Bruno: I was sad not to sign the Arsenal star

Express Bruno FernandezThe captain of “Manchester United” expressed great sadness that one of the stars of “Arsenal” did not move to the “red devils” ranks.

Declan Rice has been on Manchester United’s radar for a long time, and the British Mirror newspaper notes that the player has already asked his England teammates about the nature of life and the atmosphere inside the club.

The information shows that Rice spoke directly to the duo of Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw about Manchester United.

Former team manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer later admitted that there had in fact been talks to sign Rice, describing him as a player he “admired a lot”. In the end, the deal did not go through and Manchester United then spent huge money to sign French defender Raphael Varane.

Two years after those events, Rice completed his move to Arsenal in a club-record deal worth an initial £100m, plus £5m in incentives and add-ons, making him the most expensive English player in 2023.

Fernandes has publicly admitted that he would like the England star to sign for the Red Devils instead of joining the Emirates Stadium.

Fernandez said during an interview with Joel Pella. “I’ve always said it, Rice was a player who was born to play for Manchester United and I was really sad when he decided to go to Arsenal.

In context, Solskjaer has expressed great and continued admiration for Price, even years after his departure from coaching the team.

Although they don’t share the same dressing room, the two players have a lot of mutual respect, having previously trained together during a summer camp in Portugal three years ago.

Fernandes, who at the time delayed his return to his team’s training headquarters at Carrington after his Euro 2024 commitments with Portugal, took part in training alongside Rice in a group that also included Joao Cancelo and James Maddison.

Training videos show Rice hugging Fernandez after the Portuguese star fired a free-kick that hit the crossbar in training.

Fernandez later reposted a photo of them from that workout with a handshake emoji and captioned it: “It was a pleasure working with you.”