BRUNO HOPES TO EMULATE AN ANFIELD HERO

24kat.comOctober 19, 2025

2 minutes read

Bruno Fernandes has spoken to his friend and former team-mate Juan Mata about the legacy of scoring in a Manchester United win at Anfield.

Mata netted 51 goals as a Red and his tally includes a famous equaliser in the 2016 FA Cup final win over Crystal Palace but, without question, the Spaniard is best remembered for his legendary brace on Merseyside, some 10 years ago.

As Juan knows, scoring a big goal at Anfield puts your name in United history alongside the likes of Norman Whiteside, Gary Pallister, Andy Cole, Ryan Giggs, Diego Forlan, John O’Shea and Wayne Rooney, to name a few.

And Bruno admits the opportunity to join the list is on his mind.

“Coming into training, I was speaking with Juan because he texted me, asking for a video for a friend,” the captain told MUTV’s Mark Sullivan at Carrington. “I said what I want from this weekend is to do what a real no.8 of this club has done at Anfield [laughs] and we were just talking about this.

“We know that this game, whoever scores in this kind of game, it has a huge impact on our fans and gets a huge love from them because this is a game that really matters for the fans.

“We will be very eager to win the game, to score goals and to get many, many years of that game. Hopefully, we can score more than one and get people very excited about our players.”

The majority of our famous winners at Anfield were scored in white, which United will wear this weekend, and Bruno hopes that element could provide some good fortune this weekend.

“It could be the white kit,” he said with a smile.

“Last year, we had Licha [Lisandro Martinez] scoring an amazing goal there, Amad scoring there also, we could have had a win in the last minute with Harry [Maguire]. Let’s hope that this white kit gives us some luck, like we had in some moments in the past.”

United’s two previous trips to Anfield led to hard-earned points. In particular, last season’s 2-2 draw on Merseyside was fuelled by a battling team display in torrid wintry conditions.

Bruno agrees that performance is an example to follow and the squad is working hard to show that level every week.

“In the big games, we have been showing a big resilience, being very, very good in the fight and trying to play good football. We have been speaking a lot about getting that in different games.

“We know, with big games, the attention is always going to be a little bit higher and you don’t want to make any mistakes, but you still need to play with a lot of freedom because that’s what will give us a result there.

“To play against Liverpool at Anfield against top, top players, you need to be free to play your own game to get something from the result. You can’t think too much about the game, the atmosphere, the club we are playing against, the rivalry.

“You need to think about that when you are going into duels but, when you have the ball, you need to play with the freedom of your mind to get the best out of you.”