You honestly think these tactics cater to anyone?
It’s bringing out the worst version of every single one of our players, besides possibly Onana who’s getting a lot of work.
Are Bruno and Rashford a problem?
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You honestly think these tactics cater to anyone?
It’s bringing out the worst version of every single one of our players, besides possibly Onana who’s getting a lot of work.
You must be laughing at yourself, because he is completely correct.You honestly think these tactics cater to anyone?
It’s bringing out the worst version of every single one of our players, besides possibly Onana who’s getting a lot of work.
This counterattacking, chaotic style is absolutely what suits players like Bruno and Rashford. All of their "good" performances for United have come when games are transitional, and we have minimum control.
I say "good" because they honestly almost never play a full, good game. They are generally poor in every season, but go through patches with displays of individual moments in games. Bruno's goal yesterday is the perfect example. He scored a brilliant goal. Yet he played really awfully. And that's also how they usually play at their "best", more or less. Last year, Rashford scored 30 goals. But rarely, if ever, did he actually have a really good game for 90 minutes. It's all just moments here and there of individual brilliance. That's their true level.
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If we have to choose, I'd rather we sell Bruno but definitely keep Rashford. Rashford is definitely rated high by clubs and fans outside of United. If you ask Arsenal and Pool to take Rashford he would be in their starting line up for sure, maybe not for City since they have Foden.
Every single manager that has come in post Fergie has done the same. Anyone thinking we are going to shift Rashford and Bruno on their salaries are in for a rude surprise. Both won’t leave, same as Sancho.
Garnacho was more industrious than Rashford yesterday I thought? Neither did any damage anyway.
You're clearly overrating Rashford. He has never been the level you say he is including last season.
Bruno's biggest problem is that he tries too many Hollywoodballs and regularlygives it away with the occasional assist or goal in between; an archtypal stats player. He is also overrated by most United fans. Neither would get into Ferguson's best teams' first 11.
Again overrating Rashford.
They're not going anywhere and that's fine with me.
We're just not functioning as a unit, so it's no surprise that our creative players are misfiring.
The spine of the team needs to be addressed and ETH needs to bring in players who are fast, physical, and work hard to win back the ball. The team is too slow to play the transitional football he's after and we're being played through the middle, putting strain on the back four and GK.
If we can add some physical presence and energy to that midfield, Bruno and Rashford will start to tick. We saw with Kambwala how much it helps to have a bit of pace and strength in the side. Winning ground duels, competing physically, is where we're lacking.
Yes, I know Rashford is part of that solution but our midfield is just so easy to play against, bolstering that will improve those two and give them a base.
We're just not functioning as a unit, so it's no surprise that our creative players are misfiring.
The spine of the team needs to be addressed and ETH needs to bring in players who are fast, physical, and work hard to win back the ball. The team is too slow to play the transitional football he's after and we're being played through the middle, putting strain on the back four and GK.
If we can add some physical presence and energy to that midfield, Bruno and Rashford will start to tick. We saw with Kambwala how much it helps to have a bit of pace and strength in the side. Winning ground duels, competing physically, is where we're lacking.
Yes, I know Rashford is part of that solution but our midfield is just so easy to play against, bolstering that will improve those two and give them a base.
19/20, 20/21 and 22/23 all very good seasons for Rashford
21/22 and 23/24 both dogshit seasons
The opposite is true of your statement, 3 good seasons out of the last 5
The 2 bad seasons also happened where we were collectively very bad and severely underachieving, so 2 nightmare seasons
He's never been a problem when we were good as a team
I just cant wrap my head around why these two are lumped together. Is it because they are our biggest profiles?
Rashford has shown repetedly he cant be arsed if hes not feeling like it. There are numerous games just this season where he has strolled casually around while his teammates are pusting a gut to cover spaces. Never mind his diabolical bottom level, that kind of attitude is poison in a team sport and is simply inexcusable.
Bruno is frustrating for sure, and hes a bit to likely to have a good old moan when things are not going his way, but you can never fault his desire or work rate. Bruno tries to press, everyone can see that, but both the coaching and the set up is simply not up to standard and as mentioned earlier here, its just pure chaos.
Rashford has shown repetedly he cant be arsed if hes not feeling like it. There are numerous games just this season where he has strolled casually around while his teammates are pusting a gut to cover spaces. Never mind his diabolical bottom level, that kind of attitude is poison in a team sport and is simply inexcusable.
Bruno is frustrating for sure, and hes a bit to likely to have a good old moan when things are not going his way, but you can never fault his desire or work rate. Bruno tries to press, everyone can see that, but both the coaching and the set up is simply not up to standard and as mentioned earlier here, its just pure chaos.
Nar, their best performances by far have come when we’ve had some control and our transitional game has been on point.
How any poster can argue that any player plays better in an absolutely chaotic system like this is nuts.
If they both thrive more in this system? Rather than the more controlled football we played for a large part of last system, explain why both have been wank this year ? Doesn’t logic say they both suit a team that can control AND transition fast?
Have a think man.
Bruno’s issue isn’t effort. Its application. Yeah he runs around a lot…some might say too much - to the detriment of the team when he’s pressing when he shouldn’t be because the team isn’t with him and subsequently leaves a big hole. But more worrying is his ball retention. He gives it away far too much. Look at Bernardo and Odegaard. How they look after the ball but still threaten is night and day to what Bruno offers
How can you be sure you are not under-rating him? He scored 30+ last season, this season he really missed Shaw I think, Wan Bissaka has been very poor with providing attack support.
Replacing both should be seen as necessary, but it has to be with players that would improve our team play.
We'll do right to sign players that are calm under pressure that can retain possession in tight spaces, those are the type player we should be looking at.
We'll do right to sign players that are calm under pressure that can retain possession in tight spaces, those are the type player we should be looking at.
Just a piece of William Gallas urging Chelsea to sign both, He feel Bruno and Rashford will improve their team.
If Chelsea come in for them in the summer we should strike a far deal for both.
If Chelsea come in for them in the summer we should strike a far deal for both.
Both Bruno and Rashford are capable of playing in a possession based team. At present, it’s probably our CBs, AWB, Casemiro and Hojlund who would cause the most problems in that system currently.
In Rashford’s case, he’s one of the better passers of the ball I’ve seen for a player who is primarily focussed on pace and goal-scoring. One of the key issues he’s suffered from this season is that we have (a) failed to get players close to him and he’s been isolated regularly and (b) the passing to him when he’s made defence splitting runs has been poor. Both of those issues would be solved by having a more technical midfield/CF and switching to a more controlled game plan.
For Bruno, we’ve seen him play a more controlled game when he’s been asked to play a deeper role. I suspect he will always frustrate at times with a sloppy pass but I think he’s capable of adapting.
That's pretty much every player. In competitive football at a high level, there aren't many players who are consistently good for a full 90 minutes every game.
They are playing against professional players who are doing their best to ensure they don't look good for a full game. These individual 'moments' are what separates a good player from a decent or 'average' one.
You could have a team full of steady workhorses who play it safe and they would probably do ok, but your not going to win all those matches that need someone to do something special.
The most important thing in my opinion is to get the balance of the players in the team and the tactical set up / instructions right to get the most out of the players that will do the damage and score goals.
We could replace the likes of Bruno, Rashford and even McTominay with plenty of other players who might keep the ball better, but that won't win us games on it's own. The challenge is replacing them with players who are better at keeping the ball and making good decisions, but are also capable of producing the 'moments' and goals as well. Those players aren't often easy to find, nor do they often come cheap.
Rashford and Bruno have been especially poor this season but I feel that's symptomatic of the team performing horribly as a whole which comes back to the manager. A lot of the thought in this thread seems to get rid of these players just to have more possession. We could do that but possession alone doesn't win football matches. I want to see more control as much as the next man, but not at the expense of less creativity than we already have.
They are top players when at their best and it's down to the coaches getting paid handsomely to get the best out of them until they can be replaced with someone who genuinely can provide both the consistency and the creativity.
Rashford is the biggest problem at the club.
- Wages - Our own fault for offering the contract, but at £325k+ per week for 5-years, we're paying far too much and it doesn't help in resetting our crazy wage bill.
- Inconsistent - It seems a rarity now, but he could produce a moment of genius, i.e. goal against City, but then he is mostly poor or anonymous throughout games.
- Entitlement - Created by our love of 'homegrown' players. He's nearly always undroppable due to wanting a local lad to be playing, regardless of form.
- Attitude - Sulking, moping around the place. Throwing arms around when he doesn't get his way. Missing training. If he needs help, get it.
- Ability - He's 26.5 now. We need to stop treating him as a teenager who will improve. Time is running out at the top and in reality he just isn't that good a player
I have literally heard the opposite every time.
Rashford has basically only done well when we are defensive and player counter attacking.
Same here. Id play Bruno more in a free role as attacking midfielder who tracks back / adds pressure as he runs a lot. Then also buy a holding defensive midfielder to get the best out of him. With Mainoo and a sound central midfielder we would get to see his best in attack.
I dont buy the crap that Bruno’s attitude is affecting his team. That is assuming they are all snowflakes and I just don’t think they are. At United you should be able to tell things straight - it’s what everyone did under Ferguson too. He might have moany antics, but that’s not affecting the team imo.
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What other teams do that though?
Rashford also did well under LVG, we played lot more controlled football.
Someone started it and people just follow it like a sheep.
Thomas Müller plays a similar free role for Bayern for about 15 years now. The big difference is that "Radio Müller" really takes care of orchestrating how the team presses and sets up while Bruno often just runs on his own in headless chicken mode. He just hasn't the awareness how he should position himself (and others) when playing this free role.
You don’t have to play 1:1 the same setup as other top teams, do you? Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool have all played in different ways than the “mainstream” / most popular way when they’ve won the league.
Ahhhh, the classic LVG counter attack.
Even last year, his only Premier League brace came against Leicester, where we had almost 60% possession.
It’s an incredibly lazy argument.
I'm not sure why you are bringing up lvg tbh.
Did he? Not how I remember it.
Scored 2 on his debut, then went on to score 5 and assist 2 in 11 PL games, with winning goals versus City away and Arsenal at home in there.
In the FA Cup he scored that worldie vs. West Ham.
How can you not remember it? Was extremely exciting as a United fan in a boring season to see a young lad burst onto the scene & end up with an FA Cup.
Yeah, Cole Palmer for Rashy and Bruno
Yea that's good for a kid in terms of goals, but it doesn't mean much. You are trying to take so much from a few goals.
Not even remotely similar roles in their teams. Muller has a free attacking role and only has defensive responsibilities in the attacking half of the pitch.
Muller's vs. Bruno's defensive stats this season in own half:
Tackles in def 1/3:
Muller 0,07/90 min
Bruno 0,83/90 min
Interceptions:
Muller 0,07/90 min
Bruno 0,77/90 min
Clearances:
Muller 0,30/90 min
Bruno 1,37/90min
Blocked shots:
Muller 0,0/90 min
Bruno 0,20/90 min
Possession:
Touches:
Own penalty area:
Muller 0,44/90 min
Bruno 2,88/90 min
Def 1/3:
Muller 3,40/90 min
Bruno 12,2/90 min
Mid 1/3:
Muller 18,5/90 min
Bruno 30/90 min
Att 1/3:
Muller 30,2/90 min
Bruno 31,7/90 min
Oppo pen area:
Muller 6/90 min
Bruno 2,8/90 min
For every involvement with or without the ball Muller has in the defensive 3rd, Bruno has 5.
One of them is a second striker/10 and and the other is a combo 10/8/6 box to box midfielder with creative and defensive responsibilities all over the pitch.
The areas Bruno has to cover is 5 times bigger than the german's.
Both Bruno and Rashford can be great players if managed correctly and playing in a system with defined roles that plays to their strenghts.
Our current manager looks clueless when it comes to both man management and implementing any system at all.
Should we not be trying Bruno in a deeper position. He has on occasions played there and surprised me with the restraint he's showed and racking up high pass completion stats when he really wants to. How he plays must be a manager instruction or he'd be dropped. We surely have to make this move to try and get more control on games as it's totally unsustainable conceding 25+ shots every game. If he played in a 3 with Mainoo and Mount and we prioritised a defensive shape with players behind the ball instead of charging aimlessly after it surely we'd be in better shape. Atleast until the summer until we get the right players in the weaker positions.
Great post.
When the whole team is not performing, people can easily pick on any specific player to bash. There are many factors that can cause a season going badly. If the manager think Bruno is not effective, he can switch it up with another player. However, Mount was not available while Eriksen is too weak to play, then ETH's option is to keep playing Bruno and luckily he did not have injury and always worked hard.
Same goes with Rashford. If ETH has a better winger than him, do we think he would keep playing Rashford in most games? No, he would drop him to play someone else. Sancho was crap so ETH kicked him out didn't he? His remaining choice was basically Antony, that is on him that is who he bought. Perhaps he should try Amad more but that is a different story.
The fact that people have been complaining that we should buy better winger and we did, Antony and Sancho, and none of them are as good as Rashford to play regularly.
Yeah I've been thinking this lately too, mostly since the crazy Liverpool Cup game where Bruno actually showed some surprisingly okay positional sense and passing range when playing deeper. More luck than judgement on Ten Hag's part as he had to replace injured defensive players for more attacking ones.
That twinned with Mount's surprisingly decent defensive work rate in recent games makes me think maybe Ten Hag wasn't completely batty when thinking they could work in a midfield together. It's just a bit ridiculous that I'm now thinking we may as well try it for the rest of season, but without the designated DM of Casemiro as I'm sure was the intention...as if Bruno and Mount both press higher up then Casemiro would be a lame duck with his completely lack of mobility nowadays.
Whereas if you went for a different shape of two DM/CMs in Bruno and Mainoo and CM/AM of Mount, then hopefully designating more defensive responsibility to Bruno would prevent him running around like a headless chicken whilst Mount wouldn't be such a loose cannon as the most advanced of the three (on paper, in theory they could interchange as a much more fluid 3 as they are all much more mobile than Casemiro and show more game intelligence on and off the ball than McTominay)
Might still be shite, but it's got to be better than watching Casemiro waddle around for the rest of the season not even bothering to chase shadows.
Only focusing on goals, though, instead of overall performance.
Both Bruno and Rashford can net goals and assists while still playing poorly.
And again, only focusing on goals, whilst completely ignoring every other phase of the game.
This is surface level analysis. And you do this quite a lot
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Rashford was excellent last season by any measure, let’s not play silly cnuts here. Would be as daft as anyone arguing he’s been good this year.
Pretty certain you didn’t watch his debut season with LvG if you think goals was all he did.
He was absolutely not excellent last season. His goal tally was really good, yes. But everything else was just as poor as it always has been. Running into dead channels, poor decision making, losing possession, misplaced passes, weak in the air except for a few moments, no effort put into duels, lacklustre pressing... Not to mention going months on end being absolutely awful. The list goes on and on.
Of course I watched him under LvG. Had already been watching United for 20 odd years then. He has not evolved or changed his playing style since his first year. Still the same player he always has been, with the same few strengths and many, many weaknesses. Mind you, it certainly was impressive back then to see a young kid running and scoring a few goals. But it was evidently clear even then that he had severe limitations to his game, most of which I've already listed above. Nothing has changed since then.
Are you going to provide a more descriptive analysis of his (or Brunos) game than just listing goal involvements? Because if not, this discussion is over before it even began.
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