What a difference having a Number 10 that can actually play football makes.
8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 22
- Goals
- 11
- Assists
- 9
- Yellow cards
- 3
- Status
Aside from the obvious talent, I love his attitude. Never afraid to try a risky pass, also seems unfazed after coming to a new league. And that penalty, cheeky as hell. Has an aura of arrogance in him.
Reminded me of Pogba in his first game (vs Southampton?) where he was strutting around like a boss all game. Hopefully going to turn out better than him though.
Reminded me of Pogba in his first game (vs Southampton?) where he was strutting around like a boss all game. Hopefully going to turn out better than him though.
After the Martial goal Bruno was saying something about a pass to him during the celebration in a joking manner. It has to be about their online banter from after last match 
Attitude and quality both great. Our best player. My favorite signing in a long time. Can’t wait to see more.
It was a dive, right?
We need a few more like him. Watching the game today, I wouldn't mind pushing Rashford up. His issue was with the service provided to him. If we could sign Grealish and play him on the left and Budia/Sancho on the right, with Mctominay and a DM sitting, we would be doing really well next season.
matchgoing fans, what's his movement like from the stands? Had danny Higginbotham as the commentator today and he was waxing lyrical about his movement intelligence.
Rashford would score loads man
Fantastic player. As i keep saying; quality must be the most important thing when we buy players. His every touch is 
I thought so, he was already going down and made minimal contact as he fell past him.
It was one of those situations where the challenge wass poor enough to warrant a penalty regardless. I have no problem with players going down easily and avoiding contact in situations where the opposing player has no chance of getting the ball anyway if the alternative is getting wiped out and risking injury.
Those should never be classed as dives, camera just shows it in slowmotion and it looks a lot more like a dive than it is.
You see the player starting to fall earlier but there's no way to avoid contact regardless and they're protecting themselves from getting a serious injury.
I don't see the point to this. I think Martial is a good enough player. He gets a lot of stick but he is quite productive in a team with no creativity. He would play much better with better players. I'd even argue he's already looked better with Bruno in the team, now imagine Rashford playing off him too.
He doesn't actually avoid contact though. He intentionally makes it by kicking his leg against the keeper.
Yeah Rashford, Martial and Sancho playing off Bruno is the way to go! A front four that’s 25 or younger and Greenwood coming through too. I’d happily keep Ighalo and get in Grealish and I think we are set with forward positions.
I’ve said this a lot but if we only got Sancho and Grealish in the summer I still think we’d be in a position to mount some kind of challenge. I’d like a specialist DM and if Pogba goes, then we should replace him with a Partey or Ndidi type.
There was no way to avoid contact while keeping his balance, it's a foul. He just sells it well but it's never a dive. People are way too quick to call everything a dive, especially in England.
But he intentionally makes contact. I'm not even really that interested in whether or not going down there is fair and I can understand why people think it is but you don't kick the goalkeeper to protect your safety.
First chance I’ve got to see him. Looks quite good. Seems to be on a different wave length than the rest of our players though.
Well technically the rules are if a tackle throws you off your stride then it’s a foul HOWEVER refs won’t call that, so you have to go down and make sure there’s some contact now that VAR exists. It’s not a dive, it’s not trying to con the ref, it’s playing the game how it exists.
I mean, it is. Kicking the keeper is trying to con the ref, regardless of whether or not it's a necessary evil in order to get the correct decision in a world where refs won't give fouls if a player doesn't appear to be brought down by contact.
I agree. You can't say it's conning the ref because ultimately if refs were doing their job they would clearly see the player has been impeded and therefore it's a foul.
For years and years now it's been an unwritten rule that ref's will not blow the whistle in the box without the player going to ground. Then once on the ground the ref decides if it was a dive or not rather than actually analysing the challenge itself. It's a joke.
I mean Neville when speaking about diving said there were countless times that refs came in before matches and said ‘if you think you’re being fouled go down, it makes it easier for us’. The biggest example of that is when you’re getting your shirt pulled in the box, it’s never enough to bring you down, but it’s hampering you’re ability to run therefore it’s better to just go down. You’re not conning the ref by creating a foul out of nothing, your helping them see there’s a foul there.
That's interesting.
Could he have stayed on his feet? Yes probably. Did he need to? No.
The goalkeeper flying out like a bat completely misses the ball, and Bruno has to avoid the challenge at speed - that disrupts his running so it's a foul.
Yes he left his leg in there a bit to make sure there was definite contact, but pretty much EVERY player does that. It's a penalty, you didn't even see Watford complain either.
I agree, in future players should run right through goalkeepers instead and take full contact for both.
That should ensure we have a few more Petr Čech helmet wearers in the league.
Once again, kicking the goalkeeper is not done to protect either himself, or the goalkeeper.
Of our eight draws and eight defeats in the league this season, three draws and a whopping SIX defeats were against the bottom 11 teams in the league.
In those nine games, we scored just five goals (didn't score a goal in five of them) and conceded 14 goals. If we had, say, scored an additional goal in all of those games, we would be nine points better off, and there are only three games in which scoring one more goal wouldn't have changed the final result.
13th: Crystal Palace (h) - L - scored 1, conceded 2
12th: Southampton (a) - D - scored 1, conceded 1
18th: West Ham United (a) - L - scored 0, conceded 2
14th: Newcastle United (a) - L - scored 0, conceded 1
16th: Bournemouth (a) - L - scored 0, conceded 1
17th: Aston Villa (h) - D - scored 2, conceded 2
11th: Everton (h) - D - scored 1, conceded 1
19th: Watford (a) - L - scored 0, conceded 2
10th: Burnley (h) - L - scored 0, conceded 2
Bruno is exactly the kind of player we need and if having him improves our results in those kinds of games then we will have a great chance of making top four.
Well he has the option to run much harder right through the keeper doesn't he? And it'd still be a pen.
But then he risks a injury to himself or the keeper. This way he protects both, "kicking" the keeper he does not, unless you've a very strange definition of "kick".
Great today, he's growing into the team and role quickly. Such a visible upgrade on what we've been using all season and completely ridiculous that we didn't sign him in the summer. That decision might well have torched this season for us before it even began.
Nah why bother? Rashford's shown this season that he's world class coming from the left, and Martial clearly benefits from being central. Feck Grealish, just get Sancho on the right and everyone will be in the positions where they've shown their best football.
Bruno Fernandes: "This is what I want to do and what I need to do. Everyone knows we want to get into the Champions League places. I am here to help the team conquer this place and keep winning games."
He does and I get the argument you're making that there are two ways he can be sure he gets the penalty that the keeper flying out merits and one is that and the other is diving.
But if people are gonna be silly enough to tell me I'm being unfair in calling throwing yourself to the ground whilst kicking your leg out to make contact diving, then I'm gonna be bored enough to argue with them.
It's diving. I'm happy with 'sometimes diving is justified' as an argument but not 'diving isn't diving'.
Player of the Season award incoming
Absolutely love the look of him. Get Sancho in and we will be extremely dangerous
Well yeah, but then so are 90% of all fouls on a football pitch. From the defender getting the slightest touch in the back and going down to the attacker getting a slight tug on the counter and going down.
That's basically what football is.
Bruno looks quality and is only going to get better each game. He’s definitely changed the way we play.
I realise that last example was rather unfortunate
Some just like to overcomplicate things for the sake of it.
Bruno Fernandes: "This is what I want to do and what I need to do. Everyone knows we want to get into the Champions League places. I am here to help the team conquer this place and keep winning games."
As previous posters have said, and this quote solidifies, is his confidence / arrogance. He's willing to take risks and it's having an effect on the players around him. We needed him and we need a few more like him. Great signing.
- Status