De Bruyne has clearly declined though, I imagine City are lining up a player for replacement, or rdy to move Foden centrally.
Bruno Fernandes Out?
- Thread starter Berbaclass
- Start date
Yeah he has in terms of not being able to play as often etc. But I wouldn't have any issues with Bruno being in that role and getting those numbers in the 2026/27 - 2027/28 seasons, even if it meant losing him for free in a few years. We need leaders and experience during our rebuild and I can't think of better examples for the young players in our squad.
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If he fits in with how we plan to play in the future, I agree.
That’s a fair point.
Nothing less than 125 million or we're basically throwing away our future.
The worst outcome is giving him a new contract. Why does the club need to prove they want him?
He effectively has 3 years left on his deal for good money.
He effectively has 3 years left on his deal for good money.
There are two types of players in football. Some age gracefully by letting their brains do the work on their feet's behalf. Take for example Baggio, Scholes, Carrick and Teddy. Others, well, they don't. They start tackling players recklessly because they can't keep up and then they blame it on everyone around him. Think of the likes of Keane and Gattuso for example. I think Bruno is of the latter. He still plays football like a 15 year old ie going deep and chasing the ball + he's extremely petulant when things don't go his way.
On top of that he is asking for a pay increase and he went so far as to have his agent whoring him to other clubs in a bid to find a buyer for him. If INEOS are serious then they'll take the bait and they let him go. He won't be there when we're at our prime irrespectively.
There is a price for every player. Bruno is going to decline in the next years, no one knows when. If we can get an insane price for him, I would be open to sell him.
Agree to disagree on the bolded part.
But I get the point though, the only thing that irritates me is his constant arm-waving and complaining. I get that it’s his persona and to an extent it’s about demanding more from your teammates. But sometimes it goes over the top.
Then again I haven’t seen too much of that with Portugal who have better players as his teammates?
That wasn't meant to be interpreted as criticism towards the player. I mean I compared him with a WC/CL winner and one of the greatest captains the EPL had ever seen. Its a character trait really. Some can accept their body fading slowly with age and therefore they adapt to it while other are built to take everything as a challenge including that coming from grandfather time. The greatest boxer in the world came from the latter group ie the world greatest Mohammed Ali.
He’s so lean and smart with his running that I can’t see him fading away for a good few years. Lack of injury history also supports the idea that he could go on to play at a good level for quite long. Kroos and Modrić are a couple of additional examples of midfielders who have stayed at the top at way over 30. But who knows what the future brings.
How is he smart with his running?
I mean, his stupid chases don't occur all the time so I wouldn't put it as a weakness, but I can't see how you would have stand out as a positive.
Should’ve said in possession. Despite what a lot of people say he can slow down the game when needed in my opinion.
It wouldn't need an “insane price” for me. I'd sell for something close to what we paid, even if it was a bit less. He is a very good player and a great servant to the club, but it’s a good time to move on, and would he not be mostly profit at this stage? I'd hope we can back ourselves to get one or two replacements so we can move away from relying on a number 10.
Ah ok, yeah that makes more sense. Wouldn't agree overall though, I think Brunos game will or would suffer from getting weaker (than he is already) and from less distance covered but this is speculation of the highest order. I agree with your points, there are things indicating he could age well.
on the fence on this one....he's very influential at the club, he brings professionalism, maturity(at times), and incredible work ethic but on the flip side he's getting older, he can be incredibly frustrating at times with his wastefulness in possession and i do actual question if he's a creative type of player...that said it would be hard to turn down an offer north of 100m
Bruno Fernandes is one of the best attacking midfielders in the world and has been number 1-2 chance creator in the world for some time now, but he is not irreplaceable. I think there are two things that are being overlooked here, in terms of him getting older and looking at a new contract.
Historically, high energy players tend to lose a lot of quality when they get older and they do it around 30-31. There are a lot of examples, but some include Vidal, Nainggolan, Hamsik, Gattuso, Kanté, Ramires, Casemiro, Rooney, Yaya Touré, Matuidi, Dani Alves, Ji-sung Park, Essien, Brozovic, Fabinho, Wijnaldum and so on. Most of these either retired or moved to much weaker leagues at that 30-31, or even sooner. Bruno is a high energy player and him playing the amount of football he does is going to take a toll on him very soon, and he is a player that wants to play all the time. Conserving his energy means he is not going to be happy about his playing time, which probably is going to have an impact on the relationship between the club and the player.
Additionally you have the fact that attacking midfielders don't age gracefully. It is the nature of the role, and you have recent examples like David Silva, Mkhitaryan, James Rodriguez, Eriksen, Özil, Káka, Iniesta, Zidane and older ones like Maradona, Platini, Cruyff, Zico.
My heart says to keep him because we will do better with him this season than we will do without, but my brain is saying to look to replace because we need the money and we need to change our dependancy on him and the way we play. By the time we're winning anything, he will need to be replaced anyway, and we really don't want to be in a position where we look to replace a player like Bruno when the rest of the squad are in their peak and ready to win.
Historically, high energy players tend to lose a lot of quality when they get older and they do it around 30-31. There are a lot of examples, but some include Vidal, Nainggolan, Hamsik, Gattuso, Kanté, Ramires, Casemiro, Rooney, Yaya Touré, Matuidi, Dani Alves, Ji-sung Park, Essien, Brozovic, Fabinho, Wijnaldum and so on. Most of these either retired or moved to much weaker leagues at that 30-31, or even sooner. Bruno is a high energy player and him playing the amount of football he does is going to take a toll on him very soon, and he is a player that wants to play all the time. Conserving his energy means he is not going to be happy about his playing time, which probably is going to have an impact on the relationship between the club and the player.
Additionally you have the fact that attacking midfielders don't age gracefully. It is the nature of the role, and you have recent examples like David Silva, Mkhitaryan, James Rodriguez, Eriksen, Özil, Káka, Iniesta, Zidane and older ones like Maradona, Platini, Cruyff, Zico.
My heart says to keep him because we will do better with him this season than we will do without, but my brain is saying to look to replace because we need the money and we need to change our dependancy on him and the way we play. By the time we're winning anything, he will need to be replaced anyway, and we really don't want to be in a position where we look to replace a player like Bruno when the rest of the squad are in their peak and ready to win.
Anything north of £80m and I'd sell, for a few reasons:
* Uncertainty about how long he can carry on at his current level, he has played a lot of football over the last few years and is pushing 30
* Out attack is hugely one dimensional and everything funnels through him, which I feel is unhealthy
* Its all profit in terms of FFP
I don't think he'll fancy semi retirement yet though.
* Uncertainty about how long he can carry on at his current level, he has played a lot of football over the last few years and is pushing 30
* Out attack is hugely one dimensional and everything funnels through him, which I feel is unhealthy
* Its all profit in terms of FFP
I don't think he'll fancy semi retirement yet though.
Im really struggling to come up with a realistic scenario where selling him would end up being better for our team. I know some of our weirdest fans hate the guy but i can't think of what to do with the money in the team wallet which can equal or improve his returns and work ethic...
I'm struggling to think of a deal where any party is left feeling happy.
Bruno probably wants to stay. The new club would probably have to pay way more than they are comfortable with (even the Saudis). And our club would lose its best player.
I've never been a big fan if his for reasons I've gone into plenty, but he did pick up form at the end of last season, and, in my opinion, his performance against City was his best ever here. He was that good in the final.
Unless it's an absurd offer, I'd rather we keep him. He won me over with that run of form and performance in the final. If he stays, carries that form into next season - alongside the reports of Rashford being true - we could start the next campaign off with a bang.
Unless it's an absurd offer, I'd rather we keep him. He won me over with that run of form and performance in the final. If he stays, carries that form into next season - alongside the reports of Rashford being true - we could start the next campaign off with a bang.
As long as we have made the necessary additions to the attacking department of the team that we don't have to rely on those two, especially Rashford then fine, if we don't however then we should be sacrificing likely Rashford to make this change
If we go into next season with these 2 players as the ones we are relying on then we have learned nothing in my opinion, especially given where we aim to get to, where neither have been.
Traditionally, we have not been a club that has relied on attacking midfielders to create chances for us. It has been our attackers and I'm also old school myself in the sense that I think the attackers are the ones that should be responsible for the majority of the chance creating, goal scoring and offensive threat. For me, the midfielders should ensure the midfield battle is won, either through physicality, tenacity and grit or through possession, technique and press resistance.
Ideally the midfield has a combination of both. The midfielders should of course contribute offensively, but I don't think it's important to have a midfielder that is responsible for creating chances, and I think it's easily replaced if we upgrade our attackers and focus on having a balanced midfield.
Traditionally we played a 4-4-2, when we stopped with that we had fecking Ronaldo on the wing.
Now if we have a Ronaldo player for the wing, it all sounds good to me.
The last time we were successful we had Rooney & RVP up front, they had 57 goals & assists between them that season.
So do you think we’re suddenly gonna go 4-4-2 again and back to our traditions? And who is gonna be the new Rooney and RVP in this dream set-up?
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Perhaps so. However we don’t have any creating wingers in the squad. Amad potentially. So we would need to sign some absolute stars for those positions.
And yeah traditionally in terms of Giggs & Beckham we have created more from the wings, but the game and wingers have changed. Most of them are inside forwards who are more likely to score than assist.
To me it’s more about the current coach instead of club history that defines how we do it. Ideally yes our wingers should help out Bruno in this regard.
The closest any modern coach is gonna come to our “traditions” is with a number 10, basically Bruno playing the Rooney/Cantona ish role. Absolutely no-one is gonna play two up front. We sack Bruno off and feck me we better have 2 incredibly productive wingers and a top drawer striker.
That’s the thing. It would probably take a few windows and I’m not sure most United fans have the patience for that. And most would blame EtH for us not creating enough.
I only have a post left for the day so I'm going to quote all of the posts. Sorry if it looks like a mess!
My point was that during our success we have never been relying on a midfielder to be the talisman for our offensive play. It was not needed then, it is not now and is not going to be in the future. Somehow this idea that you need an attacking midfielder that creates a bunch of chances to be a creative team has come to life, and I really don't know why. You're saying we would be trash without Bruno, and I completely agree, which just proves that our attackers are bad. With this in mind, why aren't we upgrading our attackers? Why do we persist with Rashford and Antony as our attackers when we clearly need to rely on a midfielder to be our offensive threat? It just doesn't add up.
I don't think we should go back to 4-4-2. I never said that, I just said that traditionally, we've never relied on a midfielder to be the key player for our attacking play. It is not either 4-4-2 or play with an attacking midfielder. There are a lot of ways to be a successful team. We don't need our attacking players to be as good as Rooney or RvP to be successful, and we don't need a two-striker formation. Arsenal seem to be doing fine with Trossard on the left and Saka on the right, and they're not exactly Rooney or RvP quality. Arsenal don't even have a proper striker.
I'm not really too hung up on formations or the tactical approach as long as it works, but personally, I'd go with a 4-3-3, one defensive midfielder and two centre midfielders, similar to Real Madrid.
There are players available on the market that fit those criterias. Nico Williams, Kvaratskhelia, Pedro Neto, Olise and Rodrygo are wingers that create a lot, and don't just cut in like Rashford. I think it's far more important we upgrade our attackers than Bruno, of course. It's not even close.
I agree, but we don't need to play two up front. Regardless if we sell Bruno or not, we should have at least another left winger (Williams, Kvaratskhelia) and ideally another striker. Garnacho has the potential to be a really great player on the right provided that he improves his decision making. It is really shocking at times, and if it wasn't for him being so selfish, he could have had a lot more assists. I'm hopeful that he improves this season with the right coaching, and I hope van Nistelrooy can have a great impact on him and Højlund.
You keep talking about our traditions and our successful periods, but quote me one successful period where we weren’t playing with a number 10 (Eric, Rooney, Sheringham) or two forwards (Cole, Yorke).
We’ve simply never had a genuine successful period playing with 3 midfielders, two wide forwards and one CF, ever!
We’ve always relied on 2 forwards to create and score, else 2 wide forwards, a 10, and a CF.
We obviously would be negligent not to sell him if an offer of 120 mil came through, the question should whether we'd do the same if the offer was around 70 mil or thereabouts.
Bruno is our Captain and one of the few leaders in the team. He gives it all , more often than not create chances for the team. Unless we get a bid of silly money I can see us selling, to valuable to the team, he one of the few WC players we have.
Most positions we have in the 11 are locked and we seem to have the resources now to strengthen the three key positions we absolutely need to. Unless we plan to move to a 4-3-3, where we would buy Neves and a prolific RW I don't see a situation where selling Bruno this summer would strengthen us.
Close this thread. Embarrassing
No position should be locked. This team does not have any PL or UCL winners that we want to keep
Has a WC winner.
Who is a WC winner? Oh Martinez? Wasnt he warming the bench during that tournament?
As much as I love how great of player Bruno has been for us, if you’re trying to play a proactive modern pressing style, Bruno & Rashford need to go from our attacking group.
He is not the leader he moan all the time. But we should keep him and have 2-3 y of him. Do you really trust us to find right replacement?
Apart from moaning what makes him not a leader in your opinion? Is is the moaning towards teammates or referees that bothers you?
Honestly, some of the people in here must never have seen Keane play, and he's arguably one of the best captains we've ever had