Probably shouldn’t have given him that new contract when he was not even performing, but hey he is our best player after all. There is zero players who should be earning his wage at the club. After the likes of Rashford and Casemiro he should be axed. His book value should be close to zero now too since he has been here for a while so you don’t need a huge transfer fee to make positive PSR impact and save 300k a week
8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 37
- Goals
- 7
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 8
- Red cards
- 3
People choose the player over the club far too much in the modern game. I love Bruno, his name is on the back of my shirt. He has been one of the few bright sparks at the club since SAF left. He will go down as a player I will always like, admire and have fond memories of as a United player.
Having said that, I don't understand how people can't see the issue with Bruno in this current team and equally in Ten Hag's team. He is completely incapable of playing in a possession based system. He's all hollywood ball all the time. He doesn't seem to possess the ability to make an intricate pass, or dribble, hold the ball up, make space, he just receives the ball and it's a onetime pass or shot. One of the reasons we don't create any chances for our strikers is once we encounter a low block we are completely devoid of ways of breaking it down. And I am not even addressing his complete lack of defensive duties when playing in midfield. His style leads to massive stat padding. There were games last season where he was awful (which in honestly is virtually every game last season) and the stats would show a number of chances created. But if you watched the game he physically played bad and you can't pick out any of those chances created.
Bruno has been performing consistently poorly for at least 2 years now, yet he plays every game. He certainly isn't the only problem, while his attitude can be an issue in some ways, with the petulance with the refs and whatnot, but at the end of the day he is one of the few players that actually cares, so isn't issue #1 to be addressed, but if we want to progress this club he's in the top couple for sure.
I'm loving this current social media push where a subset of our fanbase is saying we should sell him for his sake this summer because we are holding back. TBH, I hope everyone buys this narrative, Bruno, potential suitors, the club. I honestly think if United made it known they want to sell him they would struggle a bit, but if the perception is he wants to escape United to salvage his career before it's too late, you can see some club trying to write that story and take that chance.
Having said that, I don't understand how people can't see the issue with Bruno in this current team and equally in Ten Hag's team. He is completely incapable of playing in a possession based system. He's all hollywood ball all the time. He doesn't seem to possess the ability to make an intricate pass, or dribble, hold the ball up, make space, he just receives the ball and it's a onetime pass or shot. One of the reasons we don't create any chances for our strikers is once we encounter a low block we are completely devoid of ways of breaking it down. And I am not even addressing his complete lack of defensive duties when playing in midfield. His style leads to massive stat padding. There were games last season where he was awful (which in honestly is virtually every game last season) and the stats would show a number of chances created. But if you watched the game he physically played bad and you can't pick out any of those chances created.
Bruno has been performing consistently poorly for at least 2 years now, yet he plays every game. He certainly isn't the only problem, while his attitude can be an issue in some ways, with the petulance with the refs and whatnot, but at the end of the day he is one of the few players that actually cares, so isn't issue #1 to be addressed, but if we want to progress this club he's in the top couple for sure.
I'm loving this current social media push where a subset of our fanbase is saying we should sell him for his sake this summer because we are holding back. TBH, I hope everyone buys this narrative, Bruno, potential suitors, the club. I honestly think if United made it known they want to sell him they would struggle a bit, but if the perception is he wants to escape United to salvage his career before it's too late, you can see some club trying to write that story and take that chance.
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Whilst I am quick to defend Bruno, I agree, there was zero reasons to give Bruno a contract when he already had 2/3 years left on his contract.
If he wanted to leave because of money, we should have let him go...
The problem is, I dont think anyone takes him on a free either, its the same old problem with us, players are on too high of a wage to leave.
Anyone over 250k should be axed within the next year. No player unless we are winning PL /CL should be anywhere near that money.
Wait, this makes no sense? Using this logic, every player that isn't the best in the team should be put on the market.
You know that it's possible to sign better players than Bruno right? And that there are more than one position on the pitch?
In the last 2.5 years he's definitely been one of their 3 best players overall. Probably the best in the last WC + qualifiers in between. Roughly around the team average in the Euros, where he disappointed.
That's peanuts for our club when you also consider our transfer history. And I really doubt that our club would deem that as a good deal. And I also doubt that a club fitting of Bruno's level would bid that much for a 31 year old.
Agree with this, some valid points.
We are stuck with him
We've given some daft contracts in the last few seasons, Rashford, Casemiro and Bruno's are criminal
Not as criminal as putting Bruno in the same category as the other two.
We gave him a bumper contract and upped his wages when there was absolutely no need too. That was a bad decision.
I dont think its criminal putting Casemiro there too, its just Rashford.
Casemiro is not throwing his toys out the pram, like Bruno he just isnt good enough anymore.
350k for a 30 year old with no prior achievements for our club is excessive and his sudden drop in quality was always a possibility. It was and remains stupid money.
Looking at the other top teams and their finances it makes 100% sense that Bruno earns 300k.
Ok in that respects yes, I agree. The reason he joined was because of the wage, which was the reason many players joined us.
Any new signing needs to be capped at 150k, until they show their improvement.
I wouldn't say it's a controversial opinion, but it is placing a lot of faith in the club to use those funds to actually improve the team while removing its current best player. Look at how poor the team is now compared to the team Bruno came into, expecting the club to lose him and move forward positively is difficult to see atm.
That’s how football works. It was his last big contract, so he was always going to get a pay rise. Considering he was one of very few players in our squad who has actually performed at a decent level over the years leading up to that contract it was an entirely rational decision to offer it to him.
And at that time, we have players that got paid close or more than him while contributing feck all. It's only natural to give your captain and one of your best and reliable players every year, a bumping contract.
This place is going to have a meltdown when he wins our POTY again 
i mean considering we prob finish around 15th i dont think that award will mean jackshit. If anything id have more respect if the club just cancels the awards.This place is going to have a meltdown when he wins our POTY again
Yeah it was an absolute head-scratcher giving him that contract. Unless I'm mistaken, we still had him under contract for a few more years, so there wasn't any imminent danger of losing him for free. And it's not like he was vastly outperforming the contract that he was on at the time (yes Rashford shouldn't have been making more than him, but I thought INEOS' big idea was to stop overpaying and rewarding mediocrity?)
And as for Bruno being disgruntled, well so what? I have a hard time seeing doing his best Rashford impression because his salary wasn't increased.
It’s not just about Bruno being disgruntled though. At the end of the day we were a massive club with a number of players on huge salaries. What’s the incentive for any of our up and coming talents to stay put if we don’t reward our top performers adequately?
Maybe you misunderstood, I am saying our best player should be a much better one, him being one of the star players and paid like one is part of the issue.
What is your point here? Yes we should be signing better players than Bruno quite obviously, hence why I also think he should be sold, as he is a top earner.
I couldn't care less what they think, he'll be 31 and on 300k a week, they quite obviously do not think very well else they wouldn't be in a position where they have a player at that age, on the decline and earning so much money
I like Bruno but is it time to cash in? I'm torn. I mean he aint getting any younger, we are likely going to have a Chelsea rebuild (aka a lot of youth and it will take time). Maybe get a young up and coming no. 10. Problem is the team is so bad, if we are like this next year it will be horrendous.
No one should be rewarded for leading the team to 8th in the league, and he didn't have a great season personally anyway.
What message are we sending to young players when we keep rewarding mediocrity and paying top salaries to underperforming stars?
This place is going to have a meltdown when he wins our POTY again
When we just miss out on relegation what does it matter who wins POTY?
Our best player could also earn 350k (or higher). The point is that there should be at least something resembling logic when it comes to a player's level, what they have given to the club and what they earn. And contrary to what you believe, older players (up until a certain point) earn more than young players.
De Bruyne was the same age as Bruno when he signed his last extension, making his salary 400k. Yes, he's clearly better than Bruno but it goes to show that being 30 years old (and far less fit) and running out of time doesn't mean that you don't have any strong cards to play.
And he's hardly the only high-paid player on their payroll. Jack fecking Grealish earns 300k too. Bernardo Silva, who I would say is comparable to Bruno skill-wise, is also on 300k. He was 29 when he signed the extension.
And then we have Havertz, who earns 280k in Arsenal
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Our best player could also earn 350k (or higher). The point is that there should be at least something resembling logic when it comes to a player's level, what they have given to the club and what they earn. And contrary to what you believe, older players (up until a certain point) earn more than young players.
De Bruyne was the same age as Bruno when he signed his last extension, making his salary 400k. Yes, he's clearly better than Bruno but it goes to show that being 30 years old (and far less fit) and running out of time doesn't mean that you don't have any strong cards to play.
And he's hardly the only high-paid player on their payroll. Jack fecking Grealish earns 300k too. Bernardo Silva, who I would say is comparable to Bruno skill-wise, is also on 300k. He was 29 when he signed the extension.
And then we have Havertz, who earns 280k in Arsenal
When we are winning PL and UCL, yes, at this present time, no, no one should be earning anywhere near that. How do you then reward success? Do you realise our squad has a poor culture for a reason? One of them being the rewarding of mediocrity
We as a club are not in the position that City are in, where they can reward a 6 time PL champion and UCL champion with a new contract, a player that just happens to be one of the best players in the PL for the past 5 years (in what he achieved individual and where he took his team)
We are a club struggling to qualify for Europa League, let alone UCL. We are now building for the future, a future Bruno will not be part of when we get to a stage where we are ready to win major trophies.
I have no idea why you mention this, we are not where Arsenal are, and Havertz is 25. In all honesty most would say the Havertz signing was a poor one, they should have invested that money and salary on a real number 9. Maybe it is decisions like this that has seen them struggle to push on and become champions
That’s just nonsense. It’s not how any of this works. All professional footballers expect their final contract at a club to give them a pay rise. And the salary offered in that final contract should be comparable to other top earners at the club. You wouldn’t accept static pay at your job, why should a footballer? If that suddenly stopped happening then none of the up and coming players will have any incentive to stay.
If the team does well then they’ll get performance related bonuses, which they’ll miss out on after a bad season. This is all completely separate to base pay. Which only ever trends one direction.
But I feel like he already had been rewarded adequately with his previous contract - if I'm not mistaken, he got that 200k/week salary (not sure of the numbers) after his first couple of years with us. I look at a guy like Luis Diaz at Liverpool who apparently was on 55k/week coming into this season, and doesn't seem to be having trouble finding incentive to perform at the highest level. Again, this is not to slate Bruno (who whatever other issues he has, always comes across as a top professional) but more about not continually creating these salary rods for our PSR backs (not sure if that really worked!)
Arsenal haven't won the PL or CL in 20 years. And they are a smaller club than us.
And they still gave a 24 year old that isn't even that good 280k per week. And at 24 you still expect at least one solid salary bump before you retire. Possibly two.
That doesn't make it meaningless. Even teams deep in the lower half of the table tend to have a couple of good performers. Being able to perform reasonably well under terrible circumstances is also an honor.
His contract had 2 years + 1 year option left which would have taken him to 33, he was already paid very well too, that should have been his final contract.
He was already previously rewarded, and after a not-so-great season he didn't need to be additionally rewarded
Once you have players on salary which far exceeds their status, you get into a viscous cycle of having to reward talent to keep up with your past mistakes. Because Rashford and Casemiro were on circa 300k then in turn handing Bruno a new contract would mean he would be on the same, do you not see the fallacy here?
So when we need to reward another player and Bruno is on 300k we'll need to reward them with that too, even if their output and success doesn't match that relative to the market? No at some point you need to draw the line and reset, get underperforming top earner out (Bruno is now in this bracket) and start building a new team for future success.
This makes little sense, Bruno had previously been rewarded and was just coming off the back of a not so great season, the club had him tied down to 2+1 years and at the end of his contract he would be 33/34. There was no reason to extend aside from the fact that we were scared about losing him as a player.
In terms of cultural reset, we should have let him leave and invested said money in a younger player with higher upside potential who actually suited a possession-style midfield, instead we caved both to Bruno (new contract) and ETH (contract extension) both stupid decisions
If am not achieving top level success at my job relative to the market, why should I except a massive payrise just because? All contract decisions should be performance-related, and if a player isn't performing to the level of a 300k-a-week player, they should either be told to accept less or be moved on.
Clearly this is what we have been doing for over a decade and we have not had success, how about we stop rewarding mediocrity and start raising standards at the club
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Yes the last time they pulled a move like that is was for Ozil and Aubameyang and look how that turned out? Like I already said Havertz signing will likely go down as a big mistake
Bruno has not been a good performer, just like Dalot wasn't last season; raise your standards. Even the players were too embarrassed to have the reward ceremony, for Christ's sake.
Cash in? We would struggle to unload him. Bruno would want to go to a big club challenging for honors, those clubs aren't going to sign a player that can't play possession-based football. The clubs that will want to sign him, Tottenham maybe, won't be able to afford him or more likely he won't want to go to, because they aren't going to win anything either.
That'd be expecting too much tbh. He can't even do the most basic ball controls
I wasn't suggesting we'd get 80$ million but i think we could easily get around 40 million without too much trouble. His value will only decrease from here on out.
I assume the point is that none of our players should be earning the kind of salary where £300k a week is the figure a pay rise gets them to, given our performances. This is a matter of equity and managing salary progression.
Fernandes signed on around £120k per week in 2020 and after a very good 2 years doubled his salary to £240k per week. Then after a comparatively poor 2 years increased his salary by a further 25%.
This is obviously flawed. If you want to keep a player motivated by continued salary increases you give yourself headroom to reward tenure through ups and downs. For example £120k > £175k > £230k given his performances. The alternative strategy is that you reward actual performances rather than rewarding tenure and age. In that scenario £120k > £240k > £200k makes sense.
Scenario 1 is that the player is underpaid when he's firing on all cylinders and overpaid when he isn't... However salary progression is relatively linear and rewards tenure as well as performance. Scenario 2 solely correlates performance with pay.
The problem is you can't combine scenario 1 and 2 by rewarding hot streaks and also further rewarding tenure. We've seen United do this with Rashford and Fernandes, amongst others. The end result is you have people earning far, far more than their contribution... Which in footballing terms means winning less because wages are a finite cost, correlated with success (opportunity cost).
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Well, in those 2 "comparatively poor" years he still:
1. Made 56 goals and assists
2. Created the most chances in European top football
3. Became club captain
4. Won Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year for the 3rd time
5. Played excellently in an FA cup final win against a City team that won the league
You can argue that the salary boost was unnecessary in terms of the contract situation at the time.
What you can't argue is that the bump wasn't based on merit. Or that there weren't several worse players, both in our club and in other PL clubs, earning a similar amount or more.
Scenario two is ludicrous, obviously. There’s not a professional footballer on the planet who would commit to a football club where they might suddenly find themselves getting a surprise pay-cut, at the exact point in their career where every other footballer at every other club is getting offered the most lucrative contract they will ever get.
If a player is not performing to the desired standard then don’t offer them a new contract, sell them. That’s how football works. If you want to keep them, offer them a new contract, with a higher salary than their last one. Your bizarre suggestion, if implemented, would instantly remove any remaining attraction United might have as a destination for talented footballers and drive away all the best players already at the club.
That feels like an interesting turn of events. When Brunos new contract wasn't done and dusted, his fans told us how his age doesn't really matter due to his style. That he'd be a regular on most European clubs. Reading the other comments, maybe it wasn't you who said that back then but all the things you listed were obvious before that contract was handed out, yet the majority on here were celebrating anyways.
Pretty sure, the answer for that question is set pieces. Every set piece that found one of our players heads, no matter what became of it, was counted as a key pass or chance. Without set pieces, he'd still be productive in terms of numbers, no doubt, but it is one of the aspects that have influence on stats.
Ah come on. As if Bruno is just "a 31 year old". You should read up on your own texts, to remind yourself how lucky we are to have him.
Rational itself doesn't necessarily mean right or wrong. And as said back when it happened, people who saw it as normal business applied Big Team logics to a team that has no way of seeing itself as a Top team. Even if it wasn't Brunos fault that the results and trends tanked the way they did - awarding him with that bumper contract just out of fear that he may stir up additional controversy wasn't anything than a bandaid. The type of shortterm thinking we hope to not see it continueing.
I think it's absurd to assert that a club would be ludicrous to pay a player based on their current market worth rather than their age/tenure.
In fact a club with limited resources would be likely to fail if they followed that model. Even if that meant selling good players who demanded great player contracts or very good players that demanded world class player contracts.
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You can. He was awful last season. Scored 4 goals in first 30 premier league games. 2 of those penalties. Backed up by performances as bad as this season. He had a purple spell of 7 goals and 3 assists from April into May. Player of month fine but season wise he was awful.
Season before again awful…six non penalty goals in 37 matches from guy who plays his position in not merited pay rise. Ridiculous post. Only merit is a good performance in cup final where others were better.
Here is the thing though, he still rates in the 60 mil category. Even at 40 mil it is a return on a diminishing asset. It isn't going to get any higher. The team needs a total change of culture. I really cannot cite a reason that it isn't time to turn the page on the Bruno era.
All I will say is, citing logic doesn't go well here. They (Bruno fans) will look at your prior posts, look at your profile (Bruno fans have a lot of time on their hands) and try to dispel all your critiquing as ludicrous, ridiculous and lacking credibility. The truth hurts man. Oh yeah, then if you post anything even slightly vial or questionable, they try to get you band. It is actually humorous.
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"Many of the women’s players had only been given small ticket allocations for friends and family for the final. When the men’s players heard about it, captain Bruno Fernandes and veteran goalkeeper Tom Heaton, who is part of the leadership team, intervened and covered the cost of additional tickets using dressing room “fine” money accrued over the course of the season.
"It was a touching gesture and it would not be the last of its kind. When Fernandes discovered that free travel for staff had been scrapped for the men’s FA Cup final and they would instead have to pay £20 for a coach trip to Wembley, the Portugal midfielder offered to pay for all of the usual extras out of his own pocket. His offer was rejected, the feeling being among staff that it would have reflected badly on the new regime. The move is understood to have saved the club around £6,500 only for staff to be then left bemused to see the club shell out thousands on private chauffeured cars to take Ineos executives to the game."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...t-sir-jim-ratcliffe-ripped-the-heart-man-utd/
For all the abuse he gets, Bruno does seem to really care about the club.
"It was a touching gesture and it would not be the last of its kind. When Fernandes discovered that free travel for staff had been scrapped for the men’s FA Cup final and they would instead have to pay £20 for a coach trip to Wembley, the Portugal midfielder offered to pay for all of the usual extras out of his own pocket. His offer was rejected, the feeling being among staff that it would have reflected badly on the new regime. The move is understood to have saved the club around £6,500 only for staff to be then left bemused to see the club shell out thousands on private chauffeured cars to take Ineos executives to the game."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...t-sir-jim-ratcliffe-ripped-the-heart-man-utd/
For all the abuse he gets, Bruno does seem to really care about the club.