Bruno Fernandes, the captain of Manchester United, was left out of Marcel Sabitzer’s list of three leaders under Erik ten Hag, according to Sabitzer.

After making an impression during his second half of the previous season while on loan from Bayern Munich to United, Sabitzer’s move was not finalized and he ended up joining Borussia Dortmund during the summer transfer window.

Though he has pleasant recollections of his Premier League days, the Austrian international says he “feels sorry” for his former teammates before identifying the room’s leaders.

“I feel very positive about my time there and still talk to a couple of people,” Sabitzer said in an interview with The Athletic.

“You ask yourself, ‘what’s going on?’ There’s a lot of noise, results are not good, they’ve had defeats at home, which almost felt unthinkable last season. And there’s still the unresolved situation of the ownership. You can see what that does to a team.

I feel sorry for them because they’re all good guys, and extremely hungry for success.

Casemiro, Luke Shaw and Lisandro Martinez – they are leaders that provide structure and stability to the team.

Erik ten Hag comes with up very specific match plans and patterns of play. But if you have too many important players missing and too many changes as a result, things get lost between the tactics board and the pitch. The rhythm of players coming isn’t right, processes aren’t right.

In the Premier League and Champions League, you need your best players available. Everything feels a little laboured and uncertain now. They need their big guys to show up and change the course of the season, but I believe things can change quickly once they get important players back.”

Additionally, Sabitzer lauded Ten Hag’s man-management abilities and stated that the United boss treats his players “very straight.”

“You can wake him up at 3am, he’d tell you his whole match plan by heart,” Sabitzer said.

“He’s very knowledgeable about football and tactics, a very hard worker, a perfectionist.

And he’s very straight with you. When I had a bad game, he showed me some situations and told me how to do it better next time. I liked that. You knew where you stood with him. He never threw you under the bus. Instead, he told players to go out and do better in the next game.

I learned a lot about football working under him. He’s a very good coach.”