a couple of mistakes. It did not work out.” But he is less delicate on Mark Bosnich’s footwork. “Would he be able to play in this day and age for some of the best coaches in the world? I don’t see it.”
On United more broadly, Scholes describes himself as “more hopeful than confident” that Amorim can bring the good times back. “I like the way he speaks,” he says, before later adding: “The results are not really there to have massive confidence in him yet.”
Perhaps he would have more confidence if Fernandes were given more freedom to express himself further forwards. “If you watched some of the Europa League games last year, he was really good in that [deeper] position so he can do it,” says Scholes.
“I think if you asked him to do everything then he would try to do it all, almost in that Wayne Rooney type of way as well. But I think with him playing in that deeper-lying area it is taking away some of the important qualities that he has further up the pitch.”
Paul Scholes. Still a No 10 at heart.
