The Casemiro/Mount/Bruno midfield

One of the most annoying things on the caf is when something that obviously won’t work gets pointed out but you get called negative or have sarcastic posts directed at you.

During preseason there were quite a few of us that said it would be a bad idea to adopt this midfield trio both on and off the ball. We were told we didn’t understand 3-2-5 formations and that EtH would have us playing like City and Arsenal with Mount and Bruno in MF.

Anyone with a hint of objectivity can see that this was a bad idea. Bruno and Casemiro together is already a horribly flawed pairing then you add a player that wants the ball even less than they do and prefers playing higher up. It was a recipe for disaster.

I continuously said in the preseason thread that Mount needed to be Bruno and Antony’s competition. Sure Mount had the legs that Eriksen doesn’t but doesn’t posses the on ball quality and is even less of a CM than Eriksen.
 
El Jefe said:
One of the most annoying things on the caf is when something that obviously won’t work gets pointed out but you get called negative or have sarcastic posts directed at you.

During preseason there were quite a few of us that said it would be a bad idea to adopt this midfield trio both on and off the ball. We were told we didn’t understand 3-2-5 formations and that EtH would have us playing like City and Arsenal with Mount and Bruno in MF.

Anyone with a hint of objectivity can see that this was a bad idea. Bruno and Casemiro together is already a horribly flawed pairing then you add a player that wants the ball even less than they do and prefers playing higher up. It was a recipe for disaster.

I continuously said in the preseason thread that Mount needed to be Bruno and Antony’s competition. Sure Mount had the legs that Eriksen doesn’t but doesn’t posses the on ball quality and is even less of a CM than Eriksen.
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Yep. I don't think people understand that running round a bit doesn't constitute a good midfielder.

I thought it was obviously a terrible idea from the off,but having seen it in action a few times I also actually find Mount quite infuriating to watch. His positioning is completely fecking dumb and when he gets the ball his instinct is turn or go backwards or to just run into nowhere with it. Casemiro is negatively impacted as he starts trying to compensate and gets caught higher up.

I think there's two problems with this system. one is that it fundamentally can't and won't work, the second is that I've not seen anything from Mount in years to suggest he should be playing for us anyway, regardless of what position.

It's very rare when a manager has what seems like a completely crazy idea that it doesn't turn out to be completely crazy. Even the best managers can do it, but they don't usually spend £50m to implement it and then carry on persisting with it through multiple disasters
 
El Jefe said:
One of the most annoying things on the caf is when something that obviously won’t work gets pointed out but you get called negative or have sarcastic posts directed at you.

During preseason there were quite a few of us that said it would be a bad idea to adopt this midfield trio both on and off the ball. We were told we didn’t understand 3-2-5 formations and that EtH would have us playing like City and Arsenal with Mount and Bruno in MF.

Anyone with a hint of objectivity can see that this was a bad idea. Bruno and Casemiro together is already a horribly flawed pairing then you add a player that wants the ball even less than they do and prefers playing higher up. It was a recipe for disaster.

I continuously said in the preseason thread that Mount needed to be Bruno and Antony’s competition. Sure Mount had the legs that Eriksen doesn’t but doesn’t posses the on ball quality and is even less of a CM than Eriksen.
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And then down the line, when it becomes undeniably obvious to everyone that it doesn't work, the retort becomes "well everyone always knew it wasn't going to work!"
 
It won't work in a hundred years, something has to give and we either have to bin Bruno for mount's sake or relegate the latter to a bench option for Bruno.

As it stands there are probably more balanced options available from the current roster, some involving our academy players.
 
noodlehair said:
Who would have won us those games? What game have we lost because of Bruno apparently being so bad?

How do people watch us play atm and come to the conclusion "it's Bruno that's the problem"? :lol:

I'm sorry but that's just bonkers.
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How do people watch us and come to the conclusion that Bruno isn’t a problem.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
Casemiro and amrobat should be good and balanced.

We are a very bad team going forward so we need Bruno for the odd moment of magic if we are to create anything. Be can't be dropped.
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Yup I would prefer this as well. Case’s progressive passing is very underrated and I think we will be more attacking with this midfield than with Case/Mount/Bruno midfield.
 
astracrazy said:
Ok it's Dalot in an example I could quickly find, but this isn't similar? I never said we did it the same way, just that we already (ok not all the time) were brining a full back inside when were attacking.

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Our three fullbacks all acted quite differently last season. Dalot is the one who will do what you are talking about, coming more into a central midfield area quite often (although still nowhere near as often as Amrabat has been doing so far or that Stones does for City). AWB tends to stay wide when in deeper areas but will move central in more attacking positions to attack the box. And Shaw tends to stay quite wide the majority of times (which is strange when you would think he's the one most suited to coming into midfield).
 
Prefer Casemiro, Mainoo and Meijbri.

Amrabat on the left back to help out DM if needed.

Bruno and Mount can play on the right wing if needed.
 
Persisting with this shambles of a midfield after it performed so well at the start of the season? Brilliant idea! Wondering how many losses is it going to take for him to realize this isn't it and it's never going to work? None of these players can exert control over the field, even less so when played together. Why Mount was brought in, as a priority target even (!), shall remain a mystery of the ages.

Amrabat needs to be moved into the CM role as soon as Reguilon is back. I'd try Mount, Hannibal, or maybe even Van de Beek as the forward midfielder and drop Bruno, just for the sake of at least trying something different to what we have been doing for so long. Also drop Rashford alongside him. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but it sure as hell beats trying the same thing over and over and getting the same result.
 
Funny thing is mount played well. I too dont rate mount but he played really well yesterday and midweek.

It is bruno who looked out of place and we should have done everything to keep Hannibal in that line up.

Hannibal and martial should have been kept in the lineup based purely on their performances midweek. Rashford, bruno and pellistri offered nothing.

All that aside, I still cant believe we wasted 55m on mount....rather have spent that money on madison or a RW like olise or even kudus. Hell even going out and buying someone like todibo would have been money better spent.
 
r0663664 said:
Maddison was available cheap and he didn't get him because ETH watch young Mount played and really likes him. If we compare both Maddison is definitely playing better and at a higher level.
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We didn’t need either. Maddison is an AM. The biggest issue is Ten Hag didn’t sign what we needed in the summer.
 
I thought it worked well yesterday. Maybe with the exceptions of a few individual mistakes from Casemiro. Mount had a very good match.

I still missed Hannibal. Not sure if it was more of a bias thing, as he has not exactly been a creative force for us so far. But considering how poor Rashford have been these days, we could have put him on for Rashford and put Bruno out left.
 
The weird thing is that there was an easy solution yesterday. Just play one of Bruno or Mount on the right and get another proper CM(Hannibal) in there.

Why we sacrificed that to play Pellistri I don't know.
 
I'm just totally unconvinced. Nothing we've seen so far makes me think it'll suddenly or eventually click, football isn't rocket science, sometimes its not that complicated. If Ten Hag isn't careful this midfield three will be the death of him.
 
El Jefe said:
One of the most annoying things on the caf is when something that obviously won’t work gets pointed out but you get called negative or have sarcastic posts directed at you.

During preseason there were quite a few of us that said it would be a bad idea to adopt this midfield trio both on and off the ball. We were told we didn’t understand 3-2-5 formations and that EtH would have us playing like City and Arsenal with Mount and Bruno in MF.

Anyone with a hint of objectivity can see that this was a bad idea. Bruno and Casemiro together is already a horribly flawed pairing then you add a player that wants the ball even less than they do and prefers playing higher up. It was a recipe for disaster.

I continuously said in the preseason thread that Mount needed to be Bruno and Antony’s competition. Sure Mount had the legs that Eriksen doesn’t but doesn’t posses the on ball quality and is even less of a CM than Eriksen.
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I think it's because a lot of people are convinced eth is working towards some sort of complex tactical masterplan the lay person can't quite see. Gues this is based on the tactical flexibility his ajax team displayed but we don't have some of the critical players that made that system work e..g.de jong and it's a lot easier to get away with that sort experimentation in the Dutch league. It all points to ethnot understanding the demands of the league or simply having poor judgement
 
r0663664 said:
Maddison was available cheap and he didn't get him because ETH watch young Mount played and really likes him. If we compare both Maddison is definitely playing better and at a higher level.
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WRONG. We didn't buy Maddison because we have Bruno and Eriksen and hadn't sold McT or DVB in time.

Would not compare to Mount at all
 
Ten Hag has to decide whether he trusts Bruno or not. There is no space for Bruno and mount on the same starting eleven. We are just back to needing two defensive midfielders in the middle of the park because the back needs protecting and the front doesn’t even try to win it back, maybe apart from hojlund. I was surprised that amrabat didn’t start in the middle beside casemiro yesterday tbh
 
Matt851 said:
I think it's because a lot of people are convinced eth is working towards some sort of complex tactical masterplan the lay person can't quite see. Gues this is based on the tactical flexibility his ajax team displayed but we don't have some of the critical players that made that system work e..g.de jong and it's a lot easier to get away with that sort experimentation in the Dutch league. It all points to ethnot understanding the demands of the league or simply having poor judgement
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When in reality, it’s more just massively not understanding the player profiles he has.

Like @El Jefe says, it’s true that people were banging on about how Man City play with 2 attacking midfielders, completely ignoring the fact that every single one of their midfielders passes and retains the ball with an accuracy that not a single one of ours can. Then there’s the (inability) of our midfield to retain the ball in tight spaces or dribble out of trouble. It was never comparable.

Hag, with a straight face, decided to add an attacking midfielder who excels at very little other than final third counter attacking to a midfield pairing that has the most volatile passers already in there. I still genuinely can’t work out if that was ignorance or arrogance.
 
The most obvious thing for me at the moment is putting Bruno or Mount on the right. Overload the midfield with Amrabat and Casemiro sitting deeper, Mount as a 10 and Bruno on the right with a free role. The issue is our defence is that all over the place with injuries we’ve had to play our new midfielder at left back.
 
Add Antony back into the mix and EtH has a lot of hard choices to make. Without him available you could get both Mount and Bruno on the pitch by playing one of them on the right.

With so much drama already surrounding the club, do you want to add more by dropping the captain or the new no.7
 
noodlehair said:
Who would have won us those games? What game have we lost because of Bruno apparently being so bad?

How do people watch us play atm and come to the conclusion "it's Bruno that's the problem"? :lol:

I'm sorry but that's just bonkers.
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The last game against CP, it's clear from the mod week game how much better we are without him and Rashford.
 
It's a mess but Ten Hag is stubborn in trying to force it to work as he clearly planned this whole season around it.

Yesterday Bruno should have played on the right and a more balanced option should have played alongside Casemiro. Pellistri should be nowhere near starting for us.

Hannibal deserved another chance after his performance on Tuesday although it was clear that Palace didn't even try in that game, too many got carried away by it.

Mount and Bruno isn't going to work, one should play as 10 and the other has to play on the right or left.

Two should play behind, Casemiro's place should be at risk with the dross he is producing. Amrabat, Mainoo, Eriksen and Hannibal should be competing for the two slots. Not a great set of options but it's all we've got.

It's not that complicated but Ten Hag is making it so.
 
Bruno, Casemiro and Amrabat lost the ball 60 times yesterday. It's 80 if you add Rashford, you could make excuses for Amrabat playing in an unfamiliar position. The other three are who they are, and they will never change.
 
Idxomer said:
Bruno, Casemiro and Amrabat lost the ball 60 times yesterday. It's 80 if you add Rashford, you could make excuses for Amrabat playing in an unfamiliar position. The other three are who they are, and they will never change.
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Amrabat had 88% passing and was basically playing two positions at the same time. He did his job. Maintain possession and give it to the attackers to do something with it. The main problems on the ball yesterday were the attacking players and Casemiro who lost the ball so much it almost gave me an anuerysm watching.
 
Ten Hag needs to play football manager before buying any more players, he should be banned from the transfer market. He is now trying to fit an oval shaped peg into a weird shaped hole and it isn't working properly. Our coach needs to be taught how to play football manager and use the bloody thing to give him a chance of getting a successful transfer.
 
Play bruno on the right and mount on the left with either rash or hojlund up to and play actual midfielders in midfield instead of attacking midfielders
 
Ted Lasso said:
WRONG. We didn't buy Maddison because we have Bruno and Eriksen and hadn't sold McT or DVB in time.

Would not compare to Mount at all
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Can't even understand what you are saying, Mount is like Bruno, why do we want to 2xBruno in midfield? Maddison will easily replace Erikson. Maddison is a real playmaker unlike Bruno.
 
Im all for players criticism but lets put this into a wider context. Our most creative and influential player between 2020 and 2021, a valuable Chelsea player bought as a reinforcment this season and a former CL winning DM are all rubbish (and can not play togheter) and our poor old manager isnt being understood? Sure you can nitpick me on every single of these players but when its all three of them its hard not to put this down to very poor management.
 
DWelbz19 said:
When in reality, it’s more just massively not understanding the player profiles he has.

Like @El Jefe says, it’s true that people were banging on about how Man City play with 2 attacking midfielders, completely ignoring the fact that every single one of their midfielders passes and retains the ball with an accuracy that not a single one of ours can. Then there’s the (inability) of our midfield to retain the ball in tight spaces or dribble out of trouble. It was never comparable.

Hag, with a straight face, decided to add an attacking midfielder who excels at very little other than final third counter attacking to a midfield pairing that has the most volatile passers already in there. I still genuinely can’t work out if that was ignorance or arrogance.
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Said perfectly and this is my main issue with Ten Hag. It’s absolutely comical that this was his grand plan. The foundations and pieces of his puzzle are a mess so he’s pretty much set himself up to fail.

He has no one to blame but himself as he chooses the tactics and is largely involved in player recruitment.

If we could see pretty easily this wouldn’t work it is alarming that he couldn’t. Managers make mistakes sometimes but this is structurally bad and that’s not the type of mistake a manager should be making after coaching a team for a whole year.
 
r0663664 said:
Can't even understand what you are saying, Mount is like Bruno, why do we want to 2xBruno in midfield? Maddison will easily replace Erikson. Maddison is a real playmaker unlike Bruno.
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It's in really bad faith to claim we didn't go after Maddison simply because ETH managed Mount previously.

It's also very naive to think we can just replace players under contract with selling others on. Team and player management doesn't work the way you are dreaming.

And if you do some diligence on the players, you'll see that Bruno is much more like Maddison over the last several seasons from position taken on the field (heatmaps) to where he distributed passes. Much more so than Mount.

The idea Maddison solves a problem by bringing him in over Mount is quite off the mark.
 
noodlehair said:
Who would have won us those games? What game have we lost because of Bruno apparently being so bad?

How do people watch us play atm and come to the conclusion "it's Bruno that's the problem"? :lol:

I'm sorry but that's just bonkers.
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Its bonkers now, but give it 8 months you will understand why Bruno is the main problem to this setup.

He's is Maguire of our midfield. No need to write more about it. Just be patient you will see in 1 years time.

Its either ETH leaves or Bruno leaves. The center will not hold anymore. We have become a very poor team in the last 3-4 years Bruno has been our main player.

We have changed managers/defenders/GK/Strikers etc but some Bruno and Rashford have been main stay in this team and miraculously our play remains the same.

We need to move away from Bruno and Rashford, not because they're bad players but because we need to evolve into a modern team. But urgently Bruno needs to be moved on.
 
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This season is a write off with all the injuries, on and off the pitch issues, plus the looming dark cloud of a possible sale or Glazers staying and basically killing the club, long term. Ten Hag will be in danger of getting sacked and it seriously might happen.

I would play young , talented midfielders(Hannibal and Mainoo) as much as possible for them to gain experience at this level and mature.

Think we should often play a midfield of Casemiro/Amrabat - Hannibal/Mainoo - Mount this season to see how it works. Casemiro - Amrabat - Mount in tougher away games so we don't get humiliated potentially with 5+ goals conceded again. Bruno needs to be phased out slowly(if not swiftly) and I think more and more people on this forum are going to wake up and understand that. There is already a good portion of thoughtful, intellectually sharp people who see beyond the "stats" and what is the problem with him. Eriksen has no legs/physicality necessary anymore. McT and VDB are useless. Dan Gore - I don't know.

Hannibal, Mainoo, Amrabat and Mount are likely the most technically gifted footballers(in terms of comfort with the ball at their feet), press resistant. And all of them have pretty good work rate as well.

Mount should be the most advanced(attacking midfielder) - at least he can somewhat carry the ball, and retain it + he has an eye for a goal(one of his strengths). Bruno and Eriksen backing him up, rotating sometimes in less important games, while they are still at the club, even though they shouldn't be, really.

But I know that's not possible, Ten Hag has made Bruno captain and undroppable, untouchable. Put all his eggs in his basket and "transitional football" with a hot potato midfield that gives the ball away for fun, like it's a toy or a hot lava. And we are where we are - lost 4 of the 7 PL games, two at home. Ten Hag likely gets sacked(especially if ambitious new owners come in, which is still a possibility) and we start all over again. He disappointed me, and I had hope for him.
 
It doesnt work because Casemiro will have way to much work. Bruno does a lot of defensive work but he massively lacks discipline in his movement and short passing which leads to extra work for Casemiro. Mount doesnt really do anything defensively, or at least not enough.
They can play together but the only way is to move Bruno to the right wing, put Mount at 10 and give Casemiro someone like Hannibal or Amrabat as his partner in the central midfield.
 
Must be one of the worst midfield combinations we've ever had statistically. Have we won a game yet with these three starting together?
 
This is worse than Matic Pogba Bruno and that was already pathetically balanced
 
Redstain said:
The only way you can balance the midfield is playing a diamond but that would require another purchase in the market for a more natural 8. For ETH to have had varied success last season with the double pivot and then to start the new season with a new system its russian roulette. Maybe with two seasons of the same system which means four windows it's a safer bet to change it but the midfield is really and truly stuck and there's no wiggle room financially to amend it.

Until I see a fixture in the upcoming games where the performance clearly demonstrates structure in the middle this team will finish outside the top 5.
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(20/08/23)

This has been what's undone the season undoubtedly and the level of reverb in how bad it has been is nothing short of catastrophic.

Hindsight is the benefactor now compared to foresight in August and the decision to adhere to this structure for the team has singlehandedly thrown away the season. Usually when you measure failure at management there's usually a plethora of factors that are strong contributions which aren't always in the managers control, but this season Eth has proverbially tied his shoelaces to opposing foot and proceeded to walk forward.
 
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