8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 48
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 12
- Status
Eric Cantona came into Manchester United at a point where we hadnt won the league for 26 years, had lost it to Leeds the season prior and we’re struggling the season he joined. He totally transformed the entire club from also rans to the best of its generation. He inspired the league title, our first and second doubles and paved the way for our young players in terms of dedication and professionalism. Latterly mentoring a team of young players to the double by way of scoring, not one winning goal against Burnley, but many many winning goals every fecking week at one point that season. Him and Schmeichel clawed back the deficit to Newcastle. Then he scored the winner in the FA Cup final against Liverpool for good measure.
We won the league every full season he played and didn’t win it the season before he signed (he did), the season he was suspended, and the season he left.
So no, he wouldn’t have been criticised, and no Bruno should not be compared because they are incomparable.
The post isn’t a great post. It’s a complete straw man of whataboutery with no truth and no relation to the subject.
The fact that you could change the name ‘Bruno’ to another player and the same posters saying how great it is would be up in arms tells you that it’s not the post that is good. It’s just positive regard and nothing more.
We won the league every full season he played and didn’t win it the season before he signed (he did), the season he was suspended, and the season he left.
So no, he wouldn’t have been criticised, and no Bruno should not be compared because they are incomparable.
The post isn’t a great post. It’s a complete straw man of whataboutery with no truth and no relation to the subject.
The fact that you could change the name ‘Bruno’ to another player and the same posters saying how great it is would be up in arms tells you that it’s not the post that is good. It’s just positive regard and nothing more.
It's the caf, he absolutely 100% would by someone for something.
And it's not - its basically lamenting the fact that some people would rather moan about his performance then laud him for what was an absurdly good game-winning goal.
Cantona, for me, is one of the top-five transfers in the history of football. He retired early and before the full commercialization of football and the birth of mega clubs in the post-Bosman era, so for those who didn't watch him play, he probably lacks the stardust that comes with individual records and CL titles. But even the word immense can't fully describe the impact he had at OT.
I don't think the poster meant it like that. There's no point in regurgitating the same points over and over again after each game. Sometimes a "top-class goal, a pretty much composed performance in a position he's not familiar with and the only player, alongside Case, who understood how and when to press" will suffice.
Other than that, i can agree with you. There are nuanced (in lack of a better word, don't mean it disrespectfully) differences between Cantona and Bruno, which eventually turned King Eric into an ultimate legend in United's history.
Bruno wouldn't have got into the first XI in '99 but as we know that first XI rarely played all together. He'd have got plenty of games.
Bruno is certainly a better player than Butt, Solskjaer and Sheringham.
Sheringham would be roasted today. If people think Bruno is slow and lacking "press resistance" then Sheringham would have no chance.
Bruno is certainly a better player than Butt, Solskjaer and Sheringham.
Sheringham would be roasted today. If people think Bruno is slow and lacking "press resistance" then Sheringham would have no chance.
Someone has basically compared Bruno to Cantona and is getting praise for it.
This place is unbelievable.
This place is unbelievable.
Has that actually happened though?
Or was the point that some posters are so critical that even a legend like Cantona wouldn't escape?
What’s funny is Bruno in his first 18 months, especially the first 12 here got as close to unanimous praise as we’ve seen since RVP. I really don’t get the posts of even Cantona and whoever else would have been criticised on here too.
In what is Rooney’s best season in 09/10 where all we won was the Carling Cup he was treated like a god here.
Very rarely will people criticise a player that is top class and consistent, except maybe the odd game.
In what is Rooney’s best season in 09/10 where all we won was the Carling Cup he was treated like a god here.
Very rarely will people criticise a player that is top class and consistent, except maybe the odd game.
Some of the posters are so critical considering the scenario we are in, more than a billion spent, dogshit average with overpaid players walking around the pitch, so a bit of understanding would go a long way.
In regard to Bruno's performance, was good for the goal, was absolutely invisible for the rest, so everyone and their dog can have a word about that. The fact you score a goal, be it a winning one, does not delete the rest of the performance. If this is the standard the United fan has been brought to, we're in for a few years ahead of us.
If you're in a Pep team and play like he did until he scored the goal, he would have been changed at half time or wouldn't have played at all. He is in the same boat as Rashford, can do the extraordinary, but can't do the basics for the life of him and, sorry, they are needed in today's football.
If Akanji can pass the ball, if Stones can play very well in CM, we expect our so called world class midfielder to do that as well, as it's a minimum requirement these days, minimum, fecking guys from Brighton do it, on much less money.
I understand over the top criticism is idiotic, but we've reached a point on this forum where the so called "fake optimists" don't let you have an opinion about facts that happened in the fecking game.
He is a very good player at what he is good, the extraordinary shots and passes, but he lacks some stuff like positional awareness, 1st touch, loses the ball for fun, complains like a kid, etc. This is real stuff that happens it's not invisible, so anyone can complain, no matter how many world class goals he scores.
Praising a guy for a world class goal is okay, but criticizing him for the lacklustre parts of his game will generate improvement, be it in the actual team or just in a random discussion on the forum, it's the same shit.
That is simply not true. He would have been criticized for being arrogant. Would have been criticized for scoring only the winning goal and doing feck all before that, and taking all the credit.
And don't even get to the assault. The moral high horses of caf would have wanted his head on the pike or at least a life ban from football.
Not comparing Bruno to Cantona. Just saying caf is full of people who are complaining about something or the other. and vice versa.
Whats so hard to understand? If United were winning the league, Brunos current perfomance's wouldn't get half as much criticism.
Also, Bruno is about 25 league game appearances behind Cantona. He has 24 goals and 22 assists less than him. So even if we were to take the "clutch" moments away from Cantona, Bruno wouldnt match him for general output.
No one talks shit about a league/double winning captain who is doing the business when it matters.
I'm all for players holding team mates accountable for mistakes and demanding the best from them - every player should have an element of that in them, but Bruno just seems to moan about everything and it's really grating.
He misplaces more passes than anyone - but it's always someone else's fault. He lumped it out play against Burney, by miles - he was looking for Reguilion who had made a forward run and he just shanked it miles out of play and his first reaction was to hammer Reguilion with a verbal. I'm not having it. When he first joined he led by example with his performances. He's not doing that now. He's leading by dictating and shouting his mouth off.
He's a brilliant footballer, he just needs to focus on that and picking up his own form. He's trying too hard to be a "leader". True leaders lead by example
He misplaces more passes than anyone - but it's always someone else's fault. He lumped it out play against Burney, by miles - he was looking for Reguilion who had made a forward run and he just shanked it miles out of play and his first reaction was to hammer Reguilion with a verbal. I'm not having it. When he first joined he led by example with his performances. He's not doing that now. He's leading by dictating and shouting his mouth off.
He's a brilliant footballer, he just needs to focus on that and picking up his own form. He's trying too hard to be a "leader". True leaders lead by example
Agreed on Cantona and if you see my post after the game, yeah I agree with you also. That being said, making comparisons to Cantona and Zidane, whatever the context, after a winner against Burnley is bizarre
Did you watch Eric?
In absolutely no world is Bruno better than Ole and Sheringham. Not a single world.
I don't think he is better than Butt as CM either .
One poster? Ok, maybe one poster would. Not the amount that are critical of Bruno because their performances week in week out and impact are in no way comparable.
On the flip side a poster earlier was complaining about Bruno’s average rating given he’s got 2 goals and 2 assists. So in effect they think we should only judge Bruno on:-
A penalty
A five yard square pass by header
A free kick into the box
A wonderful goal on Saturday
Yeah if that’s what some want to do. It’s not for me though.
Maybe I'm wrong here but I thought you were complaining about Bruno and Cantona being compared. Bemoaning the whole forum for it?
But it hasn't happened. The poster you quoted says "I'm not comparing them."
Just doesn't seem much point getting frustrated about something that doesn't exist.
But agree about team success changing opinions of individuals. You could take a player from the past, well liked, drop him into the shambles of the last 10 years and opinions would very much change.
I genuinely think some would moan about Cantona to some extent.
Then there's a big group of other players for who opinions would definitely change. Put Butt in the team over the last five years and he wouldn't be rated.
I wrote the above to contend with the nonsense spouted in this thread, and I hoped that the chief posters of negativity would at least challenge some of these points that strongly discredit their baseless arguments. But why bother letting facts get in the way of a good agenda?
I'm glad that's the conclusion you drew, says a lot. I have my opinion, based on facts rather than a warped view of football, and used third party data (Whoscored) to support. And again, why does a player either need to be good or poor in a match? I said that Bruno was good against Forest and in parts against Arsenal/Spurs, but that in none of our games he was the standout worst performer. You talk a lot of shit in this thread, almost everything that you write is based on a distorted reality and it's surprising that the mods have allowed you to get away with it. I guess you're good for traffic.
PS. I like that whenever Bruno carries us to a victory, which has happened a LOT over the past 3 years, you make sure to post the lightest recognition so you can later say 'But I give credit where it's due!'
Non-descript performance. Played across 3 positions, scored a goal of the season contender, created a bunch of chances, covered the usual12KM+ and was one of our top defenders on top. Give it a rest.
@Jeppers7 has said countless times that Bruno has not been good since his 'purple patch' in the 2019-20 season, a small group of others wrongly suggest that he is regularly one of our worst players, but sure, I'll move on. Re: the bolded, what's your point? Do you believe that replacing Bruno with another player, in isolation, will make us better than our rivals? That's fine if you do, but the results show that we were shit before Bruno and we've been shit on the few occasions he's been unable to play.
It's funny that on the day you accused somebody of being condescending, you tell me to 'do myself a favour'
. I agree that they are to a degree subjective, especially when using a single game in isolation, but I covered full seasons as well as games against the top 6 as well as in Europe, the games where Bruno takes the brunt of criticism on this forum from a selected few. I also included the top 5 rated players from a bunch of other PL teams to show that the stats work as a basis for the top performing players from a team, unless you disagree with those too?He's not. We really were spoilt!
I feel the bolded paragraph very much warrants explanation. That’s a liberty. So I suggest explaining it in detail with examples.I wrote the above to contend with the nonsense spouted in this thread, and I hoped that the chief posters of negativity would at least challenge some of these points that strongly discredit their baseless arguments. But why bother letting facts get in the way of a good agenda?
I'm glad that's the conclusion you drew, says a lot. I have my opinion, based on facts rather than a warped view of football, and used third party data (Whoscored) to support. And again, why does a player either need to be good or poor in a match? I said that Bruno was good against Forest and in parts against Arsenal/Spurs, but that in none of our games he was the standout worst performer. You talk a lot of shit in this thread, almost everything that you write is based on a distorted reality and it's surprising that the mods have allowed you to get away with it. I guess you're good for traffic.
PS. I like that whenever Bruno carries us to a victory, which has happened a LOT over the past 3 years, you make sure to post the lightest recognition so you can later say 'But I give credit where it's due!'
Non-descript performance. Played across 3 positions, scored a goal of the season contender, created a bunch of chances, covered the usual12KM+ and was one of our top defenders on top. Give it a rest.
@Jeppers7 has said countless times that Bruno has not been good since his 'purple patch' in the 2019-20 season, a small group of others wrongly suggest that he is regularly one of our worst players, but sure, I'll move on. Re: the bolded, what's your point? Do you believe that replacing Bruno with another player, in isolation, will make us better than our rivals? That's fine if you do, but the results show that we were shit before Bruno and we've been shit on the few occasions he's been unable to play.
It's funny that on the day you accused somebody of being condescending, you tell me to 'do myself a favour'
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I wrote the above to contend with the nonsense spouted in this thread, and I hoped that the chief posters of negativity would at least challenge some of these points that strongly discredit their baseless arguments. But why bother letting facts get in the way of a good agenda?
I'm glad that's the conclusion you drew, says a lot. I have my opinion, based on facts rather than a warped view of football, and used third party data (Whoscored) to support. And again, why does a player either need to be good or poor in a match? I said that Bruno was good against Forest and in parts against Arsenal/Spurs, but that in none of our games he was the standout worst performer. You talk a lot of shit in this thread, almost everything that you write is based on a distorted reality and it's surprising that the mods have allowed you to get away with it. I guess you're good for traffic.
PS. I like that whenever Bruno carries us to a victory, which has happened a LOT over the past 3 years, you make sure to post the lightest recognition so you can later say 'But I give credit where it's due!'
Non-descript performance. Played across 3 positions, scored a goal of the season contender, created a bunch of chances, covered the usual12KM+ and was one of our top defenders on top. Give it a rest.
@Jeppers7 has said countless times that Bruno has not been good since his 'purple patch' in the 2019-20 season, a small group of others wrongly suggest that he is regularly one of our worst players, but sure, I'll move on. Re: the bolded, what's your point? Do you believe that replacing Bruno with another player, in isolation, will make us better than our rivals? That's fine if you do, but the results show that we were shit before Bruno and we've been shit on the few occasions he's been unable to play.
It's funny that on the day you accused somebody of being condescending, you tell me to 'do myself a favour'
There’s a post a little way back that has about 90% of my posts in Bruno’s performance thread from his first six months. I’d suggest having a look. Instead of posting absolute bollocks like a deranged teenage girl with a crush.
Then I’d like you to provide a list of a lot of games where Bruno has literally carried us to victory in the last three years so that I can check my posts and check the validity of your claim.
It's fine, you don't have a proper response because you know you're talking shit. We'll ignore the facts and you can continue on your weird little crusadeI wrote the above to contend with the nonsense spouted in this thread, and I hoped that the chief posters of negativity would at least challenge some of these points that strongly discredit their baseless arguments. But why bother letting facts get in the way of a good agenda?
I'm glad that's the conclusion you drew, says a lot. I have my opinion, based on facts rather than a warped view of football, and used third party data (Whoscored) to support. And again, why does a player either need to be good or poor in a match? I said that Bruno was good against Forest and in parts against Arsenal/Spurs, but that in none of our games he was the standout worst performer. You talk a lot of shit in this thread, almost everything that you write is based on a distorted reality and it's surprising that the mods have allowed you to get away with it. I guess you're good for traffic.
PS. I like that whenever Bruno carries us to a victory, which has happened a LOT over the past 3 years, you make sure to post the lightest recognition so you can later say 'But I give credit where it's due!'
Non-descript performance. Played across 3 positions, scored a goal of the season contender, created a bunch of chances, covered the usual12KM+ and was one of our top defenders on top. Give it a rest.
@Jeppers7 has said countless times that Bruno has not been good since his 'purple patch' in the 2019-20 season, a small group of others wrongly suggest that he is regularly one of our worst players, but sure, I'll move on. Re: the bolded, what's your point? Do you believe that replacing Bruno with another player, in isolation, will make us better than our rivals? That's fine if you do, but the results show that we were shit before Bruno and we've been shit on the few occasions he's been unable to play.
It's funny that on the day you accused somebody of being condescending, you tell me to 'do myself a favour'
What is it that impresses you so much about Bruno? You're obsessed with him. He helped us through a shitty period, and we absolutely needed a player like that at the time, but he is not a player you build a squad around to dominate teams. He will give you moments, and can quickly change a game with a pass, but so can every PL midfielder. You claim we were shit without him, but we've played like 3 games without him?
I mean, you've surely seen midfielders like Modric, Xavi, Iniesta, De Bruyne, Gündogan, David Silva, Kroos, Keane, Scholes, Cantona, De Jong, Verratti, Seedorf, Fabregas, Zidane etc. Actual world class midfielders who had it all and can/could dominate other great teams.
Then you have Bruno, who hides in big games, and whines when things don't go his way, and he will do nothing for the entire game. What is the deal? He creates three or four chances against Nottingham and Wolverhampton, so he is our star player? Since when is one player responsible for creating chances an ideal way to build your team?
Let me ask you another question. AWB is maybe one of the world's best tacklers, but would you call him one of the best defenders? So, Bruno is one of the best in the league at creating chances, but overall, do you think he is one of the world's best midfielders? Obviously, creating chances is more important than tackling, but I'm comparing these because they are just one ability, and when you try to build one of the best teams in the world, you need your players, and especially midfielders, to be able to do a lot and have a vast skill set, and not just a specialist in a single aspect of the game. For instance, Casemiro is an excellent tackler, but we see how much his level drops when all of his other abilities begin to fade.
I honestly don't get how you can watch the games he has played this season and think he has played well. It is absurd, and shows how little you expect of him, simply because you like him.
Usually, when you're a world class player, other teams' fans acknowledge it, but I have never seen anyone else - other than a few on redcafe - even suggest that Bruno is world class. Surely if he was, fans of other teams would want him or praise him? We fecking hate Liverpool, but we acknowledge how crazy good Salah is.
I don't know how else to put it but I see Bruno as a big moment footballer. He can be quite meh, sometimes cringey, for 45-60 minutes but then out of nowhere puts in a worldie assist or goal.
Just FYI, I think this "tone" or "attitude" (lack of a better word) is a bit part of the issue at hand. You act as if you brought us the gift of truth, but all you've given us is a whoscored-ratings rundown. Thats not facts, its stats, stats that are somehow combined and weighted and then this rating is generated. It doesn't mean anything.
He was good against 10 men Forrest. If thats something to brag on, we are in trouble. Doesn't take anything away from him, he was important in that game. But we need some perspective.
He is a fecking midfielder, he makes a living playing football. If he had gone into goal, I'd be give you a point but apart from that, it also shouldn't be anything to brag about. You have seen the game, have you? It was a shitty game, we won after a hard fight, a deserved result and a great goal by Bruno. But nobody played really good. Thats not the same as saying "all players were shit" - but there is something in between good and shit. And this is, where ManUnited lives...
I see your point here and I agree, some of the criticism is OTT. But so is a quite a bit of the praise. And when people get called names because of it, then opionions will become more extreme.
What does it matter what I believe Mate? We haven't been a good football team in years. Thats surely not only down to Bruno and I'll happily give you that we might have been an even worse team without him but that is not the point. We are here and now - our rivals improve left, right and center. They are playing good football, most of the teams are capable of controlling the ball and of attacking moves based on team movement and preparation. Look at us and tell me you don't see a difference. And again - not only down to Bruno but his strong suit is exactly this instinctive chaos-football. And I'd happily stay with that, if it would make us a fantastic team. But it doesn't. Our attack with Bruno and Rashford is not very good. And while Brunos strong suit might favor Rashfords strong suit, I have a feeling that the rest of the team might look better if play wasn't as frantic as it is too often.
It certainly wasn't meant condescendingly. It was an actual advice to look into it. I think sofascore has a similar rating-system, last year I played the Communio game with a couple of mates. The points system of communio is based on those sofascore ratings. And they were really weird. And from what I've seen, the same can be said of whoscored. The issue is their weighting of the stats. Some things have a higher weighting than others which works in favor of players with specific skillsets.It's funny that on the day you accused somebody of being condescending, you tell me to 'do myself a favour'
And FYI - Fecking McTominays rating for PL this season is 6.32. Brunos rating, only PL, only this season is 7.27... I think, you can see my point, can you?
I think you are actually a bit harsh on him. It is also part of the reason why this gets so heated around here. But fair enough. I think, I maybe can answer your question: the reason is, that many fans are evaluating Bruno only in comparison with other Manchester United players. And maybe one or two opposition players when we are up against them. This might be the cause of the issues: as there is no "absolute" or "objective" way of rating a player, imperfect ways have to be used. Some then make use of a system that feels objective to them (not necessarily to anybody else) and some fans only look at our own team and say Bruno can't be bad because he is so much "better" than Fred or McTominay.
And in case someone feels triggered, it is a genuine thought of why it might be so difficult with this player (actually, there is another player in the team, where nearly the same phenomenon is going on - only thing is this player right now is more easily recognizable as an issue, total opposite of a chunk of last year btw).
I am not saying one group is right and the other group is wrong. But to me it feels like one group is just ignoring the negative sideeffects.
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I’m not sure what this means. But attacking a poster in the way you are doing here, needs justification. That is my response. I’ve reported both posts. You don’t get to go around deciding who posts what, where so you need to justify what you have written to give me the right to reply.
Also I’ve just had a read of my post history, so if you can pick out the posts where I’m actually ‘talking shit’. Not posts that you simply don’t like or agree with….Actual posts that are talking shit.
Bruno Fernandes is shite and the government is corrupt. Everything is controlled by Jeff Bezos.
I think Bruno as part of the front 3 is a viable option for us away from home for us to get an extra body in midfield.
It was something I was crying out for Solskjaer to do when we were in crisis mode back in 2021 but alas he went for that 5-3-2 which he quickly abandoned and that was that for Ole.
Bruno is by far our most productive player but, like Rooney to a degree, he does present some challenges for constructing a solid midfield. If you opt for a 4-3-3 with another attacking 8 then you need the high press to be on point otherwise you’re asking a lot of your single pivot. Due to the “loose” nature of his passing you need the other two midfield players to really look after the ball a bit better and they also need the legs to get about the pitch and break up play. We’ve struggled at times to field a midfield that fully complements Bruno in that regard.
Playing with a midfield 3 with Bruno further forward gives us more presence in midfield. Bruno can drop back into midfield at any time to make a 4 and we can make ourselves much more difficult to play through with much tighter spaces. We also have a decent set of options now to fill those positions: Casemiro, Amrabat, Eriksen, Mount, Hannibal, Mainoo, McTominay. It may not be a world class list of names but there’s enough quality there and also the legs and depth to maintain intensity in midfield.
They key then is to also have a threatening front line. I was impressed against Burnley with Bruno’s movement across the front line. His runs to beat the offside trap are as good as a striker and we know he can finish.
One of the challenges to Bruno playing in the attacking line is how we maintain width. Bruno is not a right winger and it would frankly be a waste of his creative talents to expect him to hold a wide position. Therefore you need other players to provide width on the right. One positive is that we now have Hojlund who naturally pulls into that channel to provide an outlet for the right back. Bruno can then make runs inside and behind. We have seen glimpses of this already against Arsenal and Burnley.
What we are still lacking is an attacking right back who can play a bit higher to also maintain the width when we have high possession. Dalot and AWB are both doing a decent job of this in the meantime.
Overall I think this system could evolve into something quite effective. The key is that we need fluidity rather than Bruno being fixed on the right wing or at the top of a diamond.
——————Hojlund
Rashford————-Bruno
——SA/HM/KM MM/CE/SM
———————Cas/SA
It was something I was crying out for Solskjaer to do when we were in crisis mode back in 2021 but alas he went for that 5-3-2 which he quickly abandoned and that was that for Ole.
Bruno is by far our most productive player but, like Rooney to a degree, he does present some challenges for constructing a solid midfield. If you opt for a 4-3-3 with another attacking 8 then you need the high press to be on point otherwise you’re asking a lot of your single pivot. Due to the “loose” nature of his passing you need the other two midfield players to really look after the ball a bit better and they also need the legs to get about the pitch and break up play. We’ve struggled at times to field a midfield that fully complements Bruno in that regard.
Playing with a midfield 3 with Bruno further forward gives us more presence in midfield. Bruno can drop back into midfield at any time to make a 4 and we can make ourselves much more difficult to play through with much tighter spaces. We also have a decent set of options now to fill those positions: Casemiro, Amrabat, Eriksen, Mount, Hannibal, Mainoo, McTominay. It may not be a world class list of names but there’s enough quality there and also the legs and depth to maintain intensity in midfield.
They key then is to also have a threatening front line. I was impressed against Burnley with Bruno’s movement across the front line. His runs to beat the offside trap are as good as a striker and we know he can finish.
One of the challenges to Bruno playing in the attacking line is how we maintain width. Bruno is not a right winger and it would frankly be a waste of his creative talents to expect him to hold a wide position. Therefore you need other players to provide width on the right. One positive is that we now have Hojlund who naturally pulls into that channel to provide an outlet for the right back. Bruno can then make runs inside and behind. We have seen glimpses of this already against Arsenal and Burnley.
What we are still lacking is an attacking right back who can play a bit higher to also maintain the width when we have high possession. Dalot and AWB are both doing a decent job of this in the meantime.
Overall I think this system could evolve into something quite effective. The key is that we need fluidity rather than Bruno being fixed on the right wing or at the top of a diamond.
——————Hojlund
Rashford————-Bruno
——SA/HM/KM MM/CE/SM
———————Cas/SA
This is a very underrated aspect of his game and one of the reasons why his goalscoring numbers are so high for a midfielder. We've frequently seen him use intelligent movement to peel away from his man at just the right time and yet some people on here still call him a brainless footballer.
How are his goalscoring numbers "so high" for a midfielder? He scored 6 open play goals in the PL last season. Odd claim.
His numbers since joining United are very high indeed. Before you mention "but how many of those goals are penalties!", there's clearly a reason why none of the other penalty takers in Europe's top 5 leagues achieved the same within that time frame.
Plus you have to factor in how Bruno’s “big chance” creation has been incredibly high, so his assists tally would surely be higher if creating for better/more consistent strikers than (aged) Ronaldo, Cavani, Rashford, Martial and… Wout Weghorst.
The problem here is that you use the numbers from his first seasons (where he was fantastic) to determine how good he is currently. Lewandowski beat the Bundesliga goal scoring record a couple seasons back, but he is no where near that level right now. Players shouldn't get a pass based on their previous goal scoring or assist numbers when they're not performing to that level now.
There are two reasons for his goal scoring numbers, and it's not because of what you initially stated; that it was his movement off-the-ball. The first is that his first full season, we got a lot of penalties given to us (also in the 19/20 season, but he only played from January), and the second is that he is a fantastic penalty kick taker. Now, that we don't get as many penalties any more, his numbers have, unsurprisingly, dropped. By no means, his numbers are not bad, but they're far from great.
As for the chance creation argument by Pogue, there is no better time to include TAA into the argument. He has been consistently one of the best chance creators in the game, and he was not far off Bruno last season, but surely, you and everyone can see his weaknesses exposing Liverpool and making them vulnerable, similarly to Bruno for us, but it exposes us even more because Bruno is one of our midfielders, while TAA is a right back.
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It's a shame that some of our own fans resort to the "he's just a penalty merchant" argument to explain his high goalscoring numbers when we all saw his outstanding technique for the goal vs Burnley and were not the least bit surprised, as he's scored plenty of goals like that before. Yes - lots of players are capable of scoring the occasional screamer, but Bruno has been consistently scoring a variety of high-quality goals since joining United (hence why I'm bringing up a sample size from Jan 2020-present date).
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Alexander-Arnold leaves Liverpool exposed because he's often caught out of position or ball watching. As a RB, you're expected to perform more defensive duties than a creative midfielder. If he had the defensive ability of peak Ashley Cole, whilst also creating the same number of chances on the ball as he has done in the past, then he'd be one hell of an asset to Liverpool.
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So sick of seeing Statman Dave tweets. We are 9th, minus goal difference by -3. Scored 7 goals and conceded 10. Pathetic for a club like United.
It's not really anything new that Bruno leads big chances created or key passes for Manchester United players, is it? He is literally the player responsible for creating chances.
Or to say it even more striking: Bruno ranks first or equal first amongst for the current 9th best team of the league. Well worth a tweet. And a few of his supporters will feel confirmed in their takes...
The only thing this guy is good at is showing that stats alone don't mean objectivity - they can paint many pictures.
edit: this guy = Statman Dave
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He doesn't need to be as good to be comparable. Same with Sheringham. In a perfect world for bruno i think he's playing as a support striker in a 442. Cantona would be my reference point for that. Rooney could work but i dont think they're that similar really. I dont think referencing Cantona 30 years on is disrespectful to be honest.
If i have to shove Bruno into the 99 team then i'd probably play him as a striker. That isn't to say I'd rather have him than Yorke or Beckham or Scholes or whoever else. Its just a random conversation
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