Said this before, but there is hypocrisy in this approach on here.
For example, Wan-Bissaka, Fred and Maguire have been players many have agreed need to be replaced on here. Yet they all score brilliantly in certain metrics. Not ‘wafty ones’ either - very key metrics related to their position. For example, Wan-Bissaka would typically top the tackles made chart in the league, and Maguire would score very high for aerial duels won. Both are extremely important metrics for defenders. Fred, I’m sure, wins possession more than most midfielders in the league. That said, many have concluded that despite these stats, key stats too, they are not good enough players.
Every conversation can’t just be dismissed with a G+A argument. Wan-Bissaka, for example, must be replaced because the argument is that he does not help us play the way we want to as a team. It isn’t so much a statistical case at all. The argument is his technique. Not his tackles, speed. What an upgrade would look like, reading the forum, is someone with a better touch. It is seemingly easy for people to make that argument with Wan-Bissaka, a darn full-back, yet people refuse to look beyond simple numbers for a far more crucial role to the team’s play when it comes to Bruno.
Bruno posts good figures, but he doesn’t improve our play, and on the contrary, inhibits our play more often than not when he is doing anything other than creating or scoring a goal. I think this is where some people take issue. We can see his G+A just as clearly as we can see AWBs tackles completed, or Fred’s recoveries per game. However, we recognise that as a team, we need to function well as a unit that gets the best out of each other. Certain players don’t have the requisite qualities to do that, even if they, in isolation, appear to do their jobs well. I could go on. De Gea could point to his own brilliant statistics in terms of being a goalkeeper who excels at saving the ball. Yet I’ve read countless posts that he is not good enough because of how he plays the game. ‘He doesn’t come off his line enough’ - these are stylistic arguments that are claimed severely impacts the entire way the team plays. Some people still think De Gea is a ‘world class’ keeper, and I imagine that is by way of the same process that Bruno is apparently a ‘word class attacking midfielder’. However, many people don’t see De Gea as WC at all. They want us to get say, Robert Sanchez because he is technically better, but make sniggering comments if other suggest a 10 with cleaner technique than Bruno, even if he has a lower G+A - similarly to how Robert Sanchez saves less shots.
People are happy to make these arguments daily, but there is a huge blind spot with many when it comes to Bruno, despite, IMO, his deficiencies being both as glaring and as detrimental to our team as Wan-Bissaka’s or De Gea’s.