It’s interesting how in this stat-obsessed age, where so much football discourse is basically people throwing numbers at each other over the internet, actually watching matches and basing your opinions on the evidence of your own eyes is now dismissed as a ‘weird gut feeling’.
The problem with "eye test" is that most fans are amateurs when it comes to assessing a player's performance, abilities or potential, and will largely form their opinion based on how they did a few minutes of a game, rather than during the whole game.
Some fans will see Bruno mispassing and it goes directly to an opponent and claim he had a shit performance, and on the other hand you have fans who claim he had a great game for creating 3 chances, despite not having a good game overall.
You have fans who think Kvaratskhelia is a better footballer than Mahrez has been for Leicester in their Premier League winning season and for City, which personally I find laughable.
Statistics are there and can defend claims that Fred has been shit for us and that he can't pass. Of course he can, he is a Premier League midfielder who has played a huge role in a team that has finished 3rd twice, 2nd and 6th twice during his time here. His problem has always been inconsistency.
We've seen Fred run the show against PSG's midfield and City's midfield. We've not seen Caicedo do it. Now, I'm not saying Fred is better than Caicedo, but they share a lot of similarities. Had Fred been as strong as Caicedo, he'd be a much better midfielder. Caicedo is a better passer and in possession, but not much better in other aspects.
Fred has also been used wrong here, which has made him look worse than he is. Don't forget that Pep was also very interested in signing him, and he would have if we hadn't swooped in.
He did have some wonderful performances, some decent ones, and then some absolute painful ones to watch.