Michael Carrick has won just two of 10 games in charge this season and although he has the backing of the dressing room, the pressure is being cranked up. If the 45-year-old does leave, Fernandes will be facing up to an eighth different manager, permanent or temporary, in his seven years at the club.

When put like that, is it any surprise the 32-year-old has looked cranky and agitated this season? If Carrick is to survive, he will almost certainly need Fernandes to find the form that has deserted him for so much of this season.

Off the back of a campaign in which he cleaned up on the individual awards, Fernandes has looked a shadow of that player so far, a hat-trick against Ipswich aside. All too often, he has reached mid-October knowing another season of targeting the biggest trophies is beyond him.

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This is arguably the most prolonged dip of his Old Trafford career, and could you blame him if his head was in Riyadh, Paris or Munich as another United season unravels? Or even Istanbul or Turin, after Galatasaray and Juventus showed interest this summer.

It felt like United had momentum last term, but that has been squandered by a summer transfer window that lacked ambition. Plenty of senior players agreed with the premise of Lisandro Martinez's attack on the club hierarchy in Madrid last week, if not necessarily the timing of the decision to go public.

It would certainly be interesting to hear Fernandes' views on what happened during the summer, and whether he wants to extend his stay at United beyond the end of this season, when his current contract expires. It's unlikely we'll hear those views, however, because the only external media he has done this season was a brief post-match interview after his man of the match display against Ipswich.

That feels unusual, at a time when United are back in Europe and have had to put three players up for pre-match press conferences in the Champions League. Players have also spoken post-match in the mixed zone and Andrey Santos did post-match in Madrid and pre-match in Como.

It feels like a deliberate decision to keep Fernandes away from the microphones. Perhaps it's contract-related; perhaps he would struggle to toe the party line.

Either way, a first return to Italy in five years, since a 2-2 draw with Atalanta in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice, would be a good time for Fernandes to rediscover the joy in his game. United need his creativity and eye for goal.

Where he does that from is another question. He has been shifted out of a central zone recently, with Carrick favouring a new-look midfield of Carlos Baleba, Santos and Youri Tielemans. They have offered the control that can often be lacking when Fernandes is at the heart of things.

The ultimate roll of the dice from Carrick would be to drop Fernandes. He claimed a week ago that nobody was guaranteed a place in his team and on form and fitness, there have to be questions around the captain.

Such a bold move seems unlikely, so instead it is on the Portugal international to play his way back into a rhythm. Carrick's future might well depend on whether he can manage that.