So if VAR overturned the refs decision, which it didn’t, and he’d manage to score from twice the distance of his header, if everyone including VAR ignored the fact that Rashford was a yard offside, AND Rashford hadn’t made almost as big of a mess of the chance that Bruno did his, AND if Bruno hadn’t have missed a chance that a Sunday league player should score…he might not have played shite?
8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 48
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 12
- Status
I liked his interview after the game having a go at the ref and Jon Moss. It's time someone speaks about that.
Really slow start to the season. But i honestly think he tries to do just what the manager asks him to do.
Erik has talked about fast transitions and has our quickest player furthest up the pitch. I think Brunos mission is to put the ball over the defence as quick as he can, so Marcus can chase. Erik needs to tweak his setup. Bruno can be much better in possession than what we have seen so far.
What hurts me most is that miss from Shaws cross. Shouldn`t be possible for a player of that calibre to miss like that.
Erik has talked about fast transitions and has our quickest player furthest up the pitch. I think Brunos mission is to put the ball over the defence as quick as he can, so Marcus can chase. Erik needs to tweak his setup. Bruno can be much better in possession than what we have seen so far.
What hurts me most is that miss from Shaws cross. Shouldn`t be possible for a player of that calibre to miss like that.
Spamming long balls.
Doesn't matter if you like it or not: we are more dangerous and capable with Bruno than without him. Unfortunately, he's not the kind of player who scores goals out of thin air. His genius has to be matched by his team mates. Which often doesn't happen and we see supposed missed passes or "ridiculous" through balls. The manager wants to win and use the players that will help him achive that. Bruno was always first team for a reason, or the managers are all fools that can't see how Bruno is so horrendous.
I see your point but it asks the question what sort of creativity this is. Bruno always has the finger on the trigger, his instincts make him pass forward within 2 seconds after receiving the ball. Issue with the team as a whole is, those passes are almost always passes in behind. That is seemingly all we are going for, which is why we see what we see: frantic games and a vertically stretched team because the attackers are moving upwards while the defense has the reorganize before pushing up. This way he certainly is creating chances but he is doing his share to make sure that the play is as frantic as it is.
The hard question should be: do we want to keep him doing what he is doing with all up- and all downsides or should we try to adapt to change the style, risking not seeing him at his very best anymore*? (*for me the answer is clear, I even think, a switch could benefit Bruno just as well, we know he is capable of playing with a little more calmness, even though it goes against his instincts. He still can go for it, if it is on, but currently it seems more like a game of quantities than of qualities - if Lingard would have pumped 35 passes in behind all game, he for sure would have been able to get more assists as well.)
Well said.
I made a thread (link below) last summer and got ridiculed, and the mods even closed the thread. Because how dare I compare the great Bruno Fernandes to the café favourite flop Paul Pogba.
Hypothetical: If Bruno leaves this summer, who would you say had a better United career between him and Pogba?
Still think he’s the least of our issues. There are at least 8-9 other players I’d replace before him.
It would be interesting to see how the team performed if he was out for a prolonged spell i.e. injured. Different profiles and different skillsets, but it would be interesting to see Sancho and Mount get a run of games in his position. As a minimum we'd keep the ball more and turn posession over less.
We’ve seen what happens when he’s missing and I’ve watched enough Utd over the years to know we would be markedly worse. We wouldn’t create anything without him it’s as simple as that. You can carry one player in the side who is a risk taker. That would work if the rest of our players were technically good, could retain possession in crowded areas etc. For me the big discussion is that we either carry Bruno or Rashford and Bruno is still the better player.
Him and Shaw are the only United players in the top 20 of most touches so far in the Premier League. Rodri (1st) and Kovacic (4th) are leading the stats whereas Alvarez for example - same team, more advanced role than Rodri/Kovacic - had much less touches than Bruno, and don’t get me started on Haaland.
People can moan about Bruno as much as they want, but replacing him will only take the little creativity we have away while not making us even slightly better on the ball.
Our attack is too one dimensional and this won’t change until the midfield (behind Bruno) gets sorted.
People can moan about Bruno as much as they want, but replacing him will only take the little creativity we have away while not making us even slightly better on the ball.
Our attack is too one dimensional and this won’t change until the midfield (behind Bruno) gets sorted.
Ill get battered, but we should have sold Bruno. We could have got good money from him, used it for top DM and the team could start training calm possession football with Mount and Erikson as our 2 number 10's. And Onana captain.
Or should have just bought a 100 million CM to play with Cas and Bruno instead of Mount and whoever we are trying now.
ETH has no idea how to set up the midfield here which is a bigger issue.
Why is that the question though when nearly every other player in the team is just a culpable at losing possession from Casemiro in midfield to Garnacho and Antony out wide. Non of are players are good at retaining possession, even the less bad ones like Sancho don't do anything with it anyway and if he was to play a full 90 the same would probably be said about him too.
He always was sloppy on the ball but the way his finishing has regressed the last 2 seasons makes it hard for him to make up for his bad points. It's like instead of finishing and been clinical he wants to be fancy and overthinks everything. He must have missed 20 clear cut chances in the last couple of years.
No doubt his dreadful header attempt cost us the match yesterday.
No doubt his dreadful header attempt cost us the match yesterday.
ETH came out after the game and said the exact opposite of this and this is not what he is asking for and that yesterday we tried too many balls over the top instead of making the extra pass so I’m going to go with it’s not what he is asked to do.
When he speaks of transitions he means the speed at which we win the ball back and start a 2nd phase of attacking. He wants the ball won high and too immediately start attacking. Not long balls over the top ala Ole ball.
Nobody is asking for us to play with 10 men only. Obviously, we'd have somebody instead of Bruno on the pitch. I agree, he has been instrumental for us, he has abilities, that are great, but the question should be made, if, as a team, we might be better of, asking him to play differently to how he does. Bruno is relatively weak, he isn't a good dribbler at all, which might be the reason, he seems stressed and rushes when he receives the ball. If we leave everything as it is right now, then yes, we have to keep Bruno as he is a working chance creator for us. But as so many are talking about - we shouldn't strive to leave everything as it is.
Because of all the players mentioned, he is the embodiment of being rash on the ball. You are right, isn't much worse in that respect than others. And yes, he at least comes up with an assist here and there, but he often is the first one to try to force it, going for hollywood passes ALL THE FECKING TIME. And to round this up - not like he has many other options. He isn't a good dribbler at all, watch Maddison yesterday be very useful at that.
Bruno for sure isn't our one and only problem. But he is one of the clearest embodiments of it. And there is a good chance, that to tackle the overall issues, he will be one who has to adapt for it. And we can not be sure, if he is able to do it. We can't just ignore him because he is one of the small bright spots in an team that doesn't seem to work as a whole.
We are probably the only fans who go on the internet and whine about his whining. As if it is something unique to him. The media gives enough bad reputation to our players. We need not join in that.
The reality of both players performances are not dissimilar. Bruno working harder being better suited to his position and Pogba being more talented and consistent in overall performance.
This type of reality though is at odds massively to the regard both players are held.
I got banned on more than one occasion for simply expressing the view, something that simply wouldn’t happen if you held the opposite view to me.
Bruno is going to always do Bruno things. He's the captain, he wont be getting dropped Erik has just got to make some changes around that. Right now this team can't afford to have 3 or 4 Bruno's in the squad playing moments fc ball losing possession every time they touch it.
Yes such whining will really endear himself to the referees he has to deal with every week. We'll get better decisions now.
Maybe finishing simple chances and not losing his head as soon as the going gets tough would help us more.
He's the main problem, sadly. He's the focal point of the team. He was during Ole reign. Still he is now for ETH.
Style of play is extremely similar now 2023 to how it was in 2020, 2021, 2022. We have changed managers, changed midfielders, defenders, GK but still our play remain the same as ever.
Our opponents know how to attack us is through midfield.
All this symptoms were never prevalent pre 2020. I really thought ETH would see through it, and change our structure by ditching all this transition play but he made Bruno captain instead.
We really have to hope results don't unravel quickly for ETH dismissal.
We would need a lot of players to up their game. Always felt one of the key ingredients to Liverpool winning things was selling Coutinho. But they spent that money really well and Salah was already way on his way to becoming world class. But losing Coutinho meant Klopp could now play a hard working midfield that was key to how they played going forward. But we dont have wing backs who can provide 15+ assists, so in short we are doomed.
I tend to agree, though when he performs like he did against Wolves he is absolutely a problem.
I don't know if it's the relative triviality of having in my fantasy footy team that does it, but the amount of giving ball away has felt exceptionally annoying this season.
We can never hope to be a ball playing team with the captain so wild with the ball.
We can never hope to be a ball playing team with the captain so wild with the ball.
I don't know if people have amnesia or if his critics simply came crawling out of the bushes, but the general positivity surrounding Bruno that emerged at the end of last season lasted a whopping 2 games... The comparisons to Pogba and Mkhhitaryan are parody-level bad 
If he played for City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Brighton most of you would be singing his praises. Our attack isn't dysfunctional because of Bruno. Our attack is on life support and Bruno is the one of the few keeping the machine on. He's possibly the best chance creator in the game, only matched by De Bruyne. And he's never injured and he presses well. Imagine what he could do in a functional side...
But sure, let's boot him out because he squanders possession a little more often than his peers. Let's sign someone with half the creativity, fitness and workrate who never misplaces a pass because he plays it sideways or backwards instead. That will instill fear on our opponents!
If he played for City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Brighton most of you would be singing his praises. Our attack isn't dysfunctional because of Bruno. Our attack is on life support and Bruno is the one of the few keeping the machine on. He's possibly the best chance creator in the game, only matched by De Bruyne. And he's never injured and he presses well. Imagine what he could do in a functional side...
But sure, let's boot him out because he squanders possession a little more often than his peers. Let's sign someone with half the creativity, fitness and workrate who never misplaces a pass because he plays it sideways or backwards instead. That will instill fear on our opponents!
Ok, that is very worrying. Either Bruno is an idiot or he doesn’t believe in Eriks ideas. Or Eriks ideas are just not very good.
Arguably the best teams of the last decade have had control over the ball and moved the ball well up to areas with the team. So since Eriks ideas seem to be similar to what those best teams are/were doing so I’m sure his idea is fine it’s just not being executed on the pitch currently.
Its like it’s engraved in to our nature to just punt the ball in to that channel for Rashford to run on to and it’s the easiest thing to defend and the laziest bit of attacking play. It’s something that desperately needs to stop if we are to improve.
I don't know if people have amnesia or if his critics simply came crawling out of the bushes, but the general positivity surrounding Bruno that emerged at the end of last season lasted a whopping 2 games... The comparisons to Pogba and Mkhhitaryan are parody-level bad
If he played for City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Brighton most of you would be singing his praises. Our attack isn't dysfunctional because of Bruno. Our attack is on life support and Bruno is the one of the few keeping the machine on. He's possibly the best chance creator in the game, only matched by De Bruyne. And he's never injured and he presses well. Imagine what he could do in a functional side...
But sure, let's boot him out because he squanders possession a little more often than his peers. Let's sign someone with half the creativity, fitness and workrate who never misplaces a pass because he plays it sideways or backwards instead. That will instill fear on our opponents!
Posts like these make me laugh. Teams like these dominate and create chances after chances because they have control and a plan in how they build up attacks. By playing Bruno in these teams, they would effectively lose that control and become teams that rely on individual moments by Bruno.
So a player who has spent years being surrounded by the likes of McTominay, Fred, Lingard, Wout, Antony, old Ronaldo, inconsistent Martial, out of form Sancho and youngsters like Garnacho, and still has produced excellent attacking numbers would for sure struggle in these teams? City's entire formation and excellence would crumble because Bruno gets dispossessed 70 yards from his own goal once or twice per game or play a couple of unsuccessful through balls that get picked up by the opponent's goalkeeper? Sure..
He hasn't produced excellent attacking numbers, though.
He had 8 goals and 8 assists in 3300 PL minutes last season, and 10 goals and 6 assists in 3100 the season before that. That is actually very mediocre. Additionally, he's our penalty kick taker.
City would struggle because Bruno has no press resistance, wants to get rid of the ball as soon as he is pressed, and is technically average compared to the City midfielders.
In 21/22 the whole team was a total and complete mess, in case you forgot. Bruno couldn't do much about that. Last season I think Bruno created the most chances in the top leagues. You can't fault him for our attackers being poor at finishing these chances.
As far as attacking midfielders go, Bruno is pretty much unmatched in 3 very important areas: chance creation, fitness and workrate. He's also not a bad finisher, but his role has changed. He tends to be second or third last on the ball instead (hence all the chances created last season). It's important to keep possession too, but it's secondary to the other skills mentioned. And there is no reason to believe that Bruno wouldn't improve in these aspects with better midfielders around him.
To scapegoat one of our best players is absurd, but that's online discussions for you. I'll be right back in here the moment I find someone who doesn't rate Bruno highly in the real world. And that includes fans of rival teams.
Captain or not, has he ever missed a game?
Simple question for you: If Bruno was as good as you think he is, do you not think the top sides would be in for him?
Wout was also unmatched in fitness and work rate be he is gone thank god. And, I know lots of people in the "real world?" that don't rate him.
How do you know that they aren't? And how often have we sold one our best and important players to a rival? Silly point..
And if he had been unmatched in goalscoring (the striker equivalent of chance creation) then he'd still be here. It's important to not leave out the most important detail when replying to a post.
I just don't think fitness and work rate should be mentioned as something special. It's the minimum. Goals assists chances created etc yes.
Not a single top club were in for him when he was playing for Sporting banging in goals and assisting. Of course they'd know of him.
Anyway, the point being that he is great when it comes to doing what he was brought here for, but ultimately, just creating a lot of chances doesn't cut it for a club with ambitions like ours. Ødegaard creates chances, scores and controls the game for Arsenal. How many top clubs do you know that plays with a number 10 that lacks technically?
Never being injured is absolutely special! And it's pretty damn clear that not every top player works equally hard or presses well. A lot of our goals and chances come as an indirect result of good pressing.
But yes, his chance creation is the most important thing.
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