Bruno Fernandes says Paul Scholes was best English midfielder in UTD Podcast

“Paul Scholes was a guy who likes to be in the box, who likes to give an assist, who likes to score a lot of goals, and maybe the ones I said aren’t like that – like Pirlo scored some goals but maybe more from free-kicks, Zidane scored some goals, Iniesta – no-one really remembers Iniesta for scoring goals, you remember him for assists and everything else he did.

“I remember when we were about to play Club Brugge [at home] last season, and I was in the dining room with Fred, and on the television they were playing all Paul Scholes’s goals in a Manchester United shirt [on MUTV].

“We had eaten, but we just stayed there to watch all of the goals of his. And it was funny because I was talking to Fred, and I said to him, ‘You see what Paul Scholes is doing, you need to be closer to the goal, because if not, you will never score!’. And then Fred, in that game, he scored twice!

“I appreciate Scholes a lot but maybe because, at that time for me in Portugal, when Scholes was playing at his best level, it was difficult for us to see English football, maybe it was because Spanish football was closer so it was more on the television, and we grew up with those names. Being realistic, with Iniesta I started to see him when I was 17, 18 years old. In the beginning, most of the players I watched were from Portugal.”