Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has urged his team to follow in the footsteps of captain Bruno Fernandes, who embed a winning culture within the club.

The midfielder hurt his ankle during United’s FA Cup semi-final win over Brighton at Wembley on Sunday. He wore a protective boot last night, but he was able to lead the team in their 2-2 draw with Tottenham on Thursday.

After Jadon Sancho put the away team ahead in north London, Fernandes set up Marcus Rashford for a goal.

But Spurs scored two goals in the second half to come back from being down 2-0 at halftime and earn a point.

The result put United six points ahead of Spurs and two games ahead of them in the Premier League race for fourth place.

And since United already won the League Cup this season, they could win a second domestic cup when they play Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley in June.

United manager Ten Hag said that his players could all learn something from Fernandes’s behaviour.

“It was tough, a big compliment on Bruno. He absolutely doesn’t want to miss this game and he did everything to get fit.

“I think he is the example, and that you have to suffer and you have to sacrifice when you want to play on the top level, you want to achieve something.

“So once again he showed there how great a captain he is, how he has taken responsibility, even when he is not 100 percent fit.

“But he did the job, he was important in this game as well. Hopefully the team can, not learn, but see him as an inspiration and do the same.”

United’s tie with Spurs was the second time in two weeks that they had thrown away a two-goal lead. The first time was in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final against Sevilla.

After that, they lost the second game in Spain by a score of 3-0, which ended their hopes of winning a European trophy this season.

United also lost to Liverpool by a humiliating score of 7-0 this season, but as Ten Hag pointed out, they have also beaten the top two teams in the Premier League and the top team in La Liga.

“We had some games I like,” said Ten Hag. “Two weeks ago against (Nottingham) Forest (a 2-0 win), I think that was almost optimum. You see it’s not so easy to play Forest, you see Liverpool struggling, you see Brighton struggling there. That was a very good performance on our side.

“We had more games, I would have to think which games. Especially I think City (at home), that was a brilliant game. We had more, I think Arsenal, both games we played very well. We had many games where we were very dominant.

“Betis, Barcelona. So we had our games where we played very good football,” he added.

Photo by PA/ISABEL INFANTES