Players who have shone for United AD (After dominance...)

IT has been six years since United hosted a Player of the Year awards dinner at Old Trafford. The Sir Matt Busby Statue can remain in its current abode.

- SAMUEL LUCKHURST

Barring a case of force majeure, Bruno Fernandes will be named United's player of the year for a fourth time in May. Only Cristiano Ronaldo and David de Gea have won it that many times.

Fernandes has been, by a distance, United's best signing since Robin van Persie in 2012 and their best player in the era of United AD (after dominance). When Gary Neville ranked United's outfield signings since Sir Alex Ferguson retired via a traffic-light system in August 2022, the only greens were Fernandes and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

They remain the only post-2013 recruits who have been out-and-out successes: starters who brought success to United.

Here are all ten:

SERGIO ROMERO

You can tell how dire United's recruitment hit rate is when a backup goalkeeper is among their best signings over a 12-year period.

Romero was a free transfer in 2015 and he was entrusted with United's run to the Europa League final in 2017, conceding only four goals in seven knockout games. Not retaining Romero for the Europa League semi-final in 2020 was an error that killed United's chances of silverware and his United career.

Even though Romero was not a regular after De Gea signed committed to the club in September 2015, the Argentine qualifies as a successful signing. United only lost six of the 61 games Romero started in. Apart from an early howler at Swansea in August 2015, he rarely made a costly error. For a few years, United had the best No.1 and best No.2 goalkeepers around.

AMAD

Fernandes might have had to return the Busby statue had Amad not injured his ankle last month.

The winger was United's player of the season until then and he has had a progressive 15 months since Erik ten Hag belatedly utilised him in the second half of last season.