Or maybe he is not the CM you think he is. It is not like he is not creating enough chances for others and himself. As I said Bruno is one the players who get blamed for not fixing other players being shit or shit at doing their jobs.
8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 46
- Goals
- 10
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 10
- Status
30 goals and 20 assists in the league since joining..
"a goal here, and an assist there"
I’m well aware of what type of player he is, but the cold fact of the matter is that with Ronaldo now in the team, everybody else will have to pick up the slack in defensive responsibilities. Both him and Pogba loitering about up the field doesn’t help us win football matches, even if their stats look good.
Is it deep passing creativity problem or lacking defensive effort? You can NOT accuse him for the latter. And frankly, not his job for the former either.
Retain and recycle possession, ball recovery, pressing etc are all part of the defensive effort. Being more selective with his penetrative passes and dropping down a good 10 yards to play alongside the other 2 midfielders would go a long way to prevent us from being cut through like hot knife through butter by all and sundry.
It could be all tactical instruction and by no fault of his, but in the past he’s replied when faced with criticism that his preferred way of playing is always looking for the killer pass, which is fine in a team more solid and better in possession in this one.
And the award for the stupidest post goes to..........this chap. Seriously? This has to be a wind up.Simply put, Bruno is the absolute heartbeat of this team. He is the catalyst for most of the attacking play we have as well as any pressing we do from the front. Irreplaceable and the most impactful signing we have had since RVP imo.
But, if he stays back, we will be leaving a lone forward up and you have not much option to pass since wide forwards will be outside most of the time. The reason why we play 4 2 3 1 with a no.10 is that that no. 10 can and will do exactly what he is doing and the 2 players behind have to mop up and keep finding passing paths to him in the final 3rd.
If you want to play Bruno 10 yards further back all the time, might as well play him in that 2 CMs role. And, I don't believe in crap like 2 CM is not enough for a club like united against 80% of PL teams.
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There are times when his propensity to lose the ball unnecessarily exposes us. And he should learn from it, just like any player should. Thinking in particular when he's playing out on the right with Greenwood and AWB overlaps - he's been guilty a few times of sloppily losing it at that point trying something - which leaves the whole right flank completely open. Just little situations like that, he could recycle posession instead of trying the unnecessary.
But his overall contributions are world class, and who knows where we'd be without him. Really, we should have binned off Pogba, stuck with youth, energy and movement up front and brought in a more technical, less risky player to replace Pogba and join Bruno in a three. Like a DVB type. Then let the pace of Rashford, Martial and Greenwood provide the energy and incisive runs.
Instead we kept Pogba and got Ronnie. Said it other threads, you cannot play those 3 at the same time and win a lot football matches. All three of them lose the ball too much, and offer too little defensively. You want one player like that, you can cope with two, you lose with three.
But his overall contributions are world class, and who knows where we'd be without him. Really, we should have binned off Pogba, stuck with youth, energy and movement up front and brought in a more technical, less risky player to replace Pogba and join Bruno in a three. Like a DVB type. Then let the pace of Rashford, Martial and Greenwood provide the energy and incisive runs.
Instead we kept Pogba and got Ronnie. Said it other threads, you cannot play those 3 at the same time and win a lot football matches. All three of them lose the ball too much, and offer too little defensively. You want one player like that, you can cope with two, you lose with three.
I’m not a big fan of the point forward midfield 3, and most top teams nowadays don’t play with a no 10 either, you are ceding a lot of control effectively playing with 4 forwards instead of 3, and by virtue of having a man in the hole make the space around the area a lot more congested as the opponents will put a marker on you. Ronaldo exacerbates the fault of that system even more as he doesn’t press or work the CB like a natural number 9, so it’s very easy to cut passing lanes or deal with long ball, because just by virtue of us having essentially 5 players in the area in and outside of the box most of the time, they will be double marked.
Bruno works fine with a hard working forward like Cavani, he works fine with a 19-20 Martial who has his hold up game on point even if he doesn’t press that much, but with Ronaldo up there it’s just to much for any midfield to cope, so he has to sacrifice. We used to have Rooney, Tevez and Park running like dogs to accommodate a younger Ronaldo, and two of them were better player than Bruno. You have to take one for the team.
So, we sacrifice the most productive player to solve the control issue in the midfield but what about the lack of productive/creativity issue (possibly) coming from it though?
Having more % of possession in the middle actually does not mean we will create more though. See Van Gaal's team.
I have nothing but praise for Bruno. He creates scoring chances that I don’t see coming from his teammates often enough. A little better finishing by his teammates and more discipline from McFred (which I realize is wishful thinking) and we’d be a proper challenger for the PL trophy.
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The wide forwards, of which Ronaldo will be one. I think our best set up with the personnel at hand is Ronaldo on the left, Cavani in the middle, and Greenwood/Lingard, or whoever is prepared to run his bollocks out on the right. Then Matic or Pogba at the base of midfield because we need a good passer from deep, and one of Fred/McTominay/VdB alongside Bruno. The plan would be to progress the ball forward mainly from the full backs and Pogba/Matic’ long passing, and get Ronaldo in as many shooting positions as we can.
LvG is a bad example, what failed him was a shit forward line with an aging Rooney, a struggling Depay, Mata and Lingard who were never prolific, and only Martial who was performing well at the time for most of that season, before the emergence of Rashford. There’s enough firepower in this team even if you sacrifice some of Bruno’s number.
Christ you'd think we were sweeping up trebles with the way Bruno's contribution is viewed.
We've won nothing. If a slight adjustment is needed for the good of the team then so be it; "if" being the keyword there.
We've won nothing. If a slight adjustment is needed for the good of the team then so be it; "if" being the keyword there.
Even with his contribution, we can't win shit.
The logic is that if we give up some of his contribution, it will be better for the team is pretty flawed since there was no evident pointing to that anywhere.
Most of 'good' games we had had his heavy involvement which showed the opposite of it.
I don't disagree that if he has to adjust his game for the better of the team, then we should make that happen. At the same time he is our best player so we have to make sure we find the right balance. I've also said before that he has to do more midfield work and be more assured in retaining possession.
I am not going to diss your idea of course. But, the way I think is that our wing play is shit right now due to moving the balls too slowly. That's why having more numbers in the box would be another solution.
If you are against bus packing teams, having numbers in the box would help. We need a Carrick type of DM/CM for that and Bruno is not that and he is much better with his flicks and touches inside the box to open up spaces.
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Yet he only has one assist and Pogba has seven.
His successful passing percentage is below Fred's and AwB's.
Bruno is a fantastic player and he does incredible things, and we should absolutely use him, but I am not sure the best way to utilize him and Ronaldo together is how we do it now.
Our line up with Bruno as a 10 exposes our, already weak, midfield a lot.
It's time we change the setup to utilize the strength and combat the weaknesses of our team.
Like I said when you have the offensive players we have and yet have such a low xg, something needs to change.
Getting assists depends on if players can finish the chance.
Bruno should have had 2 more assists in game against Young boys and West Ham. His passes for the goals were as good as any of Pogba's.
Maybe if we played like this…
———Ronaldo———Mason
Shaw————Bruno
———Pogba——McTom
—————Fred—————AWB
———Magurie-Varane
Rather than this…
Shaw-Ronaldo-Bruno-Mason-AWB
———Pogba———McTom
———————Fred
—————Maguire—Varane
Would just take a bit of instruction to keep us from totally exposing and isolating ourselves.
———Ronaldo———Mason
Shaw————Bruno
———Pogba——McTom
—————Fred—————AWB
———Magurie-Varane
Rather than this…
Shaw-Ronaldo-Bruno-Mason-AWB
———Pogba———McTom
———————Fred
—————Maguire—Varane
Would just take a bit of instruction to keep us from totally exposing and isolating ourselves.
I was saying something like this the 4222
De gea
AWB - Varane - Maguire- Shaw
Mctominay- Fred
Bruno - Pogba
Cavani - Ronaldo
Greenwood rotates with Cavani, Rashford with Ronaldo and Sancho with Pogba.AWB - Varane - Maguire- Shaw
Mctominay- Fred
Bruno - Pogba
Cavani - Ronaldo
The formation hardly matters if the fullbacks play like wingers and Bruno plays like a forward. We have to maintain some semblance of balance so the defense isn’t totally exposed. And when we push so many players forward we isolate ourselves by cutting down space and passing angles in the final third.
Bruno’s positioning is an issue but it is one of many issues.
without him we wouldn’t it made it into the champions league the last two seasons. Fact. The season he came in January he literally dragged our team into the champions league himself. He has made such a impact.. I don’t really remember any player having such a big one. He’s unreal and I hope we can extend his contract, he would be difficult to replace.
Hes one player. He isn’t going to win it alone.. but his contribution has been exceptional. 50 goal contributions in 58 games.. in a team which has struggled. He hasn’t played in a truely firing system with us yet.. look at the whole picture and where we would be without him.
I believe there is only 3/4 players with better contribution then him for the number of games played ?
catalyst.
Sporting gave up his contribution entirely and won the league for the first time in 20 years.
I like Bruno, but I would also want to make decisions that can help Manchester United the best team they can be, rather than just make Bruno Fernandes the best player he can be.
It’s not that wild a thought to me that were something to happen to Ole, the next manager may not want to build a team around Bruno being the talisman.
We were in 7th place before Bruno joined, battling for Europa League spot. You'd think the fans would be slightly more grateful with how he almost single-handedly dragged us to top 4 that season. Or maybe they still prefer Lingard and Pereira as no.10
That's not true though, is it? The contributions of Martial and Greenwood for the rest of that season were very important. You also have Rashford who was carrying the team before him. He was the only spark in the attack because Martial was injured and Greenwood wasn't playing much. The three of them scored 62 goals combined in all competitions.
I do agree though he has been the most influential player on the team since his signing.
Bayern play Muller, Lewandowski and they control every game. We can play any CM instead of Bruno, we won't control the game. City played with one proper CM/DM along with KdB, B.Silva, and completely dominated Chelsea.
Our inability to control game has nothing to do with Bruno playing 5-10 yards ahead than perfect 10 position, it's to do with set up and the way we are designed to play the game. We are direct team, so everyone goes for killer pass all the time.
I fully agree, I think the bold part in particular is exactly where the issue is going forward too. I think this is how Ole wants it but it clearly only works when the momentum is with the players and the things they try pull off.
Yeah, that's why we are very inconsistent team. When the players pull these off, we look very good creating good number of chances.
He's an enigma. His impact cannot be understated, he makes match winning contributions time and time again but I'll have to be honest I don't like him as a player. I love his heart and passion on the field but purely as a player I'm not that into him. Ole being our manager means he gets to do exactly what he wants, another manager may not be so tolerant of his playing style because frankly speaking from a team perspective its irresponsible at times.
He's often trying stuff the likes of Ronaldinho or Totti did but his passing ability is nowhere close to being as good. He may have the vision but his execution is very poor.
He's often trying stuff the likes of Ronaldinho or Totti did but his passing ability is nowhere close to being as good. He may have the vision but his execution is very poor.
Telling everybody not to go for killer passes all the time and shape them more conservatively would go some way to remedy that then.
Which is what I proposed. We know what Bruno is good at, we know how he likes to play, but given the composition of our team at the moment and the inclusion of undroppables like Ronaldo and him in the vast majority of match days, some concessions have to be made by someone for the team to be better.
Fernandes is a bit like the midfield version of Ronaldo. Very clinical, takes risks and can be wasteful, but is nearly always decisive in the end. I've seen him have terrible games from general play but still manage to score and grab the headlines, like Ronaldo. But himself and Ronaldo are never going to be a natural partnership for that very reason. He plays attacking midfield like a striker and wants to get on the end of things/be that clinical player that wins the game. A balanced top team only really needs one of those players, not two of them.
Agreed.
Lately when Bruno started to drop deep we barely create anything at all. Our opponents usually sit very deep, with Bruno stays back there's literally only Ronaldo in or around the box. We can't pass to Ronaldo because he can't hold the ball, dribble or beat a defender. If we pass to the wingers they usually have to face 2, 3 defenders. It's simply impossible for them to beat all that. So the only option for our wingers is to cross, or work with our FB to cross, or for Bruno is to try a through pass or another cross to Ronaldo. Problem is Ronaldo is often heavily marked, even if the ball finds him he couldn't do much being sandwiched between the two CBs. Or for them to shoot from distance, that may work with some luck like in the first goal against Newcastle but truth is it often doesn't work. We simply can't rely to luck alone to score goals.
With Bruno dropping deep and Ronaldo as our #9 our attacking players are too static, too far from each other as a result our attacking movements are very limited and too easy to read.
Imo the only solution is to start Cavani instead of Ronaldo. We may lose a bit of goal scoring ability from Ronaldo. He's surely a better goal scorer than Cavani but imo not by a considerable distance. But Cavani would offer us energy, attacking movements, pressing, hold up, linking play. We'll be much more creative and balanced I think.
I want Bruno Fernandes to be the main attacker of our club again. The main goalscorer.
Nothing special from a second striker especially with the amount of pens he's taken.30 goals and 20 assists in the league since joining..
"a goal here, and an assist there"
What's left out from those stats is the amount of promising attacks he's ruined with a poor pass and poor decision making. He's a player who doesn't enhance the performances of his teammates.
What a load of rubbish. You'd be better off just saying you don't like him as a player or a man and moving on because spouting your nonsense is just clogging up the thread.
So you don't see his poor passing and poor decision making? You must be blind cause after many games you see people talked about how he was missing simple passes or how he was going for the killer ball when it wasn't there. You think it's all made up?
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