He needs a rest, similar to Rashford, performance dip as he is clearly running on fumes
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 58
- Goals
- 28
- Assists
- 17
- Yellow cards
- 7
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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We’ve seen where we’d be. 6th. If we sold him & replaced him with someone or a couple of players that would help us jump from 2nd to 1st then I’d be all for it. My loyalty is for the club. I don’t care about replaceable employees, obviously some can earn legendary status (Fergie, Beckham, Giggs etc) but none in our squad have that. They are all replaceable as far as I’m concerned. Including Bruno.
I don't think Bruno is world class but take him out of our team and we'd be far worse off. Looking at his numbers from last season in all comps shows just how valuable player he is. 28 goals and 18 assists can't be bought. 3rd highest scorer in the PL only behind Kane and Salah can be bought but at what price? He's done it for the last 4/5 seasons on the trot so it's hardly a purple patch he's going through which is why there's no way in this world I'd get rid of him unless we're talking Neymar numbers.
I swear, some of us deserve Andreas and Lingard back as our only options at AM
Nope. If you are a top club surely you build around players who win you that many points and who are leaders in the squad.
Insightful stuff that. Unlike the rest of United fans who stopped supporting the club once their favourite legends such as Robson, Cantona, Keane, Becks, Giggs and Fergie left, oh wait …
Only a few people support the players/manager and not the club for obvious reasons (Portuguese people support us because of Ronaldo/Bruno; half of the United fan base supports Ronaldo’s clubs after he left us, the other half supports Messi’s club, Barca and BDL fans camping in the Pep threads defending everything he does, …).
Apart from that people just have different opinions. For example my support for Bruno is not different from your’s for Pogba. I genuinely feel that over an entire season Bruno is much more valuable to us than Pogba.
I wouldn’t sell Bruno even for 100 mil unless he himself wants to leave.
Happy that he's been dropped. Could do with the rest.
Now if Portugal get knocked out on Sunday that would be grand
(no offence to our Portuguese contingent, I just want Bruno to be given a proper rest).
Now if Portugal get knocked out on Sunday that would be grand
(no offence to our Portuguese contingent, I just want Bruno to be given a proper rest).They absolutely deserve mediocrity, because they can’t appreciate class. Your right.
No, me neither, he's a fundamental part of the squad and should remain so for many years to come.
A lot of modern fans seem to support players over the club it's self. I've seen United twitter accounts celebrating Bruno's poor performance last night. I've seen other United twitter accounts abusing Pogba. Some of the "Martial FC" lot celebrate Rashford misses. It's weird. If Pogba gets sold and replaced by someone who fits the team more and we progress because of it I would be delighted. Same with Bruno, Rashford, Shaw, De Gea, or any of our popular players. People always mistake thinking player A is better than player B for supporting player A over player B. My support for Pogba and Bruno is exactly the same, I don't celebrate Pogba goals more than Bruno goals. I don't care about either of them once they leave the club, I just think based off what I see Pogba is a better footballer. Bruno has certainly been a more valuable member of the squad over the last 18 months however. Neither are irreplaceable.
Selling Bruno for any amount of money is crazy talk. He's our best player and while it's undeniable he has serious flaws to his game, that's not a reason to sell him when we would never replace him in a decent manner.
What we should be doing is keep our best players and just continue to strengthen the rest of the squad. We are Manchester United, not Burnley. We shouldn't need to sell to buy a new player ffs
What we should be doing is keep our best players and just continue to strengthen the rest of the squad. We are Manchester United, not Burnley. We shouldn't need to sell to buy a new player ffs
Id sell him. We can still keep Pogba, obtain Sancho and if needs be use his money to fund Grealish who is two levels above him.
No he isn't. Grealish is more of a dribbler whereas Bruno provides a lot more with his goalscoring. Overall as creators they do about the same as each other, just Grealish does it through dribbling and passing while Bruno is more just off the ball movement and passing and quick touches.
This place is fecked. Bruno gets 28 goals and 17 assists in a season and suddenly he's shit and Grealish is better because he dribbles well ffs. Beyond that - we finally made a brilliant signing who has instantly become our talisman... and people looking at others? Ungrateful imo
Some threads on this site are just so absurd.
If stats are the reason he's so good then surely Rashford who got better non penalty stats than him is world class, our best player, irreplaceable, our talisman, etc?
And to be clear Bruno's a very good player. But he's not as good as people insinuate by stating his stats. If his main appeal was his all round play then there wouldn't even be any sort of debate, but Bruno's main appeal is his stats which are massively boosted by being the main set piece taker for Man Utd.
Thank God you're not associated with the club in any way then because that's utterly bonkers. Grealish is two levels above him perhaps right now because Fernandes is in poor form and looks knackered. Again, reactionary nonsense.
2 levels above him? On what grounds are you making these statements?
And what is the club to you then if it's not supporting the players (which you don't), supporting the manager (which you don't), if you don't care about replacable employees then I assume (which would explain a lot) your loyalty is to the owners seeings as they're the only ones not going anywhere
Bruno is so good because he is one of the best creators in the world. I posted it before, not arsed to do it again, but even if you strip away goals and assists and look at every other measurable statistic, he is an elite attacking midfielder. He gets incredible stats because he creates so many chances and gets himself in so many goalscoring chances.
The goal count is of course boosted by pens. But take away the pens and he is still at a KdB level of productivity on a per 90 basis. And a look at underlying numbers and they are pretty close to each other again. People complain about pass completion, but what do you know, Bruno and De Bruyne are pretty similar with that stat too. The people will say "well no, De Bruyne plays way more passes and is more involved in the possession and build up play"... Again, no, as they take pretty much the same amount of touches in the midfield 3rd, in the attacking 3rd, play the same amount of progressive passes, passes into the final 3rd, passes into the penalty area, key passes, etc. Any marginal difference in these stats (and yes, they are marginal in pretty much every passing stat, with Bruno ahead in some or De Bruyne in others) can easily be explained by a Pep system vs Ole system. Defensively again, very similar players with pressing stats in each 3rd of the pitch (Bruno a lot more in the defensive third and midfield third, probably system related), tackling, interceptions, you name it. In fact the only area of their games where there is an actual difference, is dribbling with the ball, where De Bruyne is pretty effective while Bruno is more a pass and move player rather than driving with the ball.
In fact on fbref, the #1 most similar attacking midfielder in Europe to De Bruyne is Bruno, based on their analytical profiles as players. Do take away their goals and assists, and De Bruyne vs Bruno is still a fair comparison, based on literally everything he does on the pitch. Grealish is right up there too with his dribbling and passing, but he lags well behind the other 2 in terms of being a goal threat, isn't as involved in deeper play per game, and doesn't do much defensively. All 3 are undoubtedly elite attacking midfielders. People complaining about Bruno are literally just doing a "grass is greener somewhere else". People aren't even willing to give him the benefit of doubt when he loses some form and ignore that he's literally played more matches than anyone else over the past year. And he runs like mad every game. People use that against him when others like Grealish and De Bruyne were out injured for months.
And besides.. why do people always say "strip the stats away". Without end product, you are nothing. It's literally the most important part of football. And Bruno is absolutely elite at it.
Jesus wept. Some of the posts. Bruno is our most important player.
To add, here's a statstical comparison between Bruno, De Bruyne and Grealish which Ignores "actual goals and assists" since people love to say if you ignore that he's nothing special. Per 90 stats over the past year comparing all attacking midfielders in the big 5 leagues. All 3 are elite creators, without a doubt, but each has their pros and cons (Grealish more of a dribbler but doesn't offer much goal threat and does feck all defensively, Bruno doesn't offer much with dribbling but remains an elite creator with his pass and move style (and of course, gets year on year goal numbers that the other 2 have never reached), while De Bruyne is obviously an incredible player and very complete, and offers Bruno's work rate and passing with very effective dribbling as well. You can reason that each team and system gives benefits to certain players for sure, but generally that won't have a massive impact on the numbers.
Easy way to look at it is the top/top right is goal threat, the right is creativity, bottom right is control, bottom left is dribbling, top left is defending.
Hes literally been our talisman since he stepped foot in the club. Stop complaining about our best player. He just needs a rest to recover and he'll be fine.
Easy way to look at it is the top/top right is goal threat, the right is creativity, bottom right is control, bottom left is dribbling, top left is defending.
Hes literally been our talisman since he stepped foot in the club. Stop complaining about our best player. He just needs a rest to recover and he'll be fine.
If some of you all children came home from school and said “look daddy I got an A in maths”, you’d reply “it’s not an A*, I want a new child”…
Take away his goals, assists, chances created, work rate and any other attributes that are his strengths then he is a nothing player.
What have the romans ever done for us.
Advocates keeping Martial because he is apparently in our top three players but bases it on nothing. Advocates selling Bruno and getting Grealish who is apparently two levels above Bruno and yet again bases it on nothing.
Looking into stats too much is almost as idiotic as paying no heed to it at all in a sport where goals and assists win you games.
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This is what having Asian parents is like...
The eye test. Jack Grealish is unreal. He just needs the right next platform. I don’t think City is it for how he plays. But I have no doubt he wouldn’t have gone hiding against Villarreal.
Was That written in Portuguese?
How to start a polarized debate 101.
Seriously. You probably have like 4 truly elite attacking midfielders in the world, based on their performances over the past year.
- De Bruyne
- Bruno
- Muller
- Grealish
He has had a poor end to the season, largely because he was played into the ground, but he's indispensable for us and incredibly hard to replace. His stats even without the pens are phenomenal and so is the impact he had on the team with his energy and ambition. No way would I sell him, that's madness.
There is some frustration regarding his ball retention and his short passing game, which is fair enough but also a bit miss-targeted. He isn't a metronome midfielder. We should have deep playmaker doing that job next to a harrier (Fred or McT) leaving Bruno to take the risks and trying the more ambitious stuff in the final 3rd.
Also we should have a plan B ffs. If he's having a really bad game, it's alright to sub him for someone else instead of playing him the full 90' and repeating this over until he's burnt out. The lack of rotation for him and Maguire was criminal.
There is some frustration regarding his ball retention and his short passing game, which is fair enough but also a bit miss-targeted. He isn't a metronome midfielder. We should have deep playmaker doing that job next to a harrier (Fred or McT) leaving Bruno to take the risks and trying the more ambitious stuff in the final 3rd.
Also we should have a plan B ffs. If he's having a really bad game, it's alright to sub him for someone else instead of playing him the full 90' and repeating this over until he's burnt out. The lack of rotation for him and Maguire was criminal.
Your dealer must be making a killing.
"How to miss sarcastic post 101"
I’m not arguing with you I think my post got lost in translation a bit, I think Bruno is a top player and really appreciate him at the club. There’s no doubt about it he’s one of the top players in the world atm even if his performances don’t always please people.
Its because they don't like his role for us and want him to be a different type of player. Goals and assists aren't an important metric for player like Bruno because they dont want a scoring midfielder. they want Xavi.
Don't even know why this is even a term. Goals are the single most important action in a football match. If all else is terrible, you win by scoring a goal. Its in the rulebook.
You'd think he's terrible
Absolutely. Pep has everyone gassed that there is one way of playing now and that's to have all the ball and every midfielder on 93% pass accuracy (De Bruyne does not have near this btw)
I agree but goals and assists are out of season. They aren't vogue atm. Pass pass pass!
United fans hate production and prefer aesthetics. Grealish deffo better in possesion with his dribbling and care of the ball too. He creates as much but has higher pass completion and gets dispossed less. We should get them both realistically. Has to be noted that Jack plays wide left where it is less congested so it would be interesting to see if it remained the same if he played central and against low blocks.
they say its luck and other players would do it better and more efficiently with the same freedom.
Good read.
They've been minimised on the caf to essentially an afterthought. Production is irrelevant because we can win games another way
Well hopefully you don't complain when your sarcastic posts result in page upon page of pointless arguing.
And just in case it isn't clear, no one's saying Bruno's a nothing player. He's a very good player.
Quality post as per usual.
I was agreeing with you! Just added he is one of the few elite players in his position and nobody would be much of an upgrade on him, if at all. De Bruyne is the best in the world as he offers everything Bruno does along with the added bit of ball carrying IMO, but the others people can't really say are better as players beyond just personal preferences (which is weird when Bruno has been so great for United. You'd think fans would appreciate him and his workrate).
Why should/would i care.
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