Bruno Fernandes image 8

Bruno Fernandes Portugal flag

2024-25 Performances

View full 2024-25 profile

5.5 Season Average Rating
Appearances
25
Goals
5
Assists
11
Yellow cards
4
Red cards
2
I'm genuinely amazed that people can watch a football match for 90 minutes and not think this guy is a genuine liability.
 
What is truly telling about his captaincy is that after Liverpool scored their third goal, we started looking all over the place for about 10 minutes, and it started to look like Liverpool could score with every attack. The last time I had that feeling was when they beat us 7-0, and it's stomach aching, knowing that you will concede.

What is truly baffling is that he can not understand the game even though he is 30 years old. Shows some gamesmanship, and tells everyone to keep it tight for 5 minutes, no risk, until everything settles and everyone calms down. Liverpool thrives in a setup where everyone is panicking and is out of position, as they are one of the best teams in the world to exploit spaces. For feck sake, sit down, and ask for medical assistance until everyone regroups. Mark Noble used to be the master of this, whenever West Ham had the lead, and his team was under pressure. 2-3 minutes, and it takes away the initiative from the opposition, gives him team a rest, and they go again.

Instead of reading the game and knowing when to slow it down, he is doing the opposite. Trying much harder passes, as they look good on the eye, when you have a simple pass to Garnacho in front of you. Just baffling, it borders with recklessness and stupidity. He should know better FFS.
 
Shane88 said:
Stop coddling players.



"Wanted to be brave." Shut up. He's a shit captain.
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There's nothing wrong with that quote at all, a captain publicly throwing his players under the bus would be much much worse.
 
He's just not that good. It's really that simple.

He'll have his moment's but he's a lower B-tier player. Giving him the keys to the team has proved not to work and has been obvious since the end of 20/21 season, yet here we are going into 2025 with him as our captain and a new contract.
 
Lash said:
This is a ridiculously framed question. A team isn't just Bruno. Today I watched Garnacho feck up nearly every attack, I watched Rashford dribble it out of play and turn around whilst on the attack, Zirkzee couldn't find a team mate to save his life and Casemiro went full self destruct.

Bruno isn't anything to do with that and I can imagine it's fecking demoralising watching all that around you. He doesn't get a free pass, but trying to pin our structural issues on Bruno is just plain mad.
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It's not mad. You cannot build a functioning midfield around the guy.
 
Dannn411 said:
The decision to extend him and give him £300k a week for nothing was widely hailed on here (as usual) but it was a terrible financial and footballing decision that will age so horribly.
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Proud to say that I was firmly against this. We need to move away from him and Rashford.
 
dubplate warrior said:
It's not mad. You cannot build a functioning midfield around the guy.
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Of course you can. Unless you're trying to suggest we've signed a functioning midfielder since he joined? We've just not signed a single suitable midfielder.
 
It’s getting very annoying when he deliberately chooses the harder option so he can add to his assists tally as oppose to choosing an easier pass that increases the likelihood of getting a goal at the expense of him not being able to add to his numbers.
 
Dannn411 said:
The decision to extend him and give him £300k a week for nothing was widely hailed on here (as usual) but it was a terrible financial and footballing decision that will age so horribly. I am so surprised that Ineos actually agreed to such a decision.
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They've made 2 major errors already really haven't they. Keeping the manager on and new bumper contract for Bruno within the space of a couple of months.
 
Dominos said:
They've made 2 major errors already really haven't they. Keeping the manager on and new bumper contract for Bruno within the space of a couple of months.
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Keeping the manager on isn't really a mistake. There was a lack of quality options. We need to do everything we can to bring in Xabi Alonso.
 
Lash said:
Of course you can. Unless you're trying to suggest we've signed a functioning midfielder since he joined? We've just not signed a single suitable midfielder.
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You can’t. There are glaring fundamentals that are missing from his game, and to perform at the highest level as a team, I think you need them. He has no rhythm to his play, and as a team, we have no rhythm to ours. He is the central figure of the team (as in, literally, with the area he occupies). Him having no ability to set a rhythm means that our midfield, and subsequently, our team - can never be good enough.

When Amad came on, he added some of the qualities that really should have been coming from the 10 and the flow was better. We really need that from our 10.
 
Remember the geese said:
Keeping the manager on isn't really a mistake. There was a lack of quality options. We need to do everything we can to bring in Xabi Alonso.
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Waiting for 1 particular manager is not a good idea when they may not even want to join.

When Alonso becomes available we have to pray the likes of Bayern, Madrid, Barca, Liverpool, PSG, City, Arsenal, Chelsea aren't looking for managers.

De Zerbi, Tuchel, Pochettino were all available in the summer, and there will have been others we could have taken a chance on, the way Liverpool have taken a chance on Slot.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Brilliant moment, but I didn’t think he ran the show or anything (more so because game state was mostly us defending our box)
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I know you're not a fan but it feels like you're trying reduce his role in a very good team performance against the best team in the world. He was great, IMO, iin all aspects of the game and even accounting for the fact we contained, every time he was on the ball he made good decisions, his passing and dribbling out of pressure was on point, and of course the assist was world class
 
Remember the geese said:
I'm not a fan of any of those unfortunately.
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I'm even less of a fan of watching the way we currently play football.


It is a weird one when you don't rate your manager but don't fancy the other options.

When this happens with a player that you want to replace but you can't get the right signing, you can make the argument you wait another year as it's only 1 player out a squad of 20+ players, and it won't define the team. And you may still have a good season despite having 1 player you want rid of longer term.

With a manager though, if you have a bad manager you're pretty much doomed, there's no hiding from it, he runs the entire show. You're basically writing off entire seasons where you're almost guaranteed to be shit so you can wait for the mythical perfect manager.
 
Very bad day creatively but he did win a good amount of tackles and worked hard. Overall not a good performance, but I can easily think of 5-6 players who did worse from the starting lineup alone.
 
As long as Rashford, Casemiro and Bruno are still here, and starting, we are not going anywhere. As simple as that.
 
Dominos said:
It is a weird one when you don't rate your manager but don't fancy the other options.
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This is the issue. Of course ten Hag should go but ideally I'd like to replace him with someone who gives me a little bit of faith that they can be "the one". Nobody gives me that feeling other than Alonso. So what do we do? Sack ten Hag and bring in someone else who isn't good enough? Great!
 
Think he was pretty anonymous today, which considering the team performance isn’t saying much.
 
It's revolting to see and to admit what a proper captain Van Dijk is. Him looking down, confused, at Bruno curled up in the foetal position made me so angry. It was pathetic.
 
We need a proper 3 man midfield. Bruno does not fit into this.
 
Josh 76 said:
We need a proper 3 man midfield. Bruno does not fit into this.
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I think the same. Which is why I had questions about going forward with him being the focal point of the team. At the start of summer when he was angling for a new contract with 2+1 years left on his deal I was thinking it was maybe an opportunity to get top money for him and restructure the side. Instead they went ahead and doubled down on things by giving him a better and longer contract.

He's great at what he does, but he is also very tactically limited, and as thus affords us little flexibility. And he's been poor in the three matches played this season.

I'm still perplexed by the new hierarchy sanctioning that contract. Woodward-esque that was.
 
The biggest issue with having Bruno in the team is that it leaves us so open in the midfield with us playing in a two and it may be we need to put another body in there with Bruno's only option moving out wide.
 
Shane88 said:
Stop coddling players.



"Wanted to be brave." Shut up. He's a shit captain.
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Might give an insight in his mind. Hopefully only his and not that of the whole team. When doing risky things is seen as brave (and brave as something positive), it is easy to get positive recognition by "being brave" as a forward because you can just attempt over and over. Which would fit what we see from Bruno from time to time. I can see where he comes from of course but I hope, that there is somebody in there who explains the concept of riskmanagement to the team from time to time.
Bastian said:
I think the same. Which is why I had questions about going forward with him being the focal point of the team. At the start of summer when he was angling for a new contract with 2+1 years left on his deal I was thinking it was maybe an opportunity to get top money for him and restructure the side. Instead they went ahead and doubled down on things by giving him a better and longer contract.

He's great at what he does, but he is also very tactically limited, and as thus affords us little flexibility. And he's been poor in the three matches played this season.

I'm still perplexed by the new hierarchy sanctioning that contract. Woodward-esque that was.
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Just give it a few hours until the next shift starts and Pogue or Regulus will explain the reasoning for us.

But the chance is gone, he signed the new contract, now we have to make the best of it. From last season, we know that he is not incapable of playing it a little safer. So I think, there is a chance, that when he would be played in a more contained role, in a specific area of the pitch, he can still be useful to the team. Right now, I think, there is something going on additionally to last season - him playing this false 9 role (even today with Zirkzee on I had that feeling) is making him switch between attack and defense all the time. A player that is so susceptibe to being rushed is probably not ideal for such a challenging role.
 
Bruno, just like Rashford is a player that thrives in a counter-attacking set up. He needs space to be effective. That's why his best games have been under Ole.

If you are looking for a player to unlock the opposition defense, he isn't your guy. You need a more polished No.10 in the Odegaard/KDB mould for that.
 
Frank Grimes said:
Was a point at 0-0 where he had Garnacho out right on the break and for some reason decided to try and thread a 10% ball to Zirksee (I think). He does things like this constantly and it is a big problem.
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First clip in this video. He chose the worst of three options. Inexplicable.
 
Dannn411 said:
The decision to extend him and give him £300k a week for nothing was widely hailed on here (as usual) but it was a terrible financial and footballing decision that will age so horribly. I am so surprised that Ineos actually agreed to such a decision. Bruno has not had a good (or even a half decent) season since 20/21 and hamstrings the team so much tactically in exchange for below average production. Instead of actually playing like a 3rd midfielder, he plays like a second forward constantly leaving us outnumbered and overmatched in mdifield. I have never seen such a poor player being given so much freedom to do whatever he likes on the pitch. We treat him like he's Messi or Ronaldo when he's no better than your run of the mill attacking midfielder. If we played with an actual 3 in the middle we would be a lot better and a lot closer to at least having some presence in midfield. And it would open a whole new world of tactical flexibility for us. This can never be achieved with Bruno Fernandes in the team.
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You're criticising him for something he's plainly been instructed to do. We know he's capable of playing deeper; it's very clear his positioning is the result of following a tactical instruction. Criticise his general play if you must (I'd agree it's been hit and miss so far this season) but you can't blame him for doing what the manager has told him to do.
 
Bruno has given us some great moments but I think it’s quite clear we won’t push to the next level with him in our 11. The amount of chances he gets to play simple passes that would put our strikers in and yet often fumbles it is quite incredible considering he will also do a wonderful pass out of nowhere.
I also think even now we don’t know his best position for us - it’s not at number 10 for the reason above and also his poor positional play in the press.
 
At least his extension was celebrated here haha, fecking hell.
 
cj_sparky said:
The biggest issue with having Bruno in the team is that it leaves us so open in the midfield with us playing in a two and it may be we need to put another body in there with Bruno's only option moving out wide.
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This is not correct. Criticise his tendency play Hollywood balls. Criticise his form. Criticise his whining. But you can't criticise him for vacating the midfield, when he's literally being instructed to do so.

Bruno has demonstrated at other points of his United career that he's able to play deeper, but he's being told to play level with the striker to keep this 4-2-2-2 formation, but the rest of the team doesnt push up, which leaves us stretched. It's a system and coaching issue.
 
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