Bruno Fernandes | New contract until 2027

There is a difference actually. Our play improved when Bruno came into our team for 18 months.

G+A is a massive statistic compare to tackles complete. Top defenders don't usually have most tackles complete because they get into positions that do not require them to dive in and slide tackle on every occasion, they intercept the play and position in a way that they dont need to tackle.

In comparison, top creative midfielders in the league will always have good G+A

Obviously they are different players. It is a principle to which I speak. And this whole painting tackling as a negative thing doesn’t work for me. We were all there, watching these same games. These tackles have been very much a positive for AWB, and it is a very important part of the game for him, less so for other full backs because they are not as good at it. If a winger tries to dribble him 1v1 and he tackles them; that is not a negative, and that is what typically happens. To be a full back that doesn’t get beaten is a good thing - Wan Bissaka could easily point to his stats, but we know there is more to it than that, which is my point.

If dribbles completed are important for a winger, then conversely - tackles completed are important for their opponent. As I said, it is more a non-issue because most are rubbish at it, and full backs are probably the most yellow carded players as a result. As I said, I’m not saying it makes Wan-Bissaka great, I’m saying it is part of the story.

And Bruno posts 20+ goals and 20+ assists a season. There have been several better 10s than him in the history of the game, even a fair few today, who do not post those figures - simply because it isn’t a requirement to be considered a top-class 10. What has been more traditional to me in all my years watching football is that the 10 is usually the most talented player in the team more often than not. The player you want on the ball all the time. That doesn’t apply to Bruno. He himself doesn’t really want the ball. He wants rid of it with his first touch because his weaknesses start getting exposed as soon as his second.
 
There is a difference actually. Our play improved when Bruno came into our team for 18 months.

G+A is a massive statistic compare to tackles complete. Top defenders don't usually have most tackles complete because they get into positions that do not require them to dive in and slide tackle on every occasion, they intercept the play and position in a way that they dont need to tackle.

In comparison, top creative midfielders in the league will always have good G+A
Did Scholes and Modric? or did they play a pass that increased the odds of scoring without getting the assist?
How did our play improve? Did we win more points than the seasons previous? Did we win more trophies?
 
Did Scholes and Modric? or did they play a pass that increased the odds of scoring without getting the assist?
How did our play improve? Did we win more points than the seasons previous? Did we win more trophies?

Did Scholes and Modric what?

Maybe you stopped watching football because our seasons 17-19 were terrible.

Oh right, so points matter over finishes? I guess you are one of those who will write off all of Fergies titles because he didnt get 90+ points? Liverpool fans claiming Klopp is better than Fergie because they have got 90+ points and come second and Fergie never got those points.

Does that mean that those titles dont count or count as 1/2 a title?
 
Out of interest, which players that aren't almost guaranteed to leave over the summer do you think will be mainstays of ETH next season.

I would say

DDG
Varane
Shaw
Fred
Sancho
Ronaldo
Fernandes
I really hope you're wrong about De Gea and am 99% certain Maguire and McTominay will play a ton of games.
 
Did Scholes and Modric what?

Maybe you stopped watching football because our seasons 17-19 were terrible.

Oh right, so points matter over finishes? I guess you are one of those who will write off all of Fergies titles because he didnt get 90+ points? Liverpool fans claiming Klopp is better than Fergie because they have got 90+ points and come second and Fergie never got those points.

Does that mean that those titles dont count or count as 1/2 a title?
Did Scholes or Modric get great numbers of goals and assists?

How did our play massively improve? I’ll grant you that we struggled prior to Bruno signing as we were missing some key players but this season has been worse than any I can remember and last season our performances were not convincing.
 
Did Scholes or Modric get great numbers of goals and assists?

How did our play massively improve? I’ll grant you that we struggled prior to Bruno signing as we were missing some key players but this season has been worse than any I can remember and last season our performances were not convincing.

Modric was playing further back and so did Scholes for a big part of his career.

So, you expect Bruno to shine in bad team performances for 2 years straight?

Our performances were not convincing, yet Bruno was getting goals and assists last season.

Its almost as if you are trying to say, Bruno is the reason our performances have been bad? Is he the reason we cannot transition from the back? or defend?
 
Modric was playing further back and so did Scholes for a big part of his career.

So, you expect Bruno to shine in bad team performances for 2 years straight?

Our performances were not convincing, yet Bruno was getting goals and assists last season.

Its almost as if you are trying to say, Bruno is the reason our performances have been bad? Is he the reason we cannot transition from the back? or defend?

I think team performances, the lack of shape and system will impact all players. No doubt about that. I never expect consistently great performances from any of our players until these fundamentals are sorted.

However I do think Bruno is having now a negative effect on our performances and I don’t expect any player to be so consistently poor in terms of performance as Bruno has been the past 18 months. He’s barely had good games. I don’t like to guess how many so I’m not going to do that, just to say that he’s been poor almost every week since last January but has had some good games.

I’m not interested in the stats where he’s top Of chances created until I see the quality of the chances he has created. To my eyes he’s been really bad and cost us in huge moments this season. Almost all big moments.
 
Out of interest, which players that aren't almost guaranteed to leave over the summer do you think will be mainstays of ETH next season.

I would say

DDG
Varane
Shaw
Fred
Sancho
Ronaldo
Fernandes

I’m not sure tbh. I don’t think it is as straightforward personally. There has been a lot of ‘ETH won’t take any shit’, ‘everything will be different’ - but ultimately, managers need to work with what they have to an extent at a club our size. Does the manager have the credit to come in and start hacking away at the squad with players of the stature of Bruno, Maguire, De Gea and Rashford? I’m not sure.

So to answer your question, the players I think will initially be mainstays are those with the biggest reputations and price tags, as the manager first tries to make it work work with them. There are players that it is easier to drop or sell than others. So the players you mentioned, plus Harry Maguire, would be players I expect to play more often than not. That said, I also suspect the club would sell a few of that list, plus Maguire, if a big money offer came in for them. So while they are here, we almost have to use them, but the usage of them doesn’t necessarily attest to their favour with the manager. This is why big money/big reputation players need to be right, because them not being good, or being good but not quite the right fit etc is so much harder to move on from.

To bring it back to Bruno - I said around the time we bought him that I saw him as a squad player at a club like United. I thought a relatively unknown 25 year old from Sporting will come with that sort of profile, where he could earn a spot in the team, but would not prevent us moving for a better player if the opportunity came. Sort of like signing Van de Beek. He had enough profile that it wouldn’t have been a shock if he became a fixture, but not so much that it would have been a problem if he were a squad player either. I became worried when Bruno started getting the ‘star man’ billing, because it meant he had to be ‘perfect’ almost, which I never saw him as. Never a player that warrants us trying this way and that way to fit him in or get the best out of him. For me, at a super club, he should have more of a Dalot/Fred profile - players that at any given time could be regulars and justifiably so, but could also then be sold in the next window with nobody really complaining. Like Gabriel Jesus at City. But to me, he’s been propped up to be some sort of Cantona, Henry or whatever for us, and he’s never been that good. And now we’ve centred our team around a player who isn’t that good, which I think at the root is my problem with him. As a Lingard replacement - I’d have been cool with it, and that’s what I thought we were getting with a £50m 25 year old from Sporting. But we’re treating him like a £100m 24 year old from Juventus or Bayern, and he’s not that level.
 
@Jeppers7 I remember us talking about Bruno's performances and how they've blinded a lot of our fans because of his G/A ratio sometime back in November/December.
Now that his G+A's have dried up people are finally starting to see the truth.

But I do think that because he's so competitive, he can be coached to play in a disciplined manner, and if everyone else is on board (i.e. making runs off the ball, making themselves available for a pass, pressing high up the pitch etc) then Bruno obviously has the quality to still be impactful in this squad - I just don't think it will be a surprise if we see him being rotated more next season and not being one of the first names on the sheet. Same goes for a lot of other players too.
 
Tadic was never a wasteful player but neither was he a creater like Bruno. Bruno cannot keep the ball.
What if I told you that Tadic has a lower pass completion rate this season than Bruno 72% to 75%.

Also let's remember that Tadic is playing in a well drilled Ajax side, while Bruno is burdened with being our main creator without us having any paterns of play.

I think ETH will cut out his crazy balls and he will come good. ;)
 
I’m not interested in the stats where he’s top Of chances created until I see the quality of the chances he has created. To my eyes he’s been really bad and cost us in huge moments this season.

Well, he's 5th in the league for expected assists overall, and just outside the top 10 on a per-90-minute basis. So clearly still quite good.

He was 1st overall and 3rd per-90-minutes last season. So it's pretty much exactly what anyone who's watched us this season would say: he's still by far our best creative player, but not at the same level as his first 18 months here. Add in the fact that the penalties have disappeared and he's made a few too many big mistakes that have cost us points (two huge penalty misses, giving the ball away in idiotic places against Southampton, Arsenal, Palace, probably at least a couple of others I'm not remembering now), and it's been a bit of a shite season.

He's still a quality player and I can't wait to see what Ten Hag does with him.
 
What if I told you that Tadic has a lower pass completion rate this season than Bruno 72% to 75%.

Also let's remember that Tadic is playing in a well drilled Ajax side, while Bruno is burdened with being our main creator without us having any paterns of play.

I think ETH will cut out his crazy balls and he will come good. ;)
Somewhat of a critic but this is why I actually don't like people posting his pass completion. It just defeats the point of saying there are detrimental patterns in his game that don't show up in the numbers just to post more out of context stats. He can play smarter and have a higher or lower percentage. That doesn't bother me, The problem isn't the 25% it's the instances the 25% occur and how helpful or detrimental they are.

As Sunday showed Bruno takes some really unnecessary risks. This time he took it one step further and handed the ball over on a back pass. There was simply no need for a risk like that. He seems to have little faith in his ability to keep the ball under pressure. This is a massive contrast with Tadic who is incredibly composed when swarmed by defenders. This is where he has to overcome because ETH's philosophy asks a higher degree of technique and close control than most. That hot potato playstyle isn't going to fly.
 
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Somewhat of a critic but this is why I actually don't like people posting his pass completion. It just defeats the point of saying there are detrimental patterns in his game that don't show up in the numbers just to post more out of context stats. He can play smarter and have a higher or lower percentage. That doesn't bother me, The problem isn't the 25% it's the instances the 25% occur and how helpful or detrimental they are.

As Sunday showed Bruno takes some really unnecessary risks. This time he took it one step further and handed the ball over on a back pass. There was simply no need for a risk like that. He has no faith in his ability to control the ball under pressure. This is a massive contrast with Tadic who is incredibly composed when swarmed by defenders.
The point I was making was that Bruno has to play those risky passes not because he is Bruno, but because we have no structure in attack.

Compare that to Ajax where players can find each other with their eyes closed and it's night and day really.

Also I think the pressure of being Man Utd' sole creator and being in the same team with Ronaldo is getting to him.

I think we will see a new Bruno starting next season. Once our attacking players regain any semblance of form, we will see a more different Bruno.
 
Out of interest, which players that aren't almost guaranteed to leave over the summer do you think will be mainstays of ETH next season.

I would say

DDG
Varane
Shaw
Fred
Sancho
Ronaldo
Fernandes
Spot on post. Is Elanga going to come good? I love to watch Fernandez- adventure in spirit - risk taker, key man going forward. The trolls and begrudgers and nay-sayers? F…,
 
The point I was making was that Bruno has to play those risky passes not because he is Bruno, but because we have no structure in attack.

Compare that to Ajax where players can find each other with their eyes closed and it's night and day really.

Also I think the pressure of being Man Utd' sole creator and being in the same team with Ronaldo is getting to him.

I think we will see a new Bruno starting next season. Once our attacking players regain any semblance of form, we will see a more different Bruno.
We'll see. Knowing where everyone is definitely helps then the execution relies on the individual's technique and ball control. That kind of decision making that gave away the goal had little to do with creation or knowing where a teammate was. It was a basic throw in scenario. Would have been easier to just give the ball back if he didn't know. His decision tree shows some serious lack of consideration for the simple, even when it's in front of him. He's got some Pogba in him where it often feels the player is playing for their fifa rating.
 
In a functioning team with a midfield which can control a game, strikers who can make runs and finish and a defence which can actually stop conceding goals, an attacking midfielder who gives the ball away a fair bit but also creates a shedload of chances isn't really a problem, even in a possession-based team. In fact, possession-based teams without that sort of player tend to be fairly toothless.

I reckon Bruno will do just fine under Ten Hag assuming his, and everyone elses', form picks up to where it was in 20/21. Personally, I think the parts of his game that might be an issue are largely coachable and that his propensity for the Hollywood stuff is as likely to be a result of the coaching and instructions he's received here as it is to be an immutable feature of his game. And, as others have pointed out, it's not as if Ten Hag has no place in his team for direct final third players who only complete 3/4s of their passes. His Ajax team has incorporated a more profiligate creative player in Tadic to great effect over the last few seasons.
 
Think he ends up on the right a fair bit next season and may fade into a squad player role depending on who we sign and / or how DVB fares under ETH.
 
I think BF is a player that plays well when the team is playing well. When we play like we did last season, he cuts an isolated, frustrated figure.

Hopefully with a new structure and better discipline, he will look a lot better this coming season.
 
What if I told you that Tadic has a lower pass completion rate this season than Bruno 72% to 75%.

Also let's remember that Tadic is playing in a well drilled Ajax side, while Bruno is burdened with being our main creator without us having any paterns of play.

I think ETH will cut out his crazy balls and he will come good. ;)
They are not even playing in same position/role to begin with.

If Bruno can play as FW or WF, I actually don’t mind having him playing key role in the team, as he always has good end products with his final balls and shootings. But no way should he be allowed to play in key AM role (main playmaker) and heart of our attack play, if we are going to play control possession football next season. He doesn’t do build up/link up plays and tends to loss possession cheaply.
 
@Jeppers7 I remember us talking about Bruno's performances and how they've blinded a lot of our fans because of his G/A ratio sometime back in November/December.
Now that his G+A's have dried up people are finally starting to see the truth.

But I do think that because he's so competitive, he can be coached to play in a disciplined manner, and if everyone else is on board (i.e. making runs off the ball, making themselves available for a pass, pressing high up the pitch etc) then Bruno obviously has the quality to still be impactful in this squad - I just don't think it will be a surprise if we see him being rotated more next season and not being one of the first names on the sheet. Same goes for a lot of other players too.
Up until recently I felt there was a good chance that in a system Bruno would get back to his best form. But the more I think about it the more I worry that it won’t be the case. That Bruno is best suited to chaos and counter attack, but mostly being able to do what he wants, when he wants.

To be fair to him i feel he plays more disciplined for Portugal but then I’ve been underwhelmed by him as a player, mostly, playing for Portugal.

As for our fans being blinded, there’s still a fair few who are stuck on his first six months (extended to 18 wrongly) who have completely turned a blind eye. That’s some credit in the bank. Last season Bruno finished poorly the last five months. This season, for me, he’s been a train wreck. His output was good in CL but domestically he’s cost us so much.

Villa at home….his last minute woeful penalty cost us our first league defeat and set the ball rolling.

Watford away….his sloppy passing and ridiculous volleyed back pass that led to the penalty set the tone.

Boro at home…once again a ridiculously sloppy performance ended with him missing an open net, and more. Out of the cup.

Watford at home….Sloppy sloppy performance missing several huge chances. Drawing this game, for me, I feel killed the spirit of the players that day. We’d played better football since January but weren’t getting over the line in matches and this was the one I felt the players then didn’t believe we would get top four after.

Arsenal away….the game that finished our top four hopes….terrible performance, terrible penalty which would’ve seen us go on to win I’m sure, compounded the lot by being sloppy on the edge of his own box in the build up to Arsenals killer third goal. It was comically bad.

Palace away….But for Brighton he’d have sent us into the europa conference with yet another ridiculous volleyed blind back pass to create the goal (does he not learn?). That’s without going into the overall performance which was possibly his worst.

These are off the top of my head, but thats some credit in the bank for some of the posters to ignore, or throw stats at, what has been an absolutely abysmal season (and a half)
 
I think team performances, the lack of shape and system will impact all players. No doubt about that. I never expect consistently great performances from any of our players until these fundamentals are sorted.

However I do think Bruno is having now a negative effect on our performances and I don’t expect any player to be so consistently poor in terms of performance as Bruno has been the past 18 months. He’s barely had good games. I don’t like to guess how many so I’m not going to do that, just to say that he’s been poor almost every week since last January but has had some good games.

I’m not interested in the stats where he’s top Of chances created until I see the quality of the chances he has created. To my eyes he’s been really bad and cost us in huge moments this season. Almost all big moments.

Fair enough. I mean, one thing I won't do is sit here and defend any player after this season.

This could be said about any United player at the moment, they have failed to show up this season. Which is why, I am not looking at one individual and saying its his fault we have been bad this season, its actually been a collective effort.

If the rest of the team was playing well and only Bruno was playing badly, I would 100% agree, he needs to be dropped or sold.

Going forward, I have now accepted that the players are rubbish, whoever ETH sticks with, I will stick by that, even if that means selling Bruno.
 
Up until recently I felt there was a good chance that in a system Bruno would get back to his best form. But the more I think about it the more I worry that it won’t be the case. That Bruno is best suited to chaos and counter attack, but mostly being able to do what he wants, when he wants.

To be fair to him i feel he plays more disciplined for Portugal but then I’ve been underwhelmed by him as a player, mostly, playing for Portugal.

As for our fans being blinded, there’s still a fair few who are stuck on his first six months (extended to 18 wrongly) who have completely turned a blind eye. That’s some credit in the bank. Last season Bruno finished poorly the last five months. This season, for me, he’s been a train wreck. His output was good in CL but domestically he’s cost us so much.

Villa at home….his last minute woeful penalty cost us our first league defeat and set the ball rolling.

Watford away….his sloppy passing and ridiculous volleyed back pass that led to the penalty set the tone.

Boro at home…once again a ridiculously sloppy performance ended with him missing an open net, and more. Out of the cup.

Watford at home….Sloppy sloppy performance missing several huge chances. Drawing this game, for me, I feel killed the spirit of the players that day. We’d played better football since January but weren’t getting over the line in matches and this was the one I felt the players then didn’t believe we would get top four after.

Arsenal away….the game that finished our top four hopes….terrible performance, terrible penalty which would’ve seen us go on to win I’m sure, compounded the lot by being sloppy on the edge of his own box in the build up to Arsenals killer third goal. It was comically bad.

Palace away….But for Brighton he’d have sent us into the europa conference with yet another ridiculous volleyed blind back pass to create the goal (does he not learn?). That’s without going into the overall performance which was possibly his worst.

These are off the top of my head, but thats some credit in the bank for some of the posters to ignore, or throw stats at, what has been an absolutely abysmal season (and a half)

Southampton away - we lost 1-0 after he was again 'dallying on the ball' (a phrase typically reserved for the other guy) and got easily dispossessed.

Cost us one against Leeds away too, although he also scored and we won that game comfortably in the end.
 
I don't like Bruno. I think he lacks discipline, is wasteful and is a moaner.

But I have to hope some of this is the frustration of playing in a very poor, dysfunctional team.

Hopefully, in a better team, he can be a useful player. I'm not confident he can to be honest but I have to hope as we have so many problems to address.
 
They are not even playing in same position/role to begin with.

If Bruno can play as FW or WF, I actually don’t mind having him playing key role in the team, as he always has good end products with his final balls and shootings. But no way should he be allowed to play in key AM role (main playmaker) and heart of our attack play, if we are going to play control possession football next season. He doesn’t do build up/link up plays and tends to loss possession cheaply.
The reason I compared the 2, is because Tadic at Soton was played centrally and a poster argued that he had better passing stats, to which I replied with the statistics above.

I still think Bruno has it in him to be a key player. The reason he fell off a cliff is because he used to play the ball into Martial's feet who would hold up the play and give time for our forwards to run into space.

As soon as Martial went off the boil, Bruno turned into our current version of attempting crazy passes from deep in hopes of finding our forwards.

We'll see what ETH will do about that, but something tells me he will love Bruno.
 
Did Scholes or Modric get great numbers of goals and assists?
Yup, he sure did. Rewatch the 2002-2003 season. That season Paul played as an AM/SS hybrid(like Bruno) behind RVN and racked something like 15 goals and a couple of assists.

Modric plays deeper and is a totally different player. Apples and oranges really.
This myth continues. Bruno came into a side in 19/20 that was missing some key creative players such as Pogba and Rashford. He was great in that first three months but he wasn’t alone at all in that and it’s a small sample section and a small portion of his time here. Rashford Martial Greenwood Shaw we’re all as important.
It's not a myth, but goldfish memory from some of our posters.

Bruno saved our season and Ole's job who at the time was in danger. Mind, that more than 70% of the Caf wanted him sacked before Bruno came along. His insane form and freshness galvanized us to push for that 3rd place finish with some of the best footy we've seen since SAF.

As for the players you mentioned, where were they before Bruno arrived? Our team looked disjointed and devoid of any attacking ideas. We were slow and laborious in possession. And before you bring up the injuries to Pogba and Rashford, let's remember that hey happened in early November, and our form was already worse than it was this season's.

I've said it a million times before: We will struggle to finish Top4 and Ole will get the sack as soon as Bruno gets injured. He didn't get injured, but he completely went off the boil.
 
The reason I compared the 2, is because Tadic at Soton was played centrally and a poster argued that he had better passing stats, to which I replied with the statistics above.

I still think Bruno has it in him to be a key player. The reason he fell off a cliff is because he used to play the ball into Martial's feet who would hold up the play and give time for our forwards to run into space.

As soon as Martial went off the boil, Bruno turned into our current version of attempting crazy passes from deep in hopes of finding our forwards.

We'll see what ETH will do about that, but something tells me he will love Bruno.
Tadic doesn't plays as AM under ETH, which is the main point of discussion here.

What I think is, usually forwards are allowed to take more risk and are less required to keep possession and involves in build up play, as they are often the final executor of an attack move, instead of initiator or contributor. If Bruno can play as CF or WF under ETH, of course he would play an important role for us. But playing as AM to start an attack move under ETH? I doubt ETH would like see him trying hollywood ball at every chances, or losing the ball cheaply, jeopardising too much of our build up play.

But of course if we get say De Jong and another strong DM, who could control the midfield on their own, Bruno may still have a role (as shadow striker) to do his thing freely on the pitch. I simply don't trust Bruno could offer us any playmaking role or adds any build up play to ETH football, I only trust him as "final ball player", nothing more and nothing less.
 
Yup, he sure did. Rewatch the 2002-2003 season. That season Paul played as an AM/SS hybrid(like Bruno) behind RVN and racked something like 15 goals and a couple of assists.

Modric plays deeper and is a totally different player. Apples and oranges really.

It's not a myth, but goldfish memory from some of our posters.

Bruno saved our season and Ole's job who at the time was in danger. Mind, that more than 70% of the Caf wanted him sacked before Bruno came along. His insane form and freshness galvanized us to push for that 3rd place finish with some of the best footy we've seen since SAF.

As for the players you mentioned, where were they before Bruno arrived? Our team looked disjointed and devoid of any attacking ideas. We were slow and laborious in possession. And before you bring up the injuries to Pogba and Rashford, let's remember that hey happened in early November, and our form was already worse than it was this season's.

I've said it a million times before: We will struggle to finish Top4 and Ole will get the sack as soon as Bruno gets injured. He didn't get injured, but he completely went off the boil.
Generally speaking, the majority of the seasons Scholes played he’d average about 8 goal involvements. You picked the outlier really in terms of goals so well done.

As for the injuries, Pogba was injured from September 19th, so I don’t know where you’re getting November from? we’d played four games prior to his injury?

Our worst run of form came after Rashford got injured before we signed Bruno. The front six from then was :-

Matic
Fred
Mats
Pereira
James
Martial

Our best points per game came post lockdown with Pogba and Rashford returning from injury. The front six then became :

Matic
Pogba
Bruno
Rashford
Martial
Greenwood

You convince yourself all you want that none of those other players had an impact, that it was purely Bruno that was responsible. The reality is that Greenwood was phenomenal, Martial won players player and scored 20 plus goals, Rashford had an excellent season. Pogba was very good post lockdown and Shaw also was excellent. I’d also say that Maguire and AWB were good that season.

You seem to think his form this season is some sort of badge of honour for him. Like it proves how great he is?
 
Martial also carried us in his debut season and worked his socks off. He had a goal or assist per 90 minutes in the first 2 years. The real player is what you see when their performances normalise to more sustainable averages. Are people not tired of holding on to purple patches and debut season wonders? Do you not want to see it sustained? All our signings would be balon d'or level going by their first couple months alone. Daniel James might even be competing with Robben.

Sustain your performances or have the club move on. Bruno just concluded 6 months of uninterrupted poor form. That's rock bottom even by United standards. The others like Fred, Sancho and Ronaldo at least came alive every now and then. I don't think Bruno even played a decent game this calendar year. A stretch that flatters even Pogba's famous 1 good game every 5.
 
In a functioning team with a midfield which can control a game, strikers who can make runs and finish and a defence which can actually stop conceding goals, an attacking midfielder who gives the ball away a fair bit but also creates a shedload of chances isn't really a problem, even in a possession-based team. In fact, possession-based teams without that sort of player tend to be fairly toothless.

I reckon Bruno will do just fine under Ten Hag assuming his, and everyone elses', form picks up to where it was in 20/21. Personally, I think the parts of his game that might be an issue are largely coachable and that his propensity for the Hollywood stuff is as likely to be a result of the coaching and instructions he's received here as it is to be an immutable feature of his game. And, as others have pointed out, it's not as if Ten Hag has no place in his team for direct final third players who only complete 3/4s of their passes. His Ajax team has incorporated a more profiligate creative player in Tadic to great effect over the last few seasons.
I agree I think Bruno will be perfectly fine in the team next season and even excel in it. I know people are complaining we have him a new contract but people also complain that we wait to long to sell or extend players and then they end up in the last year of their deal and have all the power. Damned if you do damned if you don’t kind of situation with Bruno.
 
Somewhat of a critic but this is why I actually don't like people posting his pass completion. It just defeats the point of saying there are detrimental patterns in his game that don't show up in the numbers just to post more out of context stats. He can play smarter and have a higher or lower percentage. That doesn't bother me, The problem isn't the 25% it's the instances the 25% occur and how helpful or detrimental they are.

As Sunday showed Bruno takes some really unnecessary risks. This time he took it one step further and handed the ball over on a back pass. There was simply no need for a risk like that. He seems to have little faith in his ability to keep the ball under pressure. This is a massive contrast with Tadic who is incredibly composed when swarmed by defenders. This is where he has to overcome because ETH's philosophy asks a higher degree of technique and close control than most. That hot potato playstyle isn't going to fly.

Exactly fecking this. People love to try and defend Bruno by pointing to his pass completion % being similar to other creative players (including KDB), yet watch a game side by side of KDB and Bruno and tell me you don't see one player that's on a completely different planet than the other, stats be damned.
 
Generally speaking, the majority of the seasons Scholes played he’d average about 8 goal involvements. You picked the outlier really in terms of goals so well done.

As for the injuries, Pogba was injured from September 19th, so I don’t know where you’re getting November from? we’d played four games prior to his injury?

Our worst run of form came after Rashford got injured before we signed Bruno. The front six from then was :-

Matic
Fred
Mats
Pereira
James
Martial

Our best points per game came post lockdown with Pogba and Rashford returning from injury. The front six then became :

Matic
Pogba
Bruno
Rashford
Martial
Greenwood

You convince yourself all you want that none of those other players had an impact, that it was purely Bruno that was responsible. The reality is that Greenwood was phenomenal, Martial won players player and scored 20 plus goals, Rashford had an excellent season. Pogba was very good post lockdown and Shaw also was excellent. I’d also say that Maguire and AWB were good that season.

You seem to think his form this season is some sort of badge of honour for him. Like it proves how great he is?
The reason I brought up that season is because you said Scholes never had numbers like Bruno, and yet it's the only one in recent memory where Scholes played the AM/SS hybrid and racked up some pretty good numbers, the exact same position Bruno currently occupies. The reason Scholes had lower numbers is because he played in a different position much lower down the pitch. Had he played in that role he would have had similar numbers to Bruno.

As for the second half of your statement you do know that the players you mentioned were here before Bruno arrived. And all of them bar the game against Chelsea looked slow and uninspiring. I guess having Lingard/Pereira as your main attacking outlet isn't going to improve anyone's performance.

And yet as soon as Bruno arrives we start firing on all cylinders and that isn't down to him. Also it's not down to him that the team next season play consistent football despite all the people you mentioned have turned to shit.

Martial forgot where the goal was. Rashford was slowly turning into our current version. Pogba was well.. Pogba. Greenwood was suffering from the second season syndrome. Maguire turned into his current chuckle brother self. Bruno also had a dip in form, but not as bad as the rest of them. His "stat padded" goals and assists is the thing that kept us going. As soon as he lost all semblance of form, we completely fell apart.

And yet Bruno is holding us back. What nonsense is this? :wenger:
 
I don't mind whatsoever a creative defence-splitting pass going astray every now and then and it's inevitable that many will, it's the sloppy 5-10 yard passes that really annoy.
 
The guy needs to play with a smile on his face. I imagine if results start turning our way, this will be the case. Ten Hag has a reputation for man-management, I feel Fernandes needs that.
 
The reason I brought up that season is because you said Scholes never had numbers like Bruno, and yet it's the only one in recent memory where Scholes played the AM/SS hybrid and racked up some pretty good numbers, the exact same position Bruno currently occupies. The reason Scholes had lower numbers is because he played in a different position much lower down the pitch. Had he played in that role he would have had similar numbers to Bruno.

As for the second half of your statement you do know that the players you mentioned were here before Bruno arrived. And all of them bar the game against Chelsea looked slow and uninspiring. I guess having Lingard/Pereira as your main attacking outlet isn't going to improve anyone's performance.

And yet as soon as Bruno arrives we start firing on all cylinders and that isn't down to him. Also it's not down to him that the team next season play consistent football despite all the people you mentioned have turned to shit.

Martial forgot where the goal was. Rashford was slowly turning into our current version. Pogba was well.. Pogba. Greenwood was suffering from the second season syndrome. Maguire turned into his current chuckle brother self. Bruno also had a dip in form, but not as bad as the rest of them. His "stat padded" goals and assists is the thing that kept us going. As soon as he lost all semblance of form, we completely fell apart.

And yet Bruno is holding us back. What nonsense is this? :wenger:
I never said that about Scholes. The initial poster claimed that all players who played AM were judged mainly on goals and assists and chances created. That’s not necessarily true at all. You can throw enough shit at a wall to have good stats, but players like Scholes, Modric etc didn’t do that and didn’t regularly turn in seasons of massive amounts of goals and assists. Superb footballers though.

I’m actually starting to think you are serious….that the team going from James, Pereira, Fred, Matic, Martial, Mata to Matic, Pogba, Rashford, Martial, Greenwood and the only player that mattered Bruno! But yes I totally agree, perriera is a championship level player and Bruno was a huge upgrade and sensational in his first three months. I’d say he was the best of the bunch the end of that season….but if you think United would have had the same results just by sticking Bruno in with Dan James, Mata, Fred then I don’t know what to say to you.

Last season we finished second. From January until April, when second was in the bag and we were counting down to the final, we only lost one game. Of the players you mentioned Martial had a poor season and was injured for much of the second half, Rashford scored 6 goals and assisted 5 (in addition to winning some penalties for golden balls)important goals in games that we won. Pogba was well…turning in very good performances week in week out, scoring winning goals and winning penalties for golden balls, yet having this erased from peoples memories because of the narrative of…well Pogba. Greenwood scored 5 massively important goals in games we won and an assist also that was massively important.

Bruno was well….Bruno. His general performances from January to May were dire, people making excuses that he was tired every week. He was still throwing shit at a wall and doing crazy things like volleying aimless passes at the back four…but his positive influence had waned. He scored 3 non penalty goals in his January to May ‘dip’….2 in games we drew and 1 in a game we lost. He registered 4 assists….2 in a 9-0 win. In short he was playing poorly week in week out and not impacting on results with goals and assists, bar taking penalties. Attributing our second place finish last season to Bruno whilst claiming that Rashford, Greenwood, Pogba didn’t contribute (Cavani also perhaps?) is pure narrative. It’s folly. He was poor the second half of last season and he’s only gotten worse from there. It’s the consistency of his poor performances that’s a worry also.

I think the best of it is that you also claim that Bruno is not only, the only reason why we improved, he’s also the reason why we have been so poor this season. Bizarre take, although yes he has been a train wreck and cost us individually in many massive moments, he’s not been on his own in playing poorly. In fact it’s hard to find a single player who hasnt played poorly…. It I’m guessing it’s all due to Bruno?
 
Bit of a dickhead manoeuvre to bypass the players performance threads being locked during a match rule
 
He's a mediocre footballer who people elevated for the role of a messiah because they're a bit simple.