Mata is lighter, weaker, slower with less acceleration and he also isn’t a dribbler, yet he knows exactly what to do with the ball and when to do it. He comes on and looks levels above as an actual footballer and on top of that, he gets clipped less and dispossessed less because his speed of thought is in another stratosphere yet there are groans when he is subbed in. If he were Bruno’s age, he would very probably take his role off him.
Dribbling is less of a problem than his spatial awareness and desire to play cohesively, imo. There are ways and means of negating a lack of both strength and dribbling deficiencies (see Mata), but Bruno doesn’t utilise them; the thought map contrast between the two could not be more different: Mata, ‘how can I best progress the play? What is the best option for me and my skilset right now?’ Bruno: ‘ARGH! BOMB! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!’ or: ‘Where is Ronaldo? I shall pass to him even if there are far better pass selections available!’ The latter reminds me of Tweek, the character from South Park; he is so antsy and panicked in his play. The things he opts for are often so needless and forced - if there’s a choice between an open teammate 15 yards ahead of you and a really low percentage Hollywood pass to a man covered by multiple opponents, why is he constantly picking the option that will see the ball turned over and thus putting us on the back foot for no reason whatsoever? Extrapolated over a season, it makes for a terrible rate of turnovers. A #10 should be nailed on to have a good game irrespective of whether he scores or assists; he has the responsibility of knitting the play and being the progressive conduit between deeper midfield and the forward line, which is troublesome when your #10 is the most wasteful player in the team.
I think something that is overlooked in this thread is that he has been ineffective for his country when asked to be a generic midfielder. You can point to us being a mess, but it isn’t the only body of work to assess him by - Bruno is not seamlessly chaining passes or working in the collective for his national team and rather than point fingers, the question should be asked of why that is. As a rounded, consummate #10, he has a lot of work to do to get up to par. Goals and assists are important, but they are not the be all and end all of the position, and he has to learn that otherwise his ineffective games (one in which he doesn’t assist or score) are going to continue to be appalling. Mata should not be capable of outshining him to such a degree at the age and profile he is - one, people want out the door as a non-playing entity, the other is on a fat new contract and is pretty much a bona fidelity starter by default… given those circumstances, there should be an absolute gulf between what they provide on the pitch, yet Mata looks like the better footballing brain by far.
He’s got a very interesting pre-season coming up, that’s for sure. For me, it’ll be an amazing conversion if a player of his age suddenly gets it and stops being Hollywood ball personified.
How long have you been following United?