Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has lifted the lid on the steps taken to sign Bruno Fernandes in January from Sporting CP.
Solskjaer has now spoken at length about the exhaustive process in scouting the Portuguese star, which involved a chat over the phone with Cristiano Ronaldo.
He told the High Performance podcast: “So obviously Cristiano was an easy goal for me that I managed to get through.
“Through Patrice Evra, I managed to get hold of Cristiano and his recommendation obviously stood him (Fernandes) in good stead.”
The manager added: “It was off the field as well in training. And he demands off me. He demands off his team-mates. The first day he was in the club, he shook everyone’s hand. He doesn’t, he didn’t come in here thinking, ‘I’m the, I’m the big shot. I’m… you follow me’. No, he shook absolutely every staff members’ hand.
“And, of course, this is a family – Man United – we’ve always been a family, and Sir Alex, the way he’s created this atmosphere in this dressing, in this training ground, I think it’s unique.”
Crucially, Fernandes had the ability to earn respect quickly too.
“He’s got the talent of course,” Solskjer continued. “That’s, you can see the quality is there. And we’ve seen that for a long time, but then again, he steps up when it matters.
“And he does it when it matters. He’s delivered crosses, he’s delivered assists, he’s scored goals, he’s taken penalties. He’s done everything in a short space of time that you’d expect…”
