Roy Keane has challenged Bruno Fernandes to step up and be a leader for Manchester United, with the former Old Trafford star not convinced the side's current captain is doing enough.
Keane knows what it is like to wear the captain's armband for Manchester United and as a result he holds Fernandes and those that came before him to an incredibly high standard.
With United slumped 13th in Premier League and breaking all the wrong records so far this season, Keane has called on talisman Fernandes to stand up and be counted as a leader ahead of a derby match against Manchester City.
'Man United have to turn up today and show some fight, some spirit, desire to defend a corner, desire not to give daft free-kicks away, despite to close people down,' Keane said on Sky Sports.
'We mention Bruno [Fernandes] about his quality but he’s got to do more off the pitch, he’s got to be a leader.
'He’s got to find people like [Marcus] Rashford to create something. We keep talking characters at Manchester United and they don’t turn up but we keep thinking they will next week. Time is running out for a lot of these players. We’ve got to see it today in a derby match.'
Keane believes there can be no excuse for a lack of desire from United's players in what is one of the biggest games on the calendar.
Ruben Amorim's side have lost back to back games in the league - against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest - and faint hopes of a top four finish are fading fast heading towards Christmas.
'You still have to find something, find a spark, find something from within the dressing room,' Keane added.
'We can make excuses for this team all day long about off the field and recruitment but you have to find something, create something in the dressing room, a spark… whatever the quality might be in this squad and there is question marks over a lot of it.
'But I go back to it and I say this every week, the reason you play football, whether it’s against one man and his dog or 50,000, you have to have some sort of pride in your performance.
'Whether that is how much you run, quality when you get the ball, you mention Man City and United in recent months, too easy to play against. People find it easy to play against you.'
Amorim is approaching his first transfer window as Manchester United head coach and while he currently has a number of underperforming players to work with, he is lacking funds to transform the group.
United are struggling to comply with PSR rules after posting losses of £300million over the last three years.
After spending another £200m on transfers last summer, they did not budget on having to pay out an additional £21.4m to replace Erik ten Hag with Amorim.
That means that United, as exclusively revealed by Mail Sport, would consider offers of £40m for Marcus Rashford - but accept there are unlikely to be any bidders for the England forward in the January transfer window.
Selling homegrown players counts as 100 per cent profit on the PSR balance sheet, and for some time now the spotlight has fallen on Rashford who has been at the club since the age of seven.
It’s understood the 27-year-old’s asking price would have been as much as £100m when he scored 30 goals in Ten Hag’s first season at United.
But Rashford’s loss of form and the contract he signed last year worth a prohibitive £325,000-a-week means that his value has more than halved.