Manchester United's best run of form in the past few years came immediately during the period of empty stadiums in 2020-21, and some of their star men had a helping hand from a former Ireland international prior to that.
When the COVID-19 lockdown hit in March 2020, Bruno Fernandes had just arrived at Manchester United, and was showing early signs of promise before the nation shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Once football returned in June 2020, Fernandes was one of the Premier League's standout players.
United would finish second in the league in 2020-21, thanks in no small part to Fernandes' 18 goals and 12 assists.
Manchester United fans may have an unusual man to (at least partly) thank for Fernandes' form. In the lead up to his outstanding season, Fernandes trained with former Ireland international Stephen Ireland, in an effort to stay sharp over lockdown. He revealed the story of his lockdown training sessions with the United man and his teammates - and threw a hilarious jab at Fred in the process.
Manchester United: Stephen Ireland's lockdown training sessions with Bruno Fernandes and Fred
Stephen Ireland exclusively told Labrokes: Fanzone this week of his lockdown training sessions with neighbour Bruno Fernandes, and Manchester United teammates Diogo Dalot and Fred.
He said that he was tasked with finding a pitch that the trio could train on, and ended up joining them for a kickabout after their Manchester United programme was complete each day. He joked that he and Fred would always end up on the same team - and that Ireland was doing the heavy lifting on the team.
Bruno Fernandes was actually a neighbour of mine, and so during lockdown we were living on the same street, me him and Diogo Dalot. I was asked if I could source a pitch for the guys to train on so they could keep up their programme for Manchester United.
I managed to get a couple of places to open up their pitches privately, and we ended up just training together throughout lockdown. It was unbelievable; I actually loved it. It gave me a new lease of life; it was Diogo, Bruno and Fred from United - and every day they were keeping up with their United programmes but for a couple of hours afterwards we were just doing football drills. Shooting, volleys, competitions...I had to raise my game, I'm not going to lie!
It was always me and Fred against Diogo and Bruno in the competitions...my back was sore from carrying Fred, I can't lie! I was carrying him in all of the competitions we did! It was an unreal experience, though. The weather was outrageous, we brought a goalkeeper along and just trained every day. They couldn't get enough of it; every day they were asking us to come back tomorrow.
United would return in flying form after the COVID-19 lockdown, climbing from 5th in the table pre-lockdown to 3rd by the season's end. They would go even better the following year, reaching the Europa League final and finishing 2nd in the table.
Bruno Fernandes played a crucial part in this, winning the club's player of the season award in both seasons, despite only arriving in January of 2019-20.
✨ M A G N I F I C O ✨
Today's #GoalOfTheDay goes out to our birthday boy! 🥳#MUFC | @B_Fernandes8 pic.twitter.com/eDwXC1D1jw— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 8, 2021
READ HERE: James McClean Again Hints At League Of Ireland Return Next Season
Stephen Ireland said that he could see the talent of the Manchester United maestro up close during their training sessions - and said that the Portuguese playmaker's excellence at set pieces seemed effortless:
Bruno is just incredible, he's absolutely incredible. Great physique, fit, he knows the game really well, he's so intelligent. He might come across as a little hot-headed at times during games, but I put that down to him being a winner; he's passionate, he wants to win, and that's how he projects it, unfortunately. But what a player, what a pro.
He was taking free-kicks from 30 and 40 yards and it was as if he was taking penalties, it was nuts.
They were great guys; really, really good guys.
It's certainly an unexpected crossover, but the concept of Stephen Ireland training with Manchester United's recent stars is an intriguing addition to the story of the club in recent years - especially given Ireland's time at Manchester City during his playing career.
To put the icing on the cake, Ireland shared a brilliant story about Fernandes' past experiences with him, saying that Football Manager had made the Portuguese man familiar with the former Manchester City midfielder:
After the first couple of days of doing shooting drills, Bruno comes over to me. I didn't even think they knew who I was. For all I knew, to them, I was some bald little trainer, some caretaker or someone who was just opening up the pitch for them. I genuinely didn't think they'd have a clue who I was, and then Jamie, the coach, asks Bruno if he knows who I am. He goes on to say he was always signing me from Manchester City on Football Manager!
Ireland also revealed that promising young Irishman Cathal Heffernan is settling in well at AC Milan, and working his way up through the ranks.
Heffernan, Ireland says, is regularly training with the first team, and has been getting plenty of game time at U-17 and U-19 level. He praised the young Corkman for his attitude and enthusiasm for Milan, saying he had dealt with homesickness well. Ireland also revealed the influence he himself had had on Heffernan, with their families being close:
I've been working with Cathal since he was 14. He lived in Cork and I was in Manchester. I'm close to his family and I've built up such a good relationship with them. Since I first saw him playing for Ireland under-15s, and I realised he was from Cork, I just struck up a relationship with him. Since then, he's been coming over and staying with me, probably six or seven times a year. It could be for five days, it could be for a month. In the last lockdown, I told his family to just book a one-way ticket to get him over to me for as long as he wanted. He moved in with us for a month and a half, and we just trained every single day.
I've thrown him in with pros and ex-pros, Bruno Fernandes, your Joleon Lescotts, Emile Heskeys, I've exposed him to all of that so he's constantly learning and developing. I want him to take in as much information as he can; it's invaluable at that stage of his career. I've really given him the opportunity to see what it's like, and what it takes to make it at the top, top level. When you're training with these boys, their speed of thought is massive, it's a real lesson for Cathal.
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