Bruno Fernandes has 24 G/A and 101 chances created - It will be wrong to overlook him for the PFA award

Bruno Fernandes registered  his 24th Premier League goal contribution during the controversial match on Friday night at Bournemouth. 

His corner led to an own goal, he drove the team from the front for 90 minutes. But Manchester United still drew. 

And somehow, heading into the final stretch of the season, there are people who believe he should not win the PFA Player of the Year award. They are wrong.

24 big chances, 24 goal contributions, 16 assists - the most in the Premier League, and over 100 chances created. One hundred for this Manchester United side. 

A side that lost Harry Maguire to a red card on Friday, that has been playing without Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez for weeks, the Reds who were in trouble during Ruben Amorim’s ill-fated era. Fernandes is not operating with a safety net. He is the safety net.

This is the part of the conversation that gets glossed over. The PFA award is a Premier League award - full stop. It is not decided by European nights or title races. It is decided by what a player does in the league, week after week, against the same opponents his rivals face. 

On that measure, nobody has done more than Fernandes. Nobody has created more, nobody has contributed more goals. And nobody has done it under more difficult circumstances.

The counter-argument is that Declan Rice plays for a title-winning team and that his contributions matter more because they lead somewhere. Fair point. 

But Fernandes has had to play deeper this season in a United team that struggled to make an impact before Amorim was sacked. 

Therefore, the fact that his numbers are this good in this environment is not a reason to overlook him. It is the entire reason to give him the award.

We have seen individual Premier League seasons like this before;  Thierry Henry, Kevin De Bruyne at his peak, Salah in 2017. They did not get overlooked because their team was having a rough year. Neither should Fernandes.

He scored, created and led on Friday. United dropped points anyway. That is not the argument against him. That is the whole argument for him and the voters need to see it.