Is it sensible to carry on with Bruno as the focal point of our team next season?

Try the mental exercise of putting Bruno in that great Real Madrid side. No one would even have this conversation at all. It’s the overall squad quality that needs working with.
Can’t tell if you mean because he wouldn’t get in the squad therefore there isn’t a conversation to be had or that he would get in and excell.
 
Bruno with Real Madrid teammates would be a great combo, don't fool yourself just because you want to belittle him here.
I was questioning what you meant for clarity as it wasn’t very clear. What “great” Real Madrid team are we talking about as well? The present one with Bellingham and Valverde playing where he would fit? He’d be on the bench surely.
 
I was questioning what you meant for clarity as it wasn’t very clear. What “great” Real Madrid team are we talking about as well? The present one with Bellingham and Valverde playing where he would fit? He’d be on the bench surely.
Sure, but it’s only a thought exercise, not a “where does he fit?!”-exercise. Replace Bellingham with Bruno and you’d see great results too.
 
Should drop him for a few games and play Eriksen as the 10.

Lets see how it goes with Mainoo Eriksen and Casemiro/Ugarte.

Might give us better balance and control actually. Cant see Ten Hag doing that though.
 
Not that Bruno is a problem or anything but it all seemed so much less chaotic before he came on, like a straightforward 5-0 up game
 
Still on this.

Elanga had more assists than Bruno last season in PL. Playing for Forest.
Pereira had equal assists with Bruno. Playing for Fulham.

Both United Reject


All these 'midtable players' had better numbers than Bruno last season ..
Morgan Gibbs- Forest 10
Anthony Gordon - Newcastle United 10
Pascal Groß - Brighton 10
Brennan Johnson - Forest 10


So it is that Forest, Brighton, Fulham have better finishers than United.

Yet how comes, Elanga and Pereira wouldn't hack better assist numbers than Bruno while at United playing in the same league but rack in numbers in another team?

Its simple, how we play is Bruno induced. It's either him or not.


Also in 2022-2023 season.

Bruno had same assist numbers as Eriksen free transfer from Brentford

These two had better numbers.
Morgan Gibbs- Forest/Wolves 9
James Maddison - Leicester City

Perisic, Mbeumbo, Pascal all had same assist numbers with Bruno. 100% poor players compared to Bruno playing in a poor team to United.


As you can see, nothing extraordinary Bruno is doing. It's just us United fans tend to over estimate what our players do... That's why, even, when players move on from United they tend not to get any meaningful club. Look at Lingard, Martial, Varane, De Gea etc. This were players who people were drolling for, yet World Football doesn't rank them that much because no one is ready to take them up.

We are too one dimension till it kills all the creativity of the team. That's why, we can't score 80 goals in a season. Can't win 25 games and above in a season. We will also have sub 30+ goal difference. Years later, after 600m spent, we still have the same same problems we had in 2020-2023 period.

How people don't see this deficiencies has also been the mystery to me.

He created more chances than any other player in the Premier League last season. On a team that finished 8th. If you watched games attentively and without confirmation bias, that wouldn't surprise you, because we did very little attacking-wise that he wasn't involved in. And maybe then you wouldn't write such absolute nonsense about "nothing special".
 
I really like Bruno. You can't fault his workrate, the fact that he takes some responsibility and that he produces a lot of very high quality moments.

Unfortunately, you also can't deny that he gives the ball away far too much and a lot of he what he tries is just stupid.

Accoring to footystats.org:

He has been dispossessed more that 72% of players. (64% last season)
Pass completion is worse than 53% of players (60% last season)

The above speaks for itself , its woeful and does hold us back.

The question is, could a manager like Pep make him better at retaining the ball or could a better system make his gung ho style worth it?
Pep's system isn't as direct as ETHS. Under him Bruno would keep the ball more. Plus wouldd be an even bigger goal threat because Pep would use the passing of others to unlock his goal scoring consistently.
 
He created more chances than any other player in the Premier League last season. On a team that finished 8th. If you watched games attentively and without confirmation bias, that wouldn't surprise you, because we did very little attacking-wise that he wasn't involved in. And maybe then you wouldn't write such absolute nonsense about "nothing special".
I don't agree with the poster you quoted, but the argument that we don't do much attacking wise without him involved is one of the reasons we are in our current position. With poor planning and management, we've made ourselves play a certain style of football that always involves one player, and it is an individual approach where we're heavily reliant on one player performing. If he doesn't, we're just a more mediocre team and struggle all match. You see average teams in the PL play more fluid football, combining and including all of the players (as how football should be played) and outperforming us offensively and creating more genuine chances.
I don't think what you said is true, anyway. He was involved in 18 goals in the PL, and we scored 58 goals.