‘Beyond embarrassing’ – Former Chelsea star slams two Manchester United players

Ex-Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley slammed ’embarrassing’ Bruno Fernandes after Manchester United’s draw with Fulham.

Ruben Amorim’s side could only draw with Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday as Emile Smith Rowe earned the hosts a point after Rodrigo Muniz’s own goal.

Fernandes missed a penalty in the first half, sending his spot-kick way over Bernd Leno’s bar after Mason Mount was dragged down in the box.

After the 1-1 draw, Fernandes complained about an incident shortly before he took his penalty in which referee Chris Kavanagh inadvertently bumped into him.

Fernandes scorned Kavanagh after the minor incident and then had words with the referee at the start of the second half.

‘I was upset,’ United’s captain said. ‘As a penalty-taker, you have your own routines, your own things that you do.

‘It upset me because the referee didn’t apologise. That is what triggered me in that moment, but that’s not the excuse for missing the penalty.

‘I had a very bad hit on the ball. I put my foot too under the ball and that’s why it ended up going over the bar.’

But Burley felt Fernandes’ reaction was ‘beyond embarrassing’, telling ESPN: ‘I want to talk about the captain.

‘What a wingy, whiny, little moaning pain in the butt. What an embarrassment, what an embarrassment to a professional footballer.

‘The referee inadvertently nudged him as he was backing off the penalty and he made out the referee has basically run into him. What a big kid.

‘Any player worth his salt would have laughed that off and taken the penalty and yet he whined and moaned and cried, as he does, about something so innocuous.

‘It was embarrassing. A lot of his career at United has been good but there’s been a sideshow as well and that encapsulated it for me.

‘I thought it was embarrassing beyond belief. How does that put you off your routine? He made such a song and dance about it that it became the story.

‘I thought it was beyond embarrassing, it was childish, school playground stuff. It beggars belief, it really does.’

Ex-Scotland star Burley also criticised Manchester United goalkeeper Altay Bayindir after the stalemate in west London.

Bayindir – selected ahead of Andre Onana, who was Amorim’s No. 1 last season – made a couple of decent saves against Fulham but once again look vulnerable from set-pieces.

‘The absolute glaring issue that I shouldn’t have to tell anybody is the keeper,’ Burley added.

‘Have you ever seen an elite level goalkeeper at this level look as if he’s frightened to death whenever a ball is swung in?

‘He was absolutely all over the place. You’re not going to put in a consistent run of results together with a goalkeeper like that because teams are going to exploit it.

‘You can’t continue with a goalkeeper who is so horrendous with crosses that it’s scary.’

The draw with Fulham means Manchester United have one point after their first two games of the new season.

Assessing his team’s performance at Craven Cottage, Amorim said: ‘If you look at the beginning of the game, the draw is so disappointing but at the end they were in the best momentum when the game finished.

‘We were a good team until our goal but then we forgot about our ideas because we wanted to win the football game so badly.’

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