Bruno Fernandes | United not interested due to doubts over passing ability

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Lennon7

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Not gonna lie, a summer of Bruno and Maguire plus AWB and James isn’t amazing.
 

kirk buttercup

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Not gonna lie, a summer of Bruno and Maguire plus AWB and James isn’t amazing.
I would be very happy with those 4 tbh .

A proper fullback
Solid international CB
Creative player of the year ( last 2 years) midfielder
And a speedy winger with great attitude and loads of potential.

I would be very happy with that, especially if DeGea and Pobga stay. And the youth coming through exciting times IMO
 
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pocco

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Not gonna lie, a summer of Bruno and Maguire plus AWB and James isn’t amazing.
I agree but only because i think our attack is a bit rubbish. If you add Ben Yedder for Lukaku then I'd say it's been decent. Add Sancho and it's pretty damn good, but that doesn't likely.

Would you agree? Before the summer i thought we needed to do all that plus rebuild our midfield. So still well short of what we need but youngsters can fill until we sort the rest.
 

ivaldo

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I agree but only because i think our attack is a bit rubbish. If you add Ben Yedder for Lukaku then I'd say it's been decent. Add Sancho and it's pretty damn good, but that doesn't likely.

Would you agree? Before the summer i thought we needed to do all that plus rebuild our midfield. So still well short of what we need but youngsters can fill until we sort the rest.
We can’t do it all in one go, not if we want to bring in quality.
 

Sultan

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Not gonna lie, a summer of Bruno and Maguire plus AWB and James isn’t amazing.
De Gea
vB Lindelof Maguire Shaw
Matic
Bruno Pogba
James Martial
Rashford

Seems a pretty decent line-up if they click and play to their potential and with plenty of very decent back-up options.
 

Eric's Seagull

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We're going to announce Maguire and Bruno on the same day. I've got a feeling in my heartgut bones. Before the announcement the stock will be overbought and then oversold soon after.
Hope you are right on both mate and good this happens soon. So we can give them some time to gel with the squad :D
 

Eric's Seagull

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Not gonna lie, a summer of Bruno and Maguire plus AWB and James isn’t amazing.
I agree that it has not been an amazing summer and ould have hoped for a lot better myself at the beginning. But if we sign sign players you mentioned, we have made upgrades in 2 areas where they were desperately needed and signed one promising winger for the future who might surprise a few people and have a decent season this year. To get these 2 extra signings in will make me quite happy mate.
 

Brophs

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De Gea
vB Lindelof Maguire Shaw
Matic
Bruno Pogba
James Martial
Rashford

Seems a pretty decent line-up if they click and play to their potential and with plenty of very decent back-up options.
Take your point, but I think that side looks really short of goals.
 

Rozay

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I would like to know from the people that say we're not into him: which midfielder are we after then? Longstaff and no one else?
Not sure this is how it works! So unless people can provide you with an alternative midfielder to quench muppet thirst shouldn’t get in your way with this one?!

This thread has been running on fumes for ages, powered by hopes and dreams.
 

Eric's Seagull

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De Gea
vB Lindelof Maguire Shaw
Matic
Bruno Pogba
James Martial
Rashford

Seems a pretty decent line-up if they click and play to their potential
and with plenty of very decent back-up options.
Totally agree with your point in bold but my only concern would be Matic. Don't think his legs are good enough to br s regular starter anymore and think he should just be kept for the big games. Other than that looks a decent team mate.
 

ivaldo

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Take your point, but I think that side looks really short of goals.
You've got two high scoring midfielders, Martial that, if given opportunities, will put the ball in the back of the net and Rashford, who I think will really kick on this season.
 

kirk buttercup

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Mctominay and Fred coukd play In the DM role for now . Get AWB Maguire Bruno and James done this year . Next year go after Sancho and a DM . Oh & just made full member thanks everyone ,love this forum great to chat with you all it makes me laugh and feel part of the greatest football club in the world your a good bunch .
 

Eric's Seagull

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Mctominay and Fred coukd play In the DM role for now . Get AWB Maguire Bruno and James done this year . Next year go after Sancho and a DM . Oh & just made full member thanks everyone ,love this forum great to chat with you all it makes me laugh and feel part of the greatest football club in the world your a good bunch .
Fred deserves one more year to prove himself in my opinion. He has had his season to get used to the league and now needs to step up to mantle or he can leave next summer and Matic can go as well.
 

Le Red

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Not sure this is how it works! So unless people can provide you with an alternative midfielder to quench muppet thirst shouldn’t get in your way with this one?!

This thread has been running on fumes for ages, powered by hopes and dreams.
Unless you want me to believe we are not moving for any midfielder at all, I'd like to hear about other possibilities, because our current midfield is nightmare stuff.
Call this muppetry all you want, but at least there is way more noise about Bruno and Longstaff than any other midfielder. It's only natural they'll be the most commented on.
If I didn't want to hear about names we're linked with, I would not be in a transfer gossip forum.
God I hate transfer windows, can't the football start already?
 

Brophs

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You've got two high scoring midfielders, Martial that, if given opportunities, will put the ball in the back of the net and Rashford, who I think will really kick on this season.
Fernandes is scoring in a lesser league. I’d be surprised if he can score at anything like that rate in England. Pogba did well last season with 13 but he’s got 24 PL goals since he returned. Martial’s best PL season is 11, I think? And Rashford had his best season last time and only got 10 PL goals (I got the stats from Transfermarkt, in case I’ve gotten any wrong).

I think we’d need a lot of things to go our way for that side to be genuinely competitive. Hope I’m wrong.
 

Fletchageddon

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Totally agree with your point in bold but my only concern would be Matic. Don't think his legs are good enough to br s regular starter anymore and think he should just be kept for the big games. Other than that looks a decent team mate.
Agreed, I think if you play Matic or Pogba you need another player with them who will do some running/ 'the work'. Matic because he's on the decline and Pogba because he's lazy AF. So a Pogba/Fernandes/Matic combo could be absolutely disastrous defensively.
 

Seven Seas Sardines

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If Fred could somehow make the DM spot his own, and AWB/Shaw can properly cover for Pogba and Bruno in Ole's high press system...

De Gea
AWB Lindelöf Maguire Shaw
Fred
Bruno Pogba
Greenwood Rashford Martial

 

Lennon7

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You have incredibly high standards. It'll be great. Add a CM in there and it will be amazing.
Yeah, add a top centre mid and it’ll be a whole lot better. But those 4 alone still leave huge gaps.
 

Lennon7

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De Gea
vB Lindelof Maguire Shaw
Matic
Bruno Pogba
James Martial
Rashford

Seems a pretty decent line-up if they click and play to their potential and with plenty of very decent back-up options.
Matic stands out to me there. He’s so far past it. Desperately need to get a new DM. The forward line looks a bit shite too if I’m honest, unless Rashford and Martial can finally start kicking on.
 

Lennon7

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Add in Longstaff plus a Lukaku replacement and it would be more than we hoped for.

Get the fax engineer in quick Ed.
“Add in Longstaff” and “it would be more than we hoped for” is a funny choice of words to stick in the same sentence. The cnuts played less than 10 games, we don’t have a clue how good he could be.
 

Red00012

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Add in Longstaff plus a Lukaku replacement and it would be more than we hoped for.

Get the fax engineer in quick Ed.
Get a grip they want €50 million for someone who’s played 9 games in the PL. they can keep him , the way his club is going they’ve a good chance of getting relegated . They won’t get half of it if they do.
 

croadyman

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I am starting to agree with people who say this looks like Gaitan,Garay & Sneijder of previous summers.
 

Wheato

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I would like that

Martial ------ Rashford
--- Bruno---
Pogba --------- ?
---- Fred ------
Shaw---- Lindelof-Maguire- AWB
---- DDG---

I think we'll set up like this

Martial-----Rashford--------James
-------Pogba--------Bruno
------------McTominay>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(Longstaff, Matic, Fred)
Shaw---Lindelof---Maquire--AWB
-------------De Gea
 

sherrinford

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Earlier in the season Neveille said that ole wants to play a 4-2-2-2 like how watford play. If this is the case we dont need the DM, but will play with two double pivots who would share the defensive and play making burden. It would look something like this

rash martial
pog bruno
fred mctom
Too narrow for me. Not a desirable set up.

Half-regular, I'd say. And he's been largely underwhelming.

For France he has played a more "subdued" role, and done well, but not for United. Playing a simpler, more disciplined game in a team that features several world class attackers is very different from doing so in a pivot behind an unproven at the highest level AM (Bruno), and any combination of forwards who all have question marks over their heads.

If Pogba develops his game further as a more conventional CM - then yes, by all means, he'd be a great choice for the role on a permanent basis. I don't see that easily, though: I don't see him shining properly, pulling up trees, in a run-of-the-mill CM capacity. Not over the course of a season in this United team.

With regard to the other point, I don't think Pogba in the free-ish role I refer to would clash with a creative AM - Pogba isn't a typical show-running playmaker, his strengths lie elsewhere: his brand of creativity is more unpredictable, ideally suited to serve as icing on the cake in a team that has someone else as the main, stable creative outlet. That player can be a deeper midfielder (like Pirlo at Juventus) - or an AM/No 10 type.
He played frequently in that role in his first two seasons here, but that changed last year, and he hasn’t been any more underwhelming or inconsistent than in the more advanced midfield position.

Mbappe and Griezmann are a dream for that player - who looks to build the play from deep - but then the other two players completing the attack for France were a tactically astute workhorse at left wing, in Matuidi, and a centre forward who never managed a shot on target the whole tournament, in Giroud. Yes, call his role in that team subdued/ reserved/ disciplined/ focused, but don’t mistake that for being peripheral/ insignificant - he was a big player for that side, second in influence only to Mbappe in my opinion.

Surely the idea, with United, is that we improve - bring in more quality and get more from what’s already here? Bruno Fernandes being unproven really means nothing, it’s all about just how good he is and the assumption, the hope, would be that he is good enough to take us up a level (no point signing him otherwise!). Also, any concern over a potential lack of quality in front of Pogba from a deeper role surely applies all the same in a more advanced position - regarding who is lining up around him and in behind him?

I can’t think of a player for that run-of-the-mill central midfield role, who we could get, who could match or exceed what Pogba can give us there right now. A Xavi, Scholes or Modric type. Or the type of holding player who provides the same kind of progressive play from a no.6 position like Xabi Alonso or Pirlo.

I’m struggling to envision the shape involving both Pogba in a ‘free’ left sided role and a no.10, assuming that your idea of ‘free’ is in the sense that players like Fabregas, Lampard, Gerrard and Yaya Toure required the security of two more reserved teammates in midfield to give them the license to abandon that area in attack, and not in the sense that Scholes (with Keane) or Vieira (with Gilberto Silva) were free to move forward in supporting the attack from a deeper role with their midfield partner anchoring (as that would be the role which I am advocating for Pogba).
 

Eric's Seagull

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I think we'll set up like this

Martial-----Rashford--------James
-------Pogba--------Bruno
------------McTominay>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(Longstaff, Matic, Fred)
Shaw---Lindelof---Maquire--AWB
-------------De Gea
Seems decent team as long as McTominay keeps on progressing which zi think he will do as he follows Ole's instructions fully which is a great thing to have between manager and player.
 

Chesterlestreet

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I’m struggling to envision the shape involving both Pogba in a ‘free’ left sided role and a no.10, assuming that your idea of ‘free’ is in the sense that players like Fabregas, Lampard, Gerrard and Yaya Toure required the security of two more reserved teammates in midfield to give them the license to abandon that area in attack, and not in the sense that Scholes (with Keane) or Vieira (with Gilberto Silva) were free to move forward in supporting the attack from a deeper role with their midfield partner anchoring (as that would be the role which I am advocating for Pogba).
I've argued before that Pogba wasn't really a part of Juve's central midfield at all when he operated in his free AM role: he'd often occupy the space normally associated with a wide forward, roughly. (but slightly deeper).

That particular role doesn't clash with a No 10 type, and said No 10 would have two CMs (a holder and an all-rounder, say) behind him, both of whom would be much more restrained than Pogba (and the No 10).

Again, he could work in the capacity you suggest as well - but I don't think this role would bring out the best in him as he currently tends to play. Some people think he was brilliant for France at the last World Cup - I don't think he was myself. He was good, not great: as a purely attacking midfielder, on the other hand, he is a pretty much unique player in today's game - he brings something special to the table, something that can in theory, at least, be a real ace up the sleeve IF you manage to accommodate him.
 

Red Pavan

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You have incredibly high standards. It'll be great. Add a CM in there and it will be amazing.
I think we still fall well short of the top teams in Europe with their attacking talent. We are dependant on Rashford, Martial and James to score the goals and that is not a very inspiring forward line when you compare it to Liverpool, Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Man City, PSG or even the likes of Bayern, Dortmund or Atleti.
 

Shakesy

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I think we still fall well short of the top teams in Europe with their attacking talent. We are dependant on Rashford, Martial and James to score the goals and that is not a very inspiring forward line when you compare it to Liverpool, Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Man City, PSG or even the likes of Bayern, Dortmund or Atleti.
We should seriously only concern ourselves with rivals for top 4. It sucks. But with those signings we will likely finish above Arsenal and Chelsea. Although... Chelsea scares me for some reason this year... Bloody Lampard.
 
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