Alejandro Garnacho celebrates.

Alejandro Garnacho was "not at his best" at the beginning of the season, according to Bruno Fernandes, who expressed concerns about the player's attitude.

Even though the 18-year-old Garnacho was a part of United's pre-season tour of Thailand and Australia, Erik ten Hag did not give him a single minute of playing time during the tour. Instead, ten Hag gave minutes to players like Tahith Chong, who appeared to be on their way out of the club, during the tour.

That decision seemed strange, but Ten Hag explained last week - after Garnacho was given the opportunity to make his full debut against FC Sheriff - that he was "not happy" with the youngster at the beginning of the season. Fernandes has now elaborated on what Ten Hag meant by that statement. Garnacho was given the opportunity to make his debut against FC Sheriff.

On Thursday night, Garnacho scored the only goal of the game when his team faced Real Sociedad. After the game, Fernandes was questioned about Garnacho's performance. Fernandes praised the forward for his recent reversal of attitude and talked about the forward's demeanor at the beginning of the season.

He [Garnacho] was good, but he is aware that we expect a lot from him," Fernandes said in an interview with BT Sport. "Even though he's still very young, he's already accomplished a lot. When the new season started, he was not performing at his peak level. He did not have the most positive attitude that he should have had while on the tour.

He is getting his chances now because he is training better, he has a different attitude, and he is deserving his chances. Everyone is really happy for him and pleased with his goal. "That's why he hasn't gotten his chances until now."

Fernandes was also questioned about the upcoming round of the competition, which is the play-off round. In this round, United could potentially face Ajax, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Sevilla, Sporting Libson, Juventus, RB Salzburg, or Shakhtar Donetsk.

He continued by saying, "There is no reason for us to look at that." "Our primary objective was to win the group so that we could avoid that, but now that we have to play against one of them, and that won't be a problem for us. We want to win the competition, so we have to play good teams.

"Either way, it's only a matter of time before we're prepared for that."