There has been an increase in the number of European scouts attending games at the London Stadium to monitor a talent who is not expected to remain at West Ham United for much longer.

The player in question is 21-year-old midfielder Mateus Fernandes, who has been a consistent performer in the club’s quest for Premier League survival. Since joining from Southampton last summer in a deal worth £38million, Fernandes has registered five goals and four assists across 40 appearances this season. Most impressive was his long-range strike in the 3-1 victory against Sunderland in January.

It highlighted why the Portugal international is a sought-after talent. Nine months after his arrival, West Ham are already planning for life without him. Sources with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, say the club have conceded Fernandes will be sold to help fund their summer recruitment, irrespective of which league they will be in next season.

Fernandes, who signed a five-year deal with the option of a further year, does not have a release clause in his contract. But West Ham expect to significantly improve on the fee they paid last year, although Championship side Southampton negotiated a 15 per cent sell-on clause following his departure.

Although the midfielder could experience back-to-back relegations to the Championship, his ability and potential far exceeds that of a player fighting to ensure top-flight safety. At the end of the 2024-25 season, when Southampton finished bottom of the league, Fernandes was named the fans’ player of the season. He scored twice and registered four assists in 36 league appearances. Fernandes, who joined Southampton from Portuguese club Sporting CP in August 2024 for £15m, only made five league appearances for his boyhood club. He struggled to force his way into the team with fellow midfielders Matheus Nunes, Manuel Ugarte and Joao Palhinha ahead of him.

“What we lost is a very valuable young player who, in my opinion, has the characteristics to be a great player, but choices were made,” then Sporting CP manager Ruben Amorim told Portuguese outlet A Bola in 2024. “We do everything together, we sit down in a room and Mateus was a player who cost us a lot, but when they ask me if we can lose Goncalo (Inacio), I say no, if we can lose Morten (Hjulmand), I say no. We really wanted to keep Mateus and, honestly, I think he would have liked to stay, despite it being a big contract and a big league. It was a difficult moment for everyone, but I repeat, we have to make choices and in the end, as a coach, I also make them.”

Sporting’s lost jewel has been polished by Southampton and West Ham. Despite an initial slow start at the London Stadium, with head coach Nuno Espirito Santo favouring Lucas Paqueta as the main midfield attacking outlet, Fernandes has stepped up since Paqueta’s €41.25m (£35.8m) January departure to Brazilian side Flamengo.

(Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Two of his four assists came in wins over Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, he has formed a promising midfield partnership with Tomas Soucek and came close to scoring in last weekend’s 1-0 loss to Arsenal. Fernandes is capable of playing in a deeper midfield role, a winger and as a No 10. He is better suited in an attacking role and often gets licence to roam forward, with Soucek sitting deep. Paqueta mainly played further afield when he and Fernandes were in the starting XI.

It was former head coach Graham Potter who pushed for the club to sign Fernandes. He viewed the midfielder as a top transfer target and although West Ham’s opening offer of £30m including add-ons was rejected, Potter convinced the club to make a counter-offer. Fernandes was a parting gift to Nuno, who succeeded Potter in late September. In an interview with the club’s official website, the midfielder expressed appreciation to his fellow compatriot.

“Last season at Southampton, I was playing more forward, like a winger, but midfielder is my position,” said Fernandes in January. “When I spoke with the head coach (Nuno) he asked me about my favourite position. I told him, of course, I can play winger or defender if you want, but midfield is the best position (for me).

“I’m playing much better than when I arrived. Of course, the head coach helped me a lot. He gave me confidence to be free and to play what I feel. As I said before many times, the game against Leeds (in October) was the most important game for me because I went to the bench and I took some time to think about the things I was doing. It was time to learn about that moment. I think I’m a much better player now than I was before.”

The 2-1 loss to Leeds is the only league match Fernandes has not started under Nuno. His former academy coaches predicted he would play a starring role in the second half of the season. Fernandes has gained confidence from being an ever-present figure and in March received a senior call-up for the Portugal national team. The midfielder, who amassed 38 caps for the junior teams from under-18 to under-21 level, made his debut under manager Roberto Martinez in a friendly against the United States.

“What Mateus is doing now is incredible,” Martinez told a group of reporters at his press conference. “We all know his journey and what he did in the under-21s. It’s very important for us to see what he can do, his energy, his versatility. He deserves this call-up to the national team.”

At the start of the season, Fernandes wrote down a list of targets. Playing at the World Cup ranked high and, should he fulfil his target, an audience far greater than the London Stadium will see why he is considered such a highly-rated talent.

The penultimate round of the Fantasy Premier League season has arrived, with some big decisions for fantasy managers to make ahead of Gameweek 37.

This weekend (and a bit) sees the fixture calendar uniquely positioned, with half of the Premier League’s 20 clubs playing their final match of the campaign in their own stadium, which is significant.

So, with plenty of teams still having something tangible to play for, what are the key fixtures to target and who are the potential players to transfer in with home advantage in mind?

Arsenal (vs Burnley)

Arsenal will play their final home game of the season at the Emirates Stadium on Monday night.

Mikel Arteta’s league-leading title-chasers have won five of their past six top-flight games there, and Burnley are already relegated to the Championship. Any FPL manager not yet tripled up on Arsenal should make it their top priority for this match, with four of their assets sitting among the top five most-transferred-in players for Gameweek 37 at the time of writing.

Viktor Gyokeres (£9.0m), Bukayo Saka (£10.0m), William Saliba (£6.2m) and Declan Rice (£7.2m) had all been transferred in more than 40,000 times, with those numbers expected to continue to rise ahead of Friday’s 6.30pm UK time (1.30pm ET) deadline.

Saka and Gyokeres are both in the captaincy conversation, with most managers likely to own just one of them. They are both relative differentials, appearing in 11.4 per cent and 15.7 per cent of teams respectively.

Gyokeres was on the scoresheet in the reverse fixture in gameweek 10, and has a reputation for dominating against fragile defences — 11 of his 14 league goals this season have come against opposition in the bottom half of the table. The case for buying Saka is equally compelling, with the England winger picking up a goal and an assist in the 3-0 win against Fulham in their previous home league fixture a fortnight ago.

Arsenal kept their 18th clean sheet of the season last time out at West Ham, and have done so in three consecutive top-flight games, meaning a double-up on their defence is a viable strategy.

Centre-back Gabriel (£7.3m) scored 12 points in that 2-0 win away to Burnley in October, including an assist, a clean sheet and two bonus points. He’s also produced 25 fantasy points in the past four gameweeks. Somewhat surprisingly, it is goalkeeper David Raya (£6.1m) who is Arsenal’s highest-scoring player over that same period, with two save points and five bonus ones as the north Londoners continue to grind out results.

Bournemouth (vs Manchester City)

Second-placed City must win on Tuesday to take the title race to the season’s final set of fixtures next weekend but Andoni Iraola’s side will also be highly motivated going into their last home match.

It will be Iraola’s last game in charge, as he is stepping down after three seasons, with Bournemouth’s current position of sixth potentially enough to secure landmark Champions League football (for a club who haven’t played any kind of European football before) next season. They are unbeaten since losing 3-2 at home to Arsenal on January 3, recording eight wins and eight draws in that time, and this fixture ended in a 2-1 home victory last season.

Midfielder Rayan (£5.4m) is a differential, in just 1.5 per cent of sides following his January arrival from Brazil’s Vasco da Gama, but should not be overlooked. He has four goal involvements in as many games: scoring three times with one assist, while ranking fifth in the league over that span for shots (10).

Bournemouth winger Rayan has registered an attacking return in his last four games (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Don’t rule out their assets at the back either, with Adrien Truffert (£4.7m) and Marcos Senesi (£5.2m) the highest-scoring defenders in the game over these same four gameweeks — Truffert is just 4.7 per cent owned.

Bournemouth have kept consecutive clean sheets, and these two players are never far from the two-point defensive contribution bonus, having both passed the threshold of 10 in the reverse fixture in gameweek 10.

Senesi has two assists in his past four matches, both coming at home, while also receiving three bonus points in a 3-0 win against Crystal Palace in Gameweek 35. Truffert has picked up six bonus points over the same period.

Brentford (vs Crystal Palace)

Brentford sit eighth in the table, just four points off sixth and a potential Champions League place, and their assets are worth a look this weekend.

On Sunday, they entertain Palace, who are on the beach in Premier League terms, with all their focus on the UEFA Conference League final, which comes in the midweek after the end of the top-flight season.

Striker Igor Thiago (£7.3m) is a key Brentford asset to consider, given his remarkable form this season, scoring 22 league goals, though he has only one in the past four gameweeks. It’s also worth noting 13 of the 22 have come on home turf, and that the Brazilian has scored four times in as many games at the Gtech Stadium.

Thiago has been outscored overall in these past four gameweeks by team-mates Mikkel Damsgaard (£5.6m) and Mathias Jensen (£4.9m), who have also scored a goal apiece in that period. The midfield duo are significant differentials, each sitting in less than one per cent of FPL sides. Damsgaard has had seven shots on goal in this span, including two big chances.

Manchester United (vs Nottingham Forest)

While United are playing for not much other than confirming third place (if that, depending on Friday’s result between fifth-placed Aston Villa and Liverpool, who are fourth on goal difference) when they take on Forest at Old Trafford in Sunday’s early kick-off, there are plenty of significant narratives filtering into this match.

Michael Carrick has been the most consistent manager or head coach in the Premier League since his appointment in January, taking 33 points from the possible 45, with just two defeats.

Bruno Fernandes (£10.4m) has shown incredible form in this spell, providing a goal involvement in every home appearance under Carrick, including five double-digit hauls.

He is one assist away from matching the Premier League record of 20 in a season, with this game on his own patch the perfect opportunity to equal or even surpass that mark. That makes Fernandes a popular captaincy pick for this fixture, and he’s leading the way for key passes (18) and big chances created (five) over the past four gameweeks — as he has all season.

Fellow midfielder Casemiro (£5.9m) has returned to training this week after not being in the matchday squad against Sunderland last weekend, so is likely to have an opportunity to say farewell to the Old Trafford crowd after four seasons with the club.

This campaign has been his most successful of the four by far in terms of personal stats, with the Brazilian scoring nine goals, including three in his past four home matches, and recording four assists. He’s another perfect homebody differential, as he was in only 5.4 per cent of FPL teams at time of writing.

Michael Carrick is a step closer to becoming Manchester United’s next permanent head coach after The Athletic revealed that is the recommendation the club’s football leaders.

Carrick took interim charge of United in January following Ruben Amorim’s exit and two games under Darren Fletcher and recovered their league form dramatically to earn qualification for the Champions League next season.

The Athletic reported on Wednesday that the recommendation of the club’s leading football executives to co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is to make Carrick the club’s permanent head coach and that is expected to pave the way for talks over him staying in charge.

Andy Mitten looks at the eight areas Carrick must focus on if he does take over the job permanently to ensure his success as interim continues.

Win football matches

This is, by a distance, the most important thing for Carrick and his team. And the hardest to achieve. Carrick has got into the position to be the clear favourite for the United head coach’s job by winning 10 out of 15 league games and taking his team from seventh to third. That seemed improbable in January, but he’s proved people wrong, overseeing wins home or away against Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Villa, Brentford and Chelsea — all the main rivals this season.

The dropped points have mostly come against teams lower down: West Ham, Leeds, Newcastle United and Sunderland. Carrick has overachieved with the squad he has, made the best of the players he’s got. Putting them into a 4-2-3-1 system they were used to helped after the Amorim experiment floundered.

The expectation among most fans is that this level of wins should be the norm, as it is at most huge clubs. Fans expect United to be in the top four and if they’re not, there will be complaints. Is this reasonable? If United recruit well this summer, then a top-four finish and a run to the Champions League knockout stages is a reasonable expectation.

If he falls well short of that and United regress, then pressure will build around Carrick’s perceived lack of top-level experience, but people shouldn’t jump on him. Ruben Amorim was well supported by fans, despite his team finishing 15th.

Strengthen coaching staff

In the summer of 2024, Andreas Georgson and Ruud van Nistelrooy joined United as coaches to assist Erik ten Hag. Both were very highly rated internally and externally. Both moved on, Van Nistelrooy to Leicester, Georgson to Tottenham, when Ruben Amorim got the United job. United felt they had lost two excellent coaches but accepted that a manager chooses those around him.

Carrick’s staff could be strengthened further (Photo: Paul ELLIS / AFP via Getty Images)

United will be open to adding another coach to Carrick’s staff. Georgson was a set-piece specialist. This is an area where United are likely to look to add. Carrick trusts the coaches around him: the wily Steve Holland, Jonny Evans, Jonathan Woodgate and goalkeeping coach Craig Mawson. But don’t bet against an addition.

Approve the right signings

It’s another huge summer for United. The last one was a positive for recruitment with the arrival of Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko and Senne Lammens. All get a tick by their name for their good first seasons. It’s hoped that all will improve in their second, too.

United want two midfielders, likely three if Manuel Ugarte leaves. These are vital. For all Casemiro’s qualities, too many teams attacked United through the middle and tried to get around him, with varying success. It’s the area of the pitch Carrick knows best.

A goalkeeping backup to Lammens is desired, a left-sided player too. And a forward if Joshua Zirkzee exits, as he could. A defensive leader can wait if the current defenders remain.

United have money but must use it well, as they did last season. The entire budget could be spent on an Elliot Anderson and that wouldn’t be wise. The club are well prepared going into the window, but this isn’t yet the Manchester United of old, where transfer records are broken. This squad is short of mounting a sustained Premier League bid and that’s not going to be sorted in one window after a season of no European football.

Revenues from tickets, sponsorship, commercial and broadcast are all set to increase substantially, but anyone who thinks United will offer the astronomical transfer fees and wages of yore is mistaken.

While he may not identify the targets, every player signed will be with Carrick’s approval.

Making the right calls with returnees

Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Rasmus Hojlund, Andre Onana are all the biggest names out on loan. Emerging talents Radek Vitek, Toby Collyer and Harry Amass need to be playing first-team football in a top league or the Championship. Some will be sold, or at least up for sale to get money in.

Fortunately, most of the biggest issues will resolve themselves. Rashford’s wages are high, but his stock is higher than a year ago after a successful, title-winning season at Barcelona. Hojlund is contracted to sign for Napoli, having been a success. More income, but still a loss on his transfer fee. Sancho will be out of contract, an extremely costly signing for whom there’s no return, despite him being only 26.

Onana had a decent season at Trabzonspor, who finished third in Turkey. There’s a market for these talents, there’s a much smaller one for their high wages.

Does Carrick foresee more minutes for one of the returning youngsters? That’s one reason for pre-season.

This isn’t all on Carrick, but United need to move men on in a way that they can be considered good deals for the club. That’s the hard bit, since United are not selling from a position of strength with most of the players, more because they’ve not worked out at Old Trafford.

How he projects himself

Carrick is cool, calm and looks the part in his Manchester United suit. He’s a man of integrity, with multiple testimonies to that. He’s confident in his ability, too. When Sanne Lammens made a rare mistake against Liverpool, Carrick simply said: “These things happen”. And they do. He empowers the other coaches to take responsibility and accountability for coaching certain parts of the game.

Carrick backs players in public when they’ve had a bad game because he knows it can come back around, that everyone has an off day. He doesn’t write any player off publicly. To him, he must protect lads he’s got to work with because he knows he might need them all.

Carrick may reveal more of himself in a permanent role (Photo: Mark Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Carrick’s answers in press conferences could be better, but that’s likely because he’s talking in an interim role. I suspect we’ll see more detail and explanations once his position is permanent, with more of his own opinions, but he’s not going to turn into somebody he isn’t, not someone who bangs his own drum or feeds tabloids a juicy line.

“He’s straight, he doesn’t lie,” is what one source who has worked with him told The Athletic. “And that’s a beautiful thing about him.”

Style of play

The football has been good under Carrick. It could be better. And you could have said the same under any manager. Carrick was a coach before a manager and he still coaches.

He excels at build-up from the back and gives detail and guidance to players on positioning, opponents. He wants players to be brave, to have the technical ability and the togetherness to play from the back. It’s not just about starting attacks, but being authoritative, being better than the other team.

Carrick speaks to his players about angles and connections through patterns of play. In his mind, complex stuff is clear. His ability to talk to players on their level is excellent because he’s spent much of his life on their level.

Carrick has a degree of pragmatism. At Middlesbrough, he told people he’d worked with at Manchester United that he’d needed to adapt because the league was different. He still wanted to be possession dominant and stretch the opposition and have a good structure to protect against counterattacks, but he understands the need for variety, that certain matches and conditions don’t need as much information.

“I love possessing the ball,” he said in an interview as Middlesbrough manager. “That’s what I do by nature and I love for my teams to be that way too. I see the game as an attempt to possess the ball. Not just for the sake of possessing it — I’m just not that interested in stats themselves. It’s just about feeling you’re in control of the game.”

Handling 50-60 games

It’ll be a big shift from one game per week, but Carrick handled this when he was Middlesbrough manager and he handled it when he was part of the staff under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and United were playing 60 games per season. He also handled it as a player — most of his football career was him at a club playing 50-60 games, two games per week. He’s been there, but not as United’s head coach.

Ruben Amorim asked for full weeks with his players when he arrived. He got this, but the connections between players and the comprehension of his plan didn’t get much better.

More football can have other advantages. Gone will be the slow news weeks when everything gets overanalysed because of a lack of games. More potential incidents, more to talk about can be useful. He absolutely has opinions and a fire in his belly; he just doesn’t always choose to show it publicly. Once bitten, twice shy.

Managing the dressing room

Carrick is popular with players. He’s not a coach who will dump too much information on them and expect them to go for it. He tells them what’s appropriate and tries to frame it in as simple language as possible. Less is more and he’s comfortable with that.

Many managers, including most of the recent Manchester United managers, were not. They wanted to give the players everything, to arm them with all the information. Carrick understands the mental load that a player can take. It’s one reason you’re seeing United players enthusing about him. Those starters get a lot of responsibility.

Those who aren’t getting minutes will almost always be annoyed and, while the United dressing room is much improved on two years ago, there are still a couple of complex characters with big egos who need to be managed well. There will be more games and opportunities next season than this. And that’s in part a reward Carrick’s earned by improving United to get the club back into the Champions League.