Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has strongly rejected comments made by Roy Keane, accusing the former United skipper of putting a ‘lie’ into his mouth over the Portugal international’s pursuit of the Premier League assists record.
Keane, speaking on podcast The Overlap after United’s 3-2 win over Nottingham Forest, said Fernandes had told a post-match interviewer he had chosen to make passes rather than shoot and suggested that mindset showed he was chasing an individual record at the expense of team success. Keane added that such an approach made winning trophies unlikely and called the situation ‘a circus act.’
Fernandes says those words were not his. He points to his actual post-match line — that there were moments when he should have passed instead of shooting, that he was happy for the assist but happier for the win and to finish the season strongly — and says everything is on record. Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, he said he accepts criticism but will not tolerate being misquoted.
‘Like I’ve always said, I don’t mind criticism,’ Fernandes said. ‘People have an opinion. What I don’t like is when people lie about things and in this case what Roy Keane said is a lie because either he saw some other interview or he can’t say that I said one thing that I just haven’t said.’ He added that he has asked former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for Keane’s number so he can raise the matter directly.
The row follows a highly successful 2025-26 campaign for Fernandes. He finished the Premier League season with a record 21 assists, equalling the previous high of 20 with the Forest game and then setting a new mark on the final day against Brighton. That total took him ahead of Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. He also scored nine league goals, helped United secure third place and a return to the Champions League, and won both the Football Writers’ Association men’s Player of the Year and the Premier League Player of the Season awards in May.
Fernandes said he would welcome fair criticism but resented what he sees as fabricated claims about his motivations. ‘I accept that he might like me as a player or not, like me as a person or not. But what I don’t like is that he puts words in my mouth that have not been said,’ Fernandes said.
Keane also questioned United’s reaction to the narrow victory over Forest, saying it was odd that fans and pundits celebrated a player equalling the assists record while the team conceded twice. Fernandes and others at the club seem to view the record and the result as part of the same positive season rather than mutually exclusive.
This is not the first time members of the current United squad have publicly disagreed with commentary from club greats. Earlier in the season, Lisandro Martinez had a spat with Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt over remarks about his height and his ability to compete with Erling Haaland.
For now, Fernandes appears intent on clearing up what he says is a misunderstanding. He stressed his respect for Roy Keane and his achievements at United but insisted that misrepresenting his words crossed a line. He remains proud of his individual achievements, while reiterating that winning trophies is always the club’s priority.
