Donny van de Beek, Bruno Fernandes and why Manchester United must learn to use two very different No 10s

The Dutch midfielder started against West Ham in the FA Cup fifth round tie before being replaced by the Portuguese

Donny van de Beek of Manchester United in action with Declan Rice and Aaron Cresswell (Getty)

The look on Donny van de Beek’s face said it all.

After 73 minutes spent toiling in the Manchester snow and temperatures dropping below zero with little to show for his efforts, he feared his night was about to be cut short. The sight of Bruno Fernandes standing on the sideline was a dead giveaway. The next thing he knew, his number was up.

Tuesday night was a difficult night for Manchester United’s most expensive summer signing, perhaps the most difficult night of a debut season which has been challenging at the best of times. Van de Beek has had to be patient, wait for his opportunities to impress, then take them despite a lack of rhythm. This time, he didn’t.

In Van de Beek’s defence, this was a drab, one-goal FA Cup fifth round win over West Ham in which no United player performed particularly well. Nobody deserved to be singled out, either for praise or for criticism.

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“I thought the first half we - and Donny - played really well,” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said. “We created the spaces we wanted to and he was part of that. He did his job really well, he was clean and tidy... In the second half, the whole team fell off a little bit and we just wanted to make a few changes.”

The thing is though, Van de Beek’s performances are bound to be subject to greater scrutiny than those of other United players at the moment. Of course they will be. Fans, journalists and other interested observers simply have not seen much of him in a red shirt at all, and especially not in his natural No 10 role.

Mark Noble of West Ham is put under pressure by Bruno Fernandes (Getty)

There is still the same level of intrigue around Van de Beek as there was immediately after he joined in September. Why wouldn’t there be for a £40m signing from Ajax who has only started two of United’s 23 Premier League games, the most recent of which was two months ago?

Van de Beek has spent his few minutes on the pitch playing in a number of different roles, whether that be as a No 10, as one member of United's midfield double pivot or even out on the left-hand side of the attack.

Which of these roles works best for him and for United? With only the equivalent of 11 full games under his belt, it is still far too early to say.

There is one conclusion that can already be drawn, though, and it may help to answer that question eventually. Wherever Van de Beek’s future lies at United, he is clearly a very different player from Fernandes, with a different skill set and different purpose to fulfil.

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Though they play the same nominal position and are both No 10s, Van de Beek is not a Bruno-esque individualist. He does not spend his time spraying risky, ambitious balls around the pitch in a bid to create something out of nothing, or shooting from range if nothing else is on. That doesn’t tend to be what they teach you at De Toekomst.

Van de Beek is a much safer player who comes alive in the final third as part of structured, intricate attacking moves.

Donny van de Beek comes on as a substitute for Bruno Fernandes against Sheffield United (Getty)

At Ajax, he was especially strong inside and around the penalty area, where space was tight and defences were packed. In those situations, he would either be running beyond a defence to attempt shots at goal, playing a quick short pass to a team-mate in space to create a clear-cut chance, or elaborately dovetailing with a trusted striker.

It is the type of thing that takes time to perfect with new team-mates as it requires a mutual understanding. Perhaps that, more than anything else, is why he looked slightly out of place against West Ham.

There were several occasions where he offered for the ball only to be ignored, even when he was taking up promising positions between the lines. To his credit, he kept offering.

The problem may be that Van de Beek’s minutes only tend to come when one of Fernandes or Paul Pogba is not on the pitch. If both are absent - as was the case against West Ham on Tuesday night - United have few other players capable of building the intricate play that is needed to bring Van de Beek into the game and he predictably suffers as a result.

Whether United will find the right system and set-up to get the best out of Van de Beek remains to be seen. Solskjaer is preaching patience and reiterating that his new signing's chances will come.

But it will help Van de Beek’s Old Trafford career immensely if he is not simply thought of as a Fernandes stand-in. Instead, he should be considered as an entirely different type of No 10, with own talents and attributes to bring to the table.