Why Bruno Fernandes and Pedro Neto have withdrawn from the Portugal squad

Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes and Chelsea star Pedro Neto have left the Portugal squad and returned to their clubs early.

Both players were on the scoresheet as Portugal thrashed Poland 5-1 in the Nations League on Friday night.

Cristiano Ronaldo also bagged a brace and in the process claimed his 132nd win in international football, breaking the record set by Spain’s Sergio Ramos.

But after the game it was announced that four players – Fernandes, Neto, Ronaldo and Bernardo Silva – would be leaving the squad with immediate effect.

This is despite the fact that Portugal still have one more fixture this international break, away to Croatia on Monday night.

Why have Bruno Fernandes and Pedro Neto left the Portugal squad early?

Thankfully for United and Chelsea, their star players haven’t been forced to withdraw because of injury.

The win against Poland combined with Scotland’s late victory over Croatia mean that Portugal will finish top of their Nations League group no matter what happens in the last round of fixtures.

They have therefore qualified for the quarter-finals of the competition which will take place in March.

As such, manager Roberto Martinez has seen little point in using his key players for the Croatia clash and wants to experiment with others.

The aforementioned quartet have therefore been allowed to leave, with Martinez explaining: ‘In the first stage, we made six changes from one game to the next.

‘It’s important for us to be first – and we already are. We need to be competitive to add to the group, it’s getting harder and harder to get into the starting eleven.

‘There’s a World Cup finals in 18 months. The game against Croatia is important, we need to look at other players.

‘We’re going to let go of Bernardo Silva, Pedro Neto, Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes, who is suspended – so we’re going to call up Fabio Silva and [Geovany] Quenda from the Under-21s.’

As Martinez mentions, Fernandes was set to miss the Croatia match anyway through suspension after picking up his third yellow card of the competition.

However, both United and Chelsea are still represented in the Portugal squad with Diogo Dalot, Renato Veiga and Joao Felix all in contention to face Croatia.

Who do Man Utd and Chelsea play next?

Fernandes’ early return will provide a handy boost to new United head coach Ruben Amorim who began work at Old Trafford earlier this week.

For the Portuguese first game in charge, the Red Devils will travel to Ipswich Town on Sunday, November 24.

Neto meanwhile scored his first Premier League goal for Chelsea in their last game against Arsenal and will hope to keep up his goalscoring run when the Blues visit Leicester City on Saturday, November 23.

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