I 100% agree that Bruno’s incline to go for the killer ball instantly he get a chance to do so is not well suited for Ten Hag ball, and to some extent that is Bruno’s biggest strength so it’s not surprising that it has been a lingering issue. Like I agree with the premises for this thread in the sense that if our game is centering around an AMC that gives up possession of the ball a lot — we can never win the league.
With that said — I definitely believe that Bruno can work with ETH and that ETH will have patience working with Bruno, because like he is a warrior. I am far from Bruno’s biggest fan, but like in the City game, 80-90% of our players collapse, shrink, play to avoid being made scapegoats and whatnot. Bruno reacts how you want a player to react, he gets tremendously frustrated, tries to do everything and anything, works even harder, and he does not collapse. Honestly, as strange as it might sound, I think that game was a bit of a turning point for Ten Hag and Bruno. Imagine that you are Ten Hag standing there, the game is litterary looking like it’s going to be 8-0 if not worse, so many players that you have put your faith in, fails you. The one guy who didn’t, who stepped up, got us up field, took the battle, that was Bruno.
My biggest question is really, what exactly can Bruno become under Ten Hag? It’s going to take a while for Bruno to round out his game and optimize his play for a much more possession oriented style. The quality of his delivery has to be a little better, his decision making — like it’s easy to “fix” his problem, just stop going for the killer ball, but if you do that you 100% take away his production and we don’t want that, do we. So it’s a process.
But can Bruno even take a step down the pitch and play more or Eriksen’s role? Like we have no back-up for Eriksen. With the schedule we have infront of us, there will be nights when neither Casemiro and Eriksen are available, right?
I’ve for a really long time been in the camp of — why not put Bruno on the wing? It’s so common in the game right now, teams want ball skills and put an AMC on the wing. But I have to admit that Bruno aren’t really thriving in that role. He don’t get the ball enough, gets a little isolated.
I love Bruno’s compete, his ability to play under pressure, how team loyal he is. From many perspectives, he would be ideal in a little bit more pulled back role. Could it work? I don’t know. Think it would be good for us if it did.