[Wing Attack Plan R]

If that was ETHs thinking, why did he make him captain?

Mind games

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

.

Yeah this is sort of always been my issue with Bruno. It’s always felt like he plays like a legendary midtable club player instead of one that’s looking to win major trophies. Tries the spectacular all too often with both his passes and shots. Puts in a heroic shift but sometimes at the risk of losing structure within the team. Loses composure when things are going wrong for him leading to a bit of a hero complex. If he played for West Ham he’d be a legend and one of their greatest players, but I’ve never thought his overall game is conducive to a side that’s looking to truly challenge for major honors. I had hoped Ten Hag would tweak some of those things but instead with this “I want to play transition football” mindset he’s sort of just enabled it instead

He’d have been a legend at Brighton - and then we would have bought him for £100 million, so there’s no way out of this vicious circle.

 

[ManchesterMats]

This man is not even close to good enough. His been a disaster for a year.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

He’d have been a legend at Brighton - and then we would have bought him for £100 million, so there’s no way out of this vicious circle.

Unironically a younger version of Bruno at Brighton would have been an interesting experiment to see if they could coach some of his terrible habits out of him sooner.

 

[Jeppers7]

Surprises me that this idea that he is our best player doesn’t get challenged.

On top form I’d have Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Casemiro, Rashford as better players in their respective positions. I’d also say that he’s incredibly inconsistent where the others anside from Rashford are way more consistent. So I don’t get that thought process.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Surprises me that this idea that he is our best player doesn’t get challenged.

On top form I’d have Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Casemiro, Rashford as better players in their respective positions. I’d also say that he’s incredibly inconsistent where the others anside from Rashford are way more consistent. So I don’t get that thought process.

He's our best player whose actions lead to goals/chances.

 

[Jeppers7]

He's our best player whose actions lead to goals/chances.

Apparently so !

 

[tomaldinho1]

Surprises me that this idea that he is our best player doesn’t get challenged.

On top form I’d have Martinez, Varane, Shaw, Casemiro, Rashford as better players in their respective positions. I’d also say that he’s incredibly inconsistent where the others anside from Rashford are way more consistent. So I don’t get that thought process.

He really reminds me of a footballing equivalent to ‘if a tree falls in the forest but there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?’

If Bruno tries ten passes and 9 lead to counters but one is an assist, is he a good player?

 

[NinjaZombie]

.

Yeah this is sort of always been my issue with Bruno. It’s always felt like he plays like a legendary midtable club player instead of one that’s looking to win major trophies. Tries the spectacular all too often with both his passes and shots. Puts in a heroic shift but sometimes at the risk of losing structure within the team. Loses composure when things are going wrong for him leading to a bit of a hero complex. If he played for West Ham he’d be a legend and one of their greatest players, but I’ve never thought his overall game is conducive to a side that’s looking to truly challenge for major honors. I had hoped Ten Hag would tweak some of those things but instead with this “I want to play transition football” mindset he’s sort of just enabled it instead

Well, he sort of is. We are an upper midtable club who has not competed for any major trophies in 10 years now. This is the level you get to by having someone like Bruno be your main man.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Well, he sort of is. We are an upper midtable club who has not competed for any major trophies in 10 years now. This is the level you get to by having someone like Bruno be your main man.

Classic chicken or egg problem.
Are we rubbish because Bruno plays for us, or does Bruno play for us because we're rubbish?

 

[Wilt]

Convinced he deliberately got himself carded so to miss the Liverpool game.

 

[DRJosh]

Bruno is an enigma. The most purposeful player in terms of chance creation and the most wasteful too in terms of passes

 

[100]

Bruno is an enigma. The most purposeful player in terms of chance creation and the most wasteful too in terms of passes

He’s just high risk/high reward. All the great players tilt one side of that. Bruno struggles to.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Bruno is an enigma. The most purposeful player in terms of chance creation and the most wasteful too in terms of passes

Not only that. He can also switch between showing fantastic attitude and terrible attitude. I thought his effort against Chelsea was incredible. He tracked back, made slide tackles and key interceptions. In other games we have seen him be extremely petulant, when the going gets tough.

 

[Lyng]

Not only that. He can also switch between showing fantastic attitude and terrible attitude. I thought his effort against Chelsea was incredible. He tracked back, made slide tackles and key interceptions. In other games we have seen him be extremely petulant, when the going gets tough.

Yup. Thought he was genuinly world class against Chelsea and pretty much the opposite against Bournmouth.

 

[JPRouve]

Not only that. He can also switch between showing fantastic attitude and terrible attitude. I thought his effort against Chelsea was incredible. He tracked back, made slide tackles and key interceptions. In other games we have seen him be extremely petulant, when the going gets tough.

I believe that I said it in the past but he is a slightly lesser version of Pogba. I say lesser because Pogba has shown a higher level against elite opposition but both have this strange ability to align 15 minutes of Football that go from great to absolutely terrible which happens every weeks and is their version of consistency. Also when they are off, they are nearly completely off but still can have that moment of brilliance that comes out of nowhere.

 

[Escobar]

The Rashford treatment would be apt, but I doubt ETH has this big balls to bench the captain. Who should never ever be captain for this club.

 

[justsomebloke]

Yup. Thought he was genuinly world class against Chelsea and pretty much the opposite against Bournmouth.

In my view he was pretty good against Bournemouth, and not really very different than he was against Chelsea - in both cases, he was at if not his top level, then at least the level you'd expect from him. Against Bournemouth his contributions were notably more from outside the box and less inside it than usual, but that probably also had something to do with how the opposition stacked up defensively.

I seriously don't understand how people are watching him to arrive at that conclusion, unless you've just stopped noticing the 10-15 times in a game he hits a successful creative pass, while overemphasising the limited number of times he strikes a badly off one. In this case, there were also multiple key defensive interventions. He was our best player by a clear distance.

EDIT: Just checked the stats in the match report, to see if there was anything there to make me adjust my assessment. There wasn't.

 

[Lyng]

In my view he was pretty good against Bournemouth, and not really very different than he was against Chelsea. I seriously don't understand how people are watching him to arrive at that conclusion, unless you've just stopped noticing the 10-15 times in a game he hits a successful creative pass, while overemphasising the limited number of times he strikes a badly off one. In this case, there were also multiple key defensive interventions. He was our best player by a safe distance.

His defensive actions against Chelsea where much better and he played more composed, lost the ball much more against Bournemouth.

 

[golden_blunder]

He’s definitely a player that splits fan opinion that’s for sure

 

[Lyng]

He’s definitely a player that splits fan opinion that’s for sure

Apparently Ratcliffe isnt exactly a fan of him....

 

[Rozay]

The Rashford treatment would be apt, but I doubt ETH has this big balls to bench the captain. Who should never ever be captain for this club.

The Rashford treatment wouldn’t make sense. We don’t have a better player than Bruno to come in to that role. Simply swapping Bruno for a different footballer isn’t the answer, especially swapping him for a footballer currently within our squad. Swapping Bruno-ball for measured ball, however, IS the answer IMO. Both approaches have the same action of Bruno being out of the team, however, they have very different outcomes.

The big problem here is that Ten Hag appears to be a borderline terrible coach and is a false philosopher with rubbish ideas. In our current team, swapping Bruno for Donny would weaken us a lot. If we played a different type of football, swapping Bruno for Donny would probably benefit us.

 

[Jeffthered]

Convinced he deliberately got himself carded so to miss the Liverpool game.

Me too.

It's all joke anyway, an inconsistent culture due to a manager in a job that's too big for him. Like the Captain's armband for Bruno.

 

[justsomebloke]

His defensive actions against Chelsea where much better and he played more composed, lost the ball much more against Bournemouth.

Really? He was disposessed once against Chelsea, not one time against Bournemouth. His pass completion was 72.7% against Chelsea, 81.7% against Bournemouth. Despite attempting 93 passes against Bournemouth, only 55 against Chelsea. He had 3 tackles + interceptions against Bournemouth, 2 against Chelsea. He recovered 11 loose balls against Bournemouth, 4 against Chelsea.

 

[zaafi]

Really? He was disposessed once against Chelsea, not one time against Bournemouth. His pass completion was 72.7% against Chelsea, 81.7% against Bournemouth. Despite attempting 93 passes against Bournemouth, only 55 against Chelsea. He had 3 tackles + interceptions against Bournemouth, 2 against Chelsea. He recovered 11 loose balls against Bournemouth, 4 against Chelsea.

His pass completion was 88% against Chelsea, genuinely created chances and had purpose behind his pressing and made good decisions throughout the game, something he struggles with very often.

He lost the ball 22 times against Bournemouth, so I'm not sure what you mean he didn't get dispossessed once here.

His overall game against Chelsea was much, much better than against Bournemouth. Statistically, he created more chances against Bournemouth, but honestly, he didn't create a single chance. Just goes to show the chances created stats is bollocks. Only thing that matters are big chances created.

 

[justsomebloke]

His pass completion was 88% against Chelsea, genuinely created chances and had purpose behind his pressing and made good decisions throughout the game, something he struggles with very often.

He lost the ball 22 times against Bournemouth, so I'm not sure what you mean he didn't get dispossessed once here.

His overall game against Chelsea was much, much better than against Bournemouth. Statistically, he created more chances against Bournemouth, but honestly, he didn't create a single chance. Just goes to show the chances created stats is bollocks. Only thing that matters are big chances created.

I have Fbref's match report right in front of me, with Opta data. 55 passes attempted, 40 completed. What are you looking at?
Manchester United vs. Chelsea Match Report – Wednesday December 6, 2023 | FBref.com

And he obviously wasn't dispossessed 22 times against Bournemouth, no one ever is. That must be the number of uncompleted passes (of which there were 17, according to Opta).

 

[zaafi]

I have Fbref's match report right in front of me, with Opta data. 55 passes attempted, 40 completed. What are you looking at?
Manchester United vs. Chelsea Match Report – Wednesday December 6, 2023 | FBref.com

And he obviously wasn't dispossessed 22 times against Bournemouth, no one ever is. That must be the number of uncompleted passes (of which there were 17, according to Opta).

I'm looking at sofascore. Bruno Fernandes stats and ratings | Sofascore

I watched every second of the Chelsea match, and there is no way he mispassed 15 times.

 

[André Dominguez]

The whole team is playing like dog turd, don't feel it's fair on him all the over the top criticism. I do agree he's not captain material though, he's very demanding for a player who's decision making is not very consistent.

 

[justsomebloke]

I'm looking at sofascore. Bruno Fernandes stats and ratings | Sofascore

I watched every second of the Chelsea match, and there is no way he mispassed 15 times.

It's the same data - but Sofascore lists crosses separately. He attempted 11 of those, completed 2. Add those to the passes, and the data is the same as Fbrefs. Same for the Bournemouth game. So there it is - he made a lot more passes against Bournemouth, and also completed a significantly higher proportion of them.

What he had against Chelsea that he didn't against Bournemouth was involvement in the box, shots, scoring chance involvement. This tends to figure more prominently in immediate impressions, and to disproportionately shape intuitive judgments. Other things then get rationalised into that picture.

And I'm not saying he was better against Bournemouth than he was against Chelsea. Just that he was good against Chelsea, and also good against Bournemouth.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Really? He was disposessed once against Chelsea, not one time against Bournemouth. His pass completion was 72.7% against Chelsea, 81.7% against Bournemouth. Despite attempting 93 passes against Bournemouth, only 55 against Chelsea. He had 3 tackles + interceptions against Bournemouth, 2 against Chelsea. He recovered 11 loose balls against Bournemouth, 4 against Chelsea.

G’way with your logic and “stats”. We lost so the Bruno haters are determined to fill their boots. They live for this. Don’t be mean.

 

[justsomebloke]

G’way with your logic and “stats”. We lost so the Bruno haters are determined to fill their boots. They live for this. Don’t be mean.

I fully intend to be coldly ruthless. An unrepentant Scrooge to the needy hater.

Seriously though, it's not always easy, eye test impressions. We all rationalise.

 

[Lyng]

G’way with your logic and “stats”. We lost so the Bruno haters are determined to fill their boots. They live for this. Don’t be mean.

Stats dont paint a correct picture here. Brunos game against Chelsea was magnificent. Like I said, to me he was world class.
Yes on paper he created the same against Bournemouth, but the passes he made and the chances where shite. He would constantly just fling the ball ahead, which sadly gets counted as a chance, even if there is more chance of Margot Robbie asking you to marry her, than the receiver of said pass to be able to do anything with it.
Whats the difference? He buckles as soon as we go behind. He becomes petulant. Heck he even kicked an opponent in the back for no reason other than the fact that he is a massive child when things arent going his way.
Its my one issue with him.
I dont mind him losing the ball at times because that will happen to a creative attacking midfielder. I dont even mind that his dribbling is non existing because he creates in a different way.
But the way his game is so driven on emotion is really a problem for us, especially since we are in a very difficult period.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I fully intend to be coldly ruthless. An unrepentant Scrooge to the needy hater.

Seriously though, it's not always easy, eye test impressions. We all rationalise.

I haven’t watched the game so can’t offer an opinion on his performance but the one factor I think creates the most distorted impression is recency bias. A player can be superb for 89 minutes but a loose pass or poor touch as the game comes to an end invariably means his performance will be slaughtered on here afterwards. The other big factor is the overall result/team performance. If we’ve lost badly and the team has been ooor overall then nobody is getting good ratings, no matter how well they played. And if that player is already a scapegoat, God help them…

 

[justsomebloke]

Stats dont paint a correct picture here. Brunos game against Chelsea was magnificent. Like I said, to me he was world class.
Yes on paper he created the same against Bournemouth, but the passes he made and the chances where shite. He would constantly just fling the ball ahead, which sadly gets counted as a chance, even if there is more chance of Margot Robbie asking you to marry her, than the receiver of said pass to be able to do anything with it.
Whats the difference? He buckles as soon as we go behind. He becomes petulant. Heck he even kicked an opponent in the back for no reason other than the fact that he is a massive child when things arent going his way.
Its my one issue with him.
I dont mind him losing the ball at times because that will happen to a creative attacking midfielder. I dont even mind that his dribbling is non existing because he creates in a different way.
But the way his game is so driven on emotion is really a problem for us, especially since we are in a very difficult period.

I'm not arguing that it is the stats making that argument. As far as I'm concerned, it was obvious watching the game that he delivered a good performance, the stats just corroborate it. For the actual areas of the game you argued that he did worse than against Chelsea, he demonstrably did better.

But rather than accept that, you're doubling down on your initial verdict of a world class performance against Chelsea and "the opposite" against Bourneouth, coming up with new reasons for it. "Constantly flinging the ball ahead which sadly gets counted as a chance"? Well, again there's the small matter of his having a much better pass completion in the Bournemouth game, so obviously there was a good deal more of that in that world class performance against Chelsea than there was against Bournemouth. To be specific, he attempted 10 long passes against Chelsea, and completed 3. Against Bournemouth he attempted 16 and completed 11. So maybe you should just stop making things up?

Obviously there were many more good chances created against Chelsea than against Bournemouth (xG about four times higher), but that's about the whole team performance. Obviously that also reflects on the individuals, but if you're looking for big dropoffs compared to Chelsea, Bruno isn't where you're going to find that.

So, in the end what you're left with is basically "too emotional"?

 

[Lyng]

I'm not arguing that it is the stats making that argument. As far as I'm concerned, it was obvious watching the game that he delivered a good performance, the stats just corroborate it. For the actual areas of the game you argued that he did worse than against Chelsea, he demonstrably did better.

But rather than accept that, you're doubling down on your initial verdict of a world class performance against Chelsea and "the opposite" against Bourneouth, coming up with new reasons for it. "Constantly flinging the ball ahead which sadly gets counted as a chance"? Well, again there's the small matter of his having a much better pass completion in the Bournemouth game, so obviously there was a good deal more of that in that world class performance against Chelsea than there was against Bournemouth. To be specific, he attempted 10 long passes against Chelsea, and completed 3. Against Bournemouth he attempted 16 and completed 11. So maybe you should just stop making things up?

Obviously there were many more good chances created against Chelsea than against Bournemouth (xG about four times higher), but that's about the whole team performance. Obviously that also reflects on the individuals, but if you're looking for big dropoffs compared to Chelsea, Bruno isn't where you're going to find that.

So, in the end what you're left with is basically "too emotional"?

You keep saying he had a much better stat completion when he didnt?? 88% against Chelsea and 85% against Bournemouth. How you get that to a much better pass completion in the Bournemouth game is something else.
And that XG is quite significant, since if he created the same amount of chances and was the one creating the most, and then at the same time our XG was significantly worse, clearly those chances can not have been as good.

 

[Escobar]

The Rashford treatment wouldn’t make sense. We don’t have a better player than Bruno to come in to that role. Simply swapping Bruno for a different footballer isn’t the answer, especially swapping him for a footballer currently within our squad. Swapping Bruno-ball for measured ball, however, IS the answer IMO. Both approaches have the same action of Bruno being out of the team, however, they have very different outcomes.

The big problem here is that Ten Hag appears to be a borderline terrible coach and is a false philosopher with rubbish ideas. In our current team, swapping Bruno for Donny would weaken us a lot. If we played a different type of football, swapping Bruno for Donny would probably benefit us.

Well, we can change a few things and see of we perform better overall, as a team.

 

[Lentwood]

The first goal on Saturday really optimises why you don't want Bruno playing in your own half.

It was a terrible pass, not just in its execution but because of the fact its very high-risk and very low reward. You can question McTominay's reaction/alertness but clipping little floaty, dinked passes into your CM, in his own half, with his back to goal is a recipe for disaster.

Again though...I don't understand why, if we as fans can all accurately identify Bruno's strengths and weaknesses, our manager consistently instructs him to play in a manner which doesn't suit him at all.

 

[DWelbz19]

Again though...I don't understand why, if we as fans can all accurately identify Bruno's strengths and weaknesses, our manager consistently instructs him to play in a manner which doesn't suit him at all.

It’s the constant things like this that feed into the idea that, maybe, Erik ten Hag isn’t quite the tactical mastermind we were expecting. The same tactical misgivings happen again and again and have been for the entire 18 months he’s been here.

 

[golden_blunder]

I’m surprised nobody has created a meme reel of his crying whining faces, I mean Phil jones got that treatment

 

[NZT-One]

The Rashford treatment wouldn’t make sense. We don’t have a better player than Bruno to come in to that role. Simply swapping Bruno for a different footballer isn’t the answer, especially swapping him for a footballer currently within our squad. Swapping Bruno-ball for measured ball, however, IS the answer IMO. Both approaches have the same action of Bruno being out of the team, however, they have very different outcomes.

The big problem here is that Ten Hag appears to be a borderline terrible coach and is a false philosopher with rubbish ideas. In our current team, swapping Bruno for Donny would weaken us a lot. If we played a different type of football, swapping Bruno for Donny would probably benefit us.

This is the current conundrome isn't it? And probably the reason, why so many in the debate seem to have such polarized positions. It is possible to want a players role changed (or even gone) while acknowledging how important he is to you.

I'm not arguing that it is the stats making that argument. As far as I'm concerned, it was obvious watching the game that he delivered a good performance, the stats just corroborate it. For the actual areas of the game you argued that he did worse than against Chelsea, he demonstrably did better.

But rather than accept that, you're doubling down on your initial verdict of a world class performance against Chelsea and "the opposite" against Bourneouth, coming up with new reasons for it. "Constantly flinging the ball ahead which sadly gets counted as a chance"? Well, again there's the small matter of his having a much better pass completion in the Bournemouth game, so obviously there was a good deal more of that in that world class performance against Chelsea than there was against Bournemouth. To be specific, he attempted 10 long passes against Chelsea, and completed 3. Against Bournemouth he attempted 16 and completed 11. So maybe you should just stop making things up?

Obviously there were many more good chances created against Chelsea than against Bournemouth (xG about four times higher), but that's about the whole team performance. Obviously that also reflects on the individuals, but if you're looking for big dropoffs compared to Chelsea, Bruno isn't where you're going to find that.

So, in the end what you're left with is basically "too emotional"?

I see your point and you are right, overall result will influence perception of an individual performance to a degree. But your premise in this debate is faulty to a degree because you act as if the fbref stats are a 1:1 "translation" of the game into numbers. Which it isn't necessarily. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to dismiss those numbers at all but obviously there are still things on the pitch, that aren't measured yet or ever will be. Like attempted long balls with low percentage, number of rushed decisions, perceived frustration levels and so on. Obviously - such factors are tricky to handle but they are part of the game just like the ones, that are measured right now. Which by the way is way more than what was measures 10 years ago or even 20 years ago.

If you thought, he had a good game, that is fine. Everybody deals with his own biases, what I can tell you is (and that seems to be the case with other posters), that his outing against BOU was frustrating to me because we have seen a typical "It's not going well"-Bruno performance in the last 30minutes. Hitting Hollywood passes, losing battles in midfield and so on. And it isn't just posters around here, iirc Neville was critical of him, Scholes is often critical I'd be shocked if he weren't last weekend. Same applies for McKola or UnitedPeoplesTV, at least the 2nd usually a big fan of the player from what I know. And it isn't just them, I follow a few Uniteds fan channels and most of them noted him as having a rather bad game. Not saying those people are the be all and end all, but it sets a little context.

Just saying it is overall frustration and agendas isn't going to cut it. Chelsea was disorganized, we seemed really up for it, against the Blues we pressed very differently then we did against BOU with more or less the front six playing very high most of the time. It was a very different match and while I would agree, that it is probably next to impossible to use a measure of good or bad to sum up a performance in a way that is accepted by many different people in a fan community, I think, your reasoningis not as solid as (you appear to) think.