Ruben Amorim urges Roy Keane and other critics to enjoy Bruno Fernandes

Ruben Amorim has told former Manchester United players criticising captain Bruno Fernandes to stop seeing his performances in “black and white” and appreciate the colours that paint the overall picture.

The 30-year-old has often been the lightning rod during poor performances or patches, with former skipper Roy Keane fuming “talent is not enough” as he tore into his leadership a fortnight ago.

Fernandes said he was using those eye-catching remarks as fuel after firing United to the Europa League quarter-finals with a hat-trick in Thursday’s 4-1 last-16 second leg win against Real Sociedad.

Head coach Amorim recently said his opinion of the Portugal playmaker was more important than Keane’s and described him as the “perfect captain” after sealing a 5-2 aggregate victory to set up a quarter-final against Lyon.

“I think he’s so important for this team,” he said. “And you can see it by the numbers, and you can see from these last games, he’s always the guy that scores.

“It’s not the most important thing, it’s not the only thing, but he’s always there.

“When you play for this team, you have to be prepared for the critics and I understand that former players had a lot of success here and the standards for them were so high that they see the things like that sometimes as black and white.

“In life sometimes it’s not just black and white, there is some other colours and you have to understand the context.

“Again, he’s always there, trying his best, so I’m really proud to coach a player like him.”

Fernandes’ availability for United is almost as important as his others qualities, especially given the Red Devils were without 11 players for a third straight game.

Those issues could ease slightly when the Red Devils head to struggling