I don’t really get the criticism of him about last night. We’re so reliant on him it’s ridiculous. Villareal knew this and did everything possible to mark him out of the game. Their two CMs spent the whole game on his back, so much so he ended up having to constantly drift out to the wings to try and find even a yard of space. Despite this, when we did get on top for that thirty minute spell in the second half it was Bruno at the centre of everything positive we did.
If some of our other supposedly creative midfielders (i.e. the baby elephant in the room) were even half as capable as he is at unlocking defences then we could have made Villareal regret double teaming Bruno the way they did, by exploiting the extra time and space available to the rest of our team. Unfortunately they weren’t, so we didn’t. Blaming Bruno for this is silly.