Shame it's harder to avoid the Ronaldo fanboys now, some of the posts in this thread alone over the last 24 hours have been hysterically bizarre.
Will Bruno leave penalties and free kicks to Ronaldo now?
- Thread starter Andycoleno9
- Start date
Funny how whenever someone argues Player X vs Bruno, that person is suddenly a Player X fanboy.
If anything, it was the fact it was in injury time and he had to score it. Trash talk makes zero difference to the best players.
Is that how it is, or is there just an insane breed of intensely weird Ronaldo fanboys? It's the latter for me. It's an illness, we saw it during the saga in the summer. Very odd bunch.
Does anyone think Fergie would have let Bruno take that penalty and not Ronaldo?
Does anyone think there ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark?
If there is hopefully he would never be stupid enough to take a penalty of Ronaldo in the last minute of a game when we are one down
Ronaldo on the pens Bruno on the free kicks seems like a fair compromise.
Good post. Ronaldo is a great penalty taker himself, and no matter how "clutch" he is, lets not pretend he hasnt missed big penalties either.
Good point. Should always be about what's best for the team - Ronaldo should be on pens. Bruno on free kicks.
Bruno for penalties all the way, one missed pen doesn't change a thing, unless you are a knee jerk merchant, and we know the Caf is full of those.
Strange to see so much animosity in this thread, it's so bizarre 
We have 2 top penalty takers. Ronaldo just happens to be a more experienced penalty taker, who has taken far more high pressure penalties in much bigger matches. There's nothing wrong with folks thinking Ronaldo should be on pens. Just like there is nothing wrong, with folks saying, we should stick with Bruno, who had a 100% pen conversion rate for us. There isn't a right or wrong here, folks need to take a breather.
Not every decision by manager has to be criticized. He made a call, and there's nothing wrong with it.
We have 2 top penalty takers. Ronaldo just happens to be a more experienced penalty taker, who has taken far more high pressure penalties in much bigger matches. There's nothing wrong with folks thinking Ronaldo should be on pens. Just like there is nothing wrong, with folks saying, we should stick with Bruno, who had a 100% pen conversion rate for us. There isn't a right or wrong here, folks need to take a breather.
Not every decision by manager has to be criticized. He made a call, and there's nothing wrong with it.
Converting penalties against Burnley and Everton in league games aren't the same as the stages Ronaldo has converted them. When you have Ronaldo in the team, he should take the penalties.
How could anyone forget 2008
Ronaldo going in some crazy form is our only chance of glory. Pissing him off, is not a good idea IMO.
I hope that next time Ronaldo just gets the ball and goes for it. Let Bruno and Ole try to get it from Ronaldo.
Bruno should take all of the free kicks and penalties, because he is the best player in the squad at taking both. The people calling for Ronaldo to take over just want his stats to look better. He will score plenty of goals without needing to remove duties from our best set piece taker.
For another prime example, see the character above who thinks it's conducive to our chances of glory for Ronaldo to just flip the manager off and grab the ball for himself next time, even if Fernandes tries to wrestle it off him.
I honestly hadn't realized what a mental bunch it is until they all followed Ronaldo to this forum. Guess not being on Twitter or Instagram was super helpful.
Also good to see another one peddling the line that Fernandes has only ever scored penalties against Burnley and Ronaldo has never missed any big ones. Were you all not born in 2008, or something?
Penalty takers are decided before the game and if whoever is on top of that list doesn't willingly give it to someone else then he should take it, period.
If that guy is Bruno then the last thing we would want is Ronaldo or someone else hogging the ball and telling him and Ole to feck off as it would do more harm than good even if they scored. Not that I think anyone in the team would ever do that but if the players would start with these petty playground antics after one single penalty miss in September then I doubt we'll win anything anyway.
Thing is, fans no longer trust Ole decisions in general, and Bruno feck up big time in his recent high pressured one. I think it’s worthwhile to let Ronaldo take it from now on, would be very odd if this doesn’t happen. Imagine people (fans/media/Portuguese) will keep talking why Ronaldo doesn’t take it throughout the season, it would definitely get into the mind of both players and causing unrest among the squad, especially if Bruno miss again. Just think about it, opponents will keep playing mind games towards Bruno before every penalty taken, and we know he is not really good at handling this in front of his idol, might cost us more points in future. For Bruno case, he may even got hatred from his country for denying their hero chances of scoring more goals in longer run to extend their GOAT all time record, especially when considering the fact he hasn’t done much for his country up to this date.
Last edited:
Please stop
Genuinely interested if Ronaldo now becomes peno taker in the PL, would assume Bruno and he might have agreed on certain comps being 'theirs'
Can see us getting one versus Villarreal given how deep they sit and if we play Ronnie and maybe Cavani comes on as well
Can see us getting one versus Villarreal given how deep they sit and if we play Ronnie and maybe Cavani comes on as well
Bruno's still the best penalty taker at the club and better at frees than Ronaldo (Although free kicks are being rotated).
I don't think there should even be a debate. 42 in 46 is phenomenal, and I doubt he'll ever hit one as bad as that again.
Although they could go down the keep-taking-them-until-you-miss route in which case Ronaldo would be up next.
I don't think there should even be a debate. 42 in 46 is phenomenal, and I doubt he'll ever hit one as bad as that again.
Although they could go down the keep-taking-them-until-you-miss route in which case Ronaldo would be up next.
Did Ronaldo's presence put Bruno off?
Maybe he felt pressured by Ronaldo and it didn't help that Ronaldo whispered to him "Tente não perder esse pênalti seu cuzão de merda"
Maybe he felt pressured by Ronaldo and it didn't help that Ronaldo whispered to him "Tente não perder esse pênalti seu cuzão de merda"
Next one should be given to Ronaldo after that horrible miss from Bruno..Can't believe people argue otherwise.
I would have to disagree. Taking it away from him is like rubbing salt in the wound. He needs to keep taking them to build up his confidence again. I don't think one miss will affect him much but taking penalties away from him will.
It's not like we take it away from him forever for some random guy to takeover now. We would just give the next one to the greatest goalscorer of all time, who's btw Bruno's Idol and who already takes penaltys for Portugal over him. I'm sure he will be able to handle it.
If Ronaldo misses one, Bruno will be given a new chance. They could also rotate a bit between them. But next one just has to be Ronaldo imo.
Don't care. They will both score 99% of the time. But i think it was a mistake to not let Ronaldo take it today. Martinez og Villa players got to Bruno today. Nothing gets to Ronaldo. Certantly not some barely known Villa footballers
Well no. Ronaldo will score around 83% of the time while Bruno will score over 90% of the time.
Not a criticism of you specifically here bur I've no idea why people are talking about pressure. When has Bruno ever had an issue with taking pens under pressure before?
I usually agree but in this situation maybe no. Bruno will 100% of had Ronaldo in the back of his mind..... The keeper stood there telling him Ronaldo should take the pen may very well of had an impact.
Either way, I think the only way Utd can win in that situation is to score the pen. If Ronaldo takes it (or the next one) and misses then all the media etc is about how Bruno should have taken in.
My point is that it wouldn't be a good thing if Ronaldo would steal a penalty that he's agreed beforehand that Bruno should take. If you're worried about fans not trusting Ole or what the media is saying then it's safe to say that those things would get a lot worse if our players started fighting like children at the penalty spot.
As for the rest, and this goes to a lot of people in here, just be honest and say that you want Ronaldo to take them because you want him to get the glory. There's no shame in that and it would spare the rest of us from having to read all this pseudo psychology about Bruno's nerves or what the Portugese will do to him.
No matter how you want to spin it, it does get into Bruno nerves and cost us important points though, doesn’t it? And there will be pressure on Bruno in the future too, simply because he is Portuguese, and there will be talk, unrest, more hatred/pressure aim at him from Portuguese fans in future, whenever he will keep on trying to take glory away from their national hero. You just can’t pretend these don’t exist.
Erm.. like few days ago when he balloon it into z row under intense pressure? Then afterwards he cried and publicly apologize in social media? All points to the fact he is having an issue.
He missed one penalty which cost us one point, there's no need to make it sound as if it's an ongoing thing and state that it's because of his nerves like it's a fact. If he had to score to win us a league title then that would be one thing but it was for one point against Villa in September, it's not even close to the most pressure he's been under at United.
As for the hatred, if everyone involved including Ronaldo decides that it's best for the team if Bruno continues to take the pens then why should we care about anyone who disagrees? We should want what's best for United, not what you say some Portuguese people supposedly think is better for Ronaldo. I mean if anyone thinks that Bruno taking pens for United is the same as "trying to take glory away from Ronaldo" then those people can promptly feck right off.
It'll be when one misses one someone else takes the next one possibly. So I'd assume it'll be Ronaldo next? That's how it was between Pogba, Rashford etc. wasn't it? It'll be blown into Bruno DROPPED from penalties!!! though.
1%?
I'm sure that was hyperbole but it was 12% before the match and is 10% now so it is a significant difference.
Also Ronaldo was never on pens to be taken off them at United. It would have been shocking man management to take your best penalty taker off penalties for a statistically weaker player because he has a bigger ego.
The best penalty taker at every club should take the pens otherwise you're just pandering to their ego to the detriment of results and undermining the ethos of the team.
Why does a last minute pen to salvage a point in a league game against Villa suddenly mean 'intense pressure'?
Bruno didn't suddenly turn into a bottler who can't cope, just because he sky-ed this one.
the only people that think he’s trying to take glory away from their hero are hysterical fanboys.It is not really that much of a hyperbole considering Ronaldo has had far more penalties in his career than Bruno and most importantly - way more important ones. Whether Ronaldo or Bruno is on penalties, the difference would be miniscule in terms of goals scored, wouldn't it? What wouldn't be miniscule is the impact on the team and players. When you have arguably the GOAT, well... you use him as a focal point of your team. It's as simple as that. When Ronaldo was at Madrid do you think Sergio Ramos took the penalties or something? Or even the free kicks, which Ronaldo hasn't been taking well for a while. Hell no. Why is that? Because there are way more important things in football than simple mathematics.
It's not about ego or "detriment of results". it's first doing the right thing for your team, for your club and for the player (Ronaldo) himself. You keep arguing about this like Ronaldo is some shmuck that was brought from some plucky little team, a young prospect to be nurtured and molded. FFS, the guy has more CL's than this club. He's earned a certain amount of privileges during his career. When you have the GOAT or at least one of the two GOAT's, you don't use him as a second fiddle to anyone.
This is something Sir Alex perfectly understood - not every player is the same and not every player should be treated the same. Ask yourself this - would SAF have let Bruno taken the penalties or Ronaldo? I think we both know the answer to that. And that answers the question by itself.
thats how it should be in any club. Fernandes only got the chance to take the penalties when Rashford and Pogba missed. So he can't complain too much when it seems only fair Ronaldo now gets his chance.. and when/if he misses back to Fernandes
it keeps competition and standards high
I do get a sense of "let's treat Ronaldo like any other player" and expect him to play second from some posters. Surely as the GOAT or one of the GOATS he's earned special privileges through his career because of what he's done/achieved? It's not like United have been successful without Ronaldo we haven't won a major trophy for almost 10 years to cut our noses to spite our face.. we will only win trophies if Ronaldo goes on a mad run of form. I think you need to either go all-in with Ronaldo and make it Ronaldo's team as the main-man (everywhere he's been he's won trophies) or don't buy him.. he isn't a player who will play second fiddle to anyone.. and rightly so. He has won so much, scored so many goals.. I don't think Fernandes has even won 1 team trophy in his career so far? And isn't he late 20s? Ronaldo probably has more trophies than the whole team combined.. he's elite winners mentality. We need Ronaldo to be our leader.
And it's not like putting Ronaldo on penalties will mean we score less penalties. They are both brilliant penalty takers. It's not like people are saying a guy with only 50% success rate should take them.. Ronaldo has took almost 170 penalties in his career in many high pressure situations and atmospheres all over the World in clutch moments and delivered.
Like the poster above said, I think Fergie would've let Ronaldo take the penalties because he would see the upside and bigger picture of keeping your best player happy, confident and firing. The only downside is like 10% less chance of scoring a penalty but 80% is still massively in favour of the penalty taker considering he's took almost 170 penalties so a bigger sample size
Last edited:
Well if you look at the last two seasons Bruno missed one 1 of 27 where Ronaldo missed 5 of out 31. If you want to increase Bruno's numbers up to the 31 he didn't miss any of the previous 5 either. You might say it's only a goal or two per season but each penalty scored can he worth as many as two pts in the league or the winning of a Cup game so it's not as insignificant as you're painting it.
I'm sorry but you refute that it would be pandering to Ronaldo's ego and then go on to explain why we should pander to his ego with a rationale that seems to be based on emotion and his reputation.
I've no idea why you're bringing Fergie into it like some kind of trump card. I don't recall Ferguson ever making an emotional decision like that around penalties. As far as I recall, he picked the best man for the job whether that was Dennis Irwin or Eric Cantona.
My thinking is that you don't displace the guy on any duty if he's still the best at it for the new bloke who's swanned in the door if he's not as good. That's bad for morale. Now that Bruno's missed one it allows them to put Ronaldo on them if that's what they want to do.
Bruno still on pens (unless Ole is pulling a name out of a hat before each game)