A bit disappointing how United fans are always the first to crucify their best players. Bruno has been nothing short of superb for us, game in and game out. He's at times practically our only creative source and is actually pretty consistent. I don't even think he's wasteful, he fulfills his role of making things happen. He's not a Tempo setter or a player who connects the dots, he's a classic playmaker who has the touch and balance to be found in attacking areas, creates chances, has a good shot and makes excellent runs in behind. He's also excellent at roaming, connecting with our wingers consistently. Most importantly, he's an attacker and people have to start paying attention to that fact. Yes he works hard enough off the ball to look like more of a midfielder at times, but at his best he operates higher up the pitch. Which is why we should continue to still use a 4231...he's a beneficiary of us playing that system.
It's ironic, as for years we had gutless players scared if making that final pass, yet we have creativity and risk taking personified and choose to look at it as a flaw. We're not City, we're not built to be a team to possess 60 percent of the ball, we've never been that team and there are many teams in Europe that play good football without retaining possession aimlessly. Our problem since Carrick stopped being a starting option in our team has been our ability to move the ball from defence to attack. The biggest highlight in this weakness has been our inability to quickly beat the oppositions initial press, hence forcing us to have a slow build up, which makes it difficult to find attackers in the bigger games ( hence forced to release possession quickly) or face a deep organized block in big games( that isn't stretched), making attacks take more time to orchestrate. We also have some games where the lack of consistency on the flanks means we fail to stretch the opposition, so Bruno becomes our only source of creativity. If he simply passed sideways in these games, we'd hardly score any goals. Appreciate that and stop complaining.
Which were those? Sven was tactically an imbecile, for England at least. Capello did a woeful job. They were never well managed, always a collection of individuals doing their own thing in a broken team that had no identity or cohesion. Much like us for much of this past decade.