Bruno Fernandes Out?

top1whoisman said:
In that scenario who would you see creating the chances to our forwards?
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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.
 
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Nefario said:
Traditionally, we have not been a club that has relied on attacking midfielders to create chances for us.
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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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Nefario said:
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.
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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.
 
top1whoisman said:
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.
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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.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
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.
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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.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
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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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.

top1whoisman said:
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.
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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.

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
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.
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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.
 
Nefario said:
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.
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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.
 
Cassidy said:
1 his form improved towards the end of the season
2 I think selling Rashford would be more beneficial for the team

However like I said in my post, if selling Fernandes meant we could upgrade 2/3 first 11 positions in the side I wouldn't say no.
I'm just not advocating for his sale, because I think there are other players and positions who we should look to change more.
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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.
 
AneRu said:
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.
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No position should be locked. This team does not have any PL or UCL winners that we want to keep
 
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.
 
Mylock said:
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.
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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?
 
Juicy Juiced said:
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?
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Apart from moaning what makes him not a leader in your opinion? Is is the moaning towards teammates or referees that bothers you?
 
top1whoisman said:
Apart from moaning what makes him not a leader in your opinion? Is is the moaning towards teammates or referees that bothers you?
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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
 
top1whoisman said:
Apart from moaning what makes him not a leader in your opinion? Is is the moaning towards teammates or referees that bothers you?
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Leader shouldn't moan all the time, it sets bad example for "folowers".
Crimson King said:
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
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Keane was real deal and you know he would back his moaning. And he was hard as nail. With Bruno its just like weak farts.
Great player.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
Leader shouldn't moan all the time, it sets bad example for "folowers".

Keane was real deal and you know he would back his moaning. And he was hard as nail. With Bruno its just like weak farts.
Great player.
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He doesn’t do it for Portugal for some reason. Don’t know if it’s because they have more leaders or what it is.

Anyway I hope the new rule of only the captain being allowed to approach the referee is implemented in football across all competition for next season. It will literally be his job to try to influence the referee.

How does he not back up his moaning? He’s been our best player for years. Or is a player only allowed to moan if they tackle opponents a lot? If so, I don’t follow the logic.
 
Crimson King said:
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
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Don’t disagree massively with the point you’re making re Bruno.

But I definitely wouldn’t describe Keane as moaning on the pitch, which suggests an air of petulance and indirectness about it that wasn’t there with Keane - he was just very demanding and set high standards.

Could say he shouted at players but it’s different to Bruno, who does have more of a moaning tendency imo. I love him as a player but there’s still room for him to grow as a leader. What he does do like Keane though is lead through his performance levels and work-rate, which is still the most important part.
 
top1whoisman said:
Apart from moaning what makes him not a leader in your opinion? Is is the moaning towards teammates or referees that bothers you?
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The problem is that he has an annoying face.
Handsome moaner :D:+1:
Ugly moaner :mad::nono:

Cristiano moaning "Oh what a leader"
Bruno moaning "Fecking prick"
 
Nicolarra90 said:
The problem is that he has an annoying face.
Handsome moaner :D:+1:
Ugly moaner :mad::nono:

Cristiano moaning "Oh what a leader"
Bruno moaning "Fecking prick"
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I do understand that rival fans hate him for how he acts.

And I do agree with @Theon that there is room for improvement. Just don’t agree that he’s not a leader because he moans.

Sure if he got bookings and suspensions constantly because of it, but that’s not the case.
 
Of there is a top offer, 100m plus, and we manage to get a top replacement, it would be ok to sell
 
All the geniuses who keeps saying about selling Bruno seem to overlook the tiniest of details - namely how very very few of our signings are successful.

So they're putting a heck of a lot of faith in us being able to buy one or 2 brilliant attackers to make up for his output.
 
Escobar said:
Of there is a top offer, 100m plus, and we manage to get a top replacement, it would be ok to sell
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How much of the last 10 years suggests we'd be able to pick and secure a top replacement?
 
Folks talking about making up for his output, his deficiencies will not be missed though and lead to our midfield being more solid. I would even move Mainoo forward if we are to stick with a 4231 and play two CMs behind him or play him as one of two 8s Infront of a 6. We can then focus on signing a wide attacker that can create more. It's not as complicated as y'all make it out to be and I like Bruno but we won't be lost without him. You're thinking in a vacuum where we won't replace him, it may be an inferior individual player or players we buy but they will benefit the team unit much more.
 
devilsadvoca8 said:
Folks talking about making up for his output, his deficiencies will not be missed though and lead to our midfield being more solid. I would even move Mainoo forward if we are to stick with a 4231 and play two CMs behind him or play him as one of two 8s Infront of a 6. We can then focus on signing a wide attacker that can create more. It's not as complicated as y'all make it out to be and I like Bruno but we won't be lost without him. You're thinking in a vacuum where we won't replace him, it may be an inferior individual player or players we buy but they will benefit the team unit much more.
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Which winger would you sign that could replace Bruno’s created chances?
 
top1whoisman said:
Which winger would you sign that could replace Bruno’s created chances?
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Kvara is the obvious option but hard to deal with Napoli, you have Rafa Leao, Kubo any of these three will add instant offence but once again you're looking at it in a vacuum, we play the way we do because of Bruno so everything flows through him, it would flow through multiple channels without him so the creative burden will be spread out.
 
devilsadvoca8 said:
Kvara is the obvious option but hard to deal with Napoli, you have Rafa Leao, Kubo any of these three will add instant offence but once again you're looking at it in a vacuum, we play the way we do because of Bruno so everything flows through him, it would flow through multiple channels without him so the creative burden will be spread out.
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Partly true. Part of it is also the fact that apart from Amad who has played very little, we don’t really have creative wingers. So it’s also the other way around. Everything has to run through him because our forward line struggles to create anything.

So in that sense the new winger would almost have to replace his numbers. Unless we give more trust to Amad who steps up to another level.
 
We have bigger issues and players that should be sold ahead of Bruno.
 
DrRodo said:
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...
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Because you only look towards next season. Which is shortsighted. Not that it isn't important but when you take into consideration not just the next but the next 2-3 or even 5 seasons, then it shouldn't be too hard to at least acknowledge why people think about cashing in when the chance is there. Doesn't mean you have to agree, but it isn't as crazy as you make it out.

Cassidy said:
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.
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My thoughts completely. Again - the decisions would be made based on nothing but hope. Hoping that those players would replicate their best forms not continuing their natural trends.

top1whoisman said:
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.
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Lets face it: let Bruno stay and there will also people losing patience or blaming ETH. So the player itself isn't a factor in it. I know there are a few fans who think we are close to "something big" or "we need just one or two key transfers" but the chances are, the next big rebuild will come even before we make the current team "competetive". So yes - patience will be a problem. But selling or keeping Bruno is just a footnote in that context.

AneRu said:
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.
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We deservedly got 8th in the league. Many metrics had us even lower. Not sure, why any player should be "locked". (I get it in connection with Mainoo. I get it mostly in connection with Garnacho and Onana. And I probably wouldn't start a fight when talking about Dalot. But thats it)
 
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Judas said:
When will these types of posts stop? Different structure in place. Why are people not willing to give the benefit of the doubt and see how things pan out with so many new people on board.
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It will stop when we start to be sensible. We alll got a little bit of trauma because of last 10 years.
 
DrRodo said:
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...
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I love Bruno but 100m is great money for a near 30 year old. It doesn't help that he wants a salary increase, had whored his way to other clubs in a bid to get it at United, the money is tight and we're at the early steps a 3-4 year rebuild.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
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.
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You seem to be confusing a second striker with an attacking midfielder. Neither of Cantona, Rooney or Sheringham were attacking midfielders. They were centre forwards or second strikers, but were versatile enough to play various attacking roles like most football players have to do on occasion. So yeah, all of our success has been without an attacking midfielder. Why are you talking about two forwards in Cole and Yorke? If anything, you're just proving my point by showing that our goals and assists came from our forwards, and not an attacking midfielder.

You're missing the point here. This is not about what formation we've had most success with, or how good certain players were. We have never relied on an attacking midfielder to be the catalyst in our attack during our successful periods. It has always been the forwards. Cantona, Rooney, Sheringham, Solskjaer, Yorke, Cole, Ronaldo, Tevez, Berbatov, van Nistelrooy, van Persie. They're forwards or attackers, not attacking midfielders. Now and historically, most successful teams have unsurprisingly relied on their forward line for their offensive output.
 
Cassidy said:
No position should be locked. This team does not have any PL or UCL winners that we want to keep
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I think Bruno, Mainoo, Shaw, Martinez, Dalot, Rashford, Garnacho, Onana and Hoijlund are good enough for a team with top 4 aspirations. Last season was just weird on so many fronts - can't account for the coach deploying kamikaze tactics all season long or missing 2/4 of your backline for the whole season.

Sort the midfield anchor, CB, a striker to rotate Hoijlund in and out as he undergoes growing pains and a LB to cover/compete with Shaw then we can return to where we should be and then consolidate. Ashworth and his team coming in should be on the lookout for that mercurial forward who can turn games on the fly or who brings buckets of goals and assists to raise the level of the team.

Bruno will still fetch a considerable sum next summer, if we must sell him. I prefer a situation where our rebuild is phased, even if we spend £500m this summer we ain't turning into title contenders on the back of that. I want a situation where Ashworth and the recruitment team get to work all season long, hopefully we have new fitness and performance guys who can, over the season, work on the physicality of our players, so that by summer of 2025 we know who we can rely on and the new guys should have properly identified the next batch of players to take us up a level or two.

I the summer of 26, hopefully a couple of top 4 finishes and mid level trophies (EL, FA Cup), our balance sheet and cash position should be healthier and we are in a position to compete for the top young players that would have emerged. If all goes well this is how we should extricate ourselves from this. The signings we are making this season are floor raises to ensure that no matter how bad things go we should never fall to last season's level ever again.

The benefit of ETH, despite his weaknesses, is that he is not afraid to bring in young players who deserve a shot. Kobie and Garnacho have saved us at least £100m in transfer fees, if he can add another two or three then not only will our selection will improve but also our finances. That's the one saving grace we can derive from his stay.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
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?
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Bruno is as I repeat one of the few leaders we have, if we had more leaders then he wouldn't moan as much just like for portugal. Rivals fan hate Bruno and bring up his moaning as a way to slag off United fans, they would all love to have him.The other point is he's one of the few WC players we have. Who's out there that can perform to his level?
 
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