[Marwood]

isn’t just as big an assumption that we wouldn’t get anyone else in?

I have seen our transfer dealings over the last few years.

No, I don’t think Bruno has been a really good signing.




That doesn’t test any theory because Bruno is now included as a variable and the team took this weird unbalanced direction with him in it. A midfielder that’s not particularly great at carrying the ball, gives it away cheaply, and constantly makes bad decisions. Not to say VdB was or would ever have been the answer, but to point at players that have failed after Bruno being signed and extrapolating the same would have happened if Bruno hadn’t been signed is flawed. Especially cause Bruno getting minutes, even when being incredibly awful, has directly impacted said player’s opportunities

Bruno being our best player is a myth.

The scouts being wrong before or after isn’t mutually exclusive with them being right about Bruno. They were right about Bruno. The highlighted issues on that report are salient to us every match day now.

even a bum like Mctominay knows it:

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What was the football like before Bruno arrived? The football you think he has moved us away from.

And really, McTominay a "bum?"

 

[Adnan]

If the plan was to keep Pogba, then signing a midfielder who had the ability to play in a deeper role would've been far better for team balance than signing Bruno.

Our scouts were correct but it's what Simon (Wells) says that mattered to Solskjaer.

 

[Rozay]

But you did say signing Bruno has stopped us going a different way when clearly it hasn't.

We've got DvB and Pogba in the squad. If the club and managers want to try something different they can. We've also spent plenty of money elsewhere since he arrived.

Bruno isn't stopping anything.

It's this habit of placing a player at the centre of problems. As if the team is built around Bruno. People do the same in the Ronaldo thread.

No one player dictates the teams approach. We're playing the same disjointed stuff now that we did before Bruno arrived.

You get a whole team performing and you can definitely have Bruno as part of that and be successful.

Ffs - signing him and then ‘playing’ him has prevented this. Yes, we have other players, but we play Bruno, which is what I’m discussing, the existence of Bruno in our team, let’s not get into pedantry. They obviously haven’t wanted to ‘try something different’, so therefore, any conversation about the impact of Bruno in our team is what we are discussing.

Bruno is stopping something. He is impacting us from consistently keeping shape and consistently keeping possession. Whether we were disjointed before we signed Bruno is irrelevant. If we saw that as an issue and instead sought to buy players that correct it, then perhaps we wouldn’t be anymore. But we didn’t go in that direction, and as a result, we are still playing a game of chance every week. The fact is, the other midfielders are not good enough for it either, and I’m sure you can find enough examples of people saying so. They also impact us keeping possession, but there is a consensus that they do, and not one that Bruno does, so I’m pointing out his role in it, in my view.

I also have an issue with the shape, not just us keeping possession (although they are linked tbh, we would keep the ball better if we had more numbers in certain areas) - but I feel like Bruno is often a bit too high.

I get that he creates a lot of chances and has a good goals record. Just like Aguero scored a lot of goals but Pep didn’t see him as the right fit, or Aubameyang likewise with Arteta. I suspect we may see a drop there in the short term if he wasn’t on the pitch, but ultimately - I am of the view that us keeping the ball better (which is not on him alone) and having better team structure would see us create more once we get it right.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

His all-round play has been a struggle to watch recently. It seems like he's trying to shoulder all the responsibility to create in the absence of everyone stepping up and taking more risk than usual, which combined with being bang out of form means most of what he tries isn't coming off. He's still trying his hardest and was the only player still making runs behind in the last few minutes against City, but it's clear he's frustrated and that seems to only be making things worse. The problem is that we don't really have the luxury of resting him because, even off-form and playing badly, he's still our most creative player and we're far more likely to score goals with him on the pitch than we are with him off it.

The criticism he gets is justified in one sense but daft in another. Justified in that he is playing poorly, daft in that he's the least of our problems at the moment and is probably the only outfield player we have who has demonstrated he can play at a consistently high standard in the Premier League. Occasionally it gets to ridiculous levels where he's blamed for the inability of other players to do their jobs. Apparently the reason we can't control games has little to do with our midfield losing their battles or our defence shipping goals out of nowhere - it's Bruno's fault for losing the ball a relatively normal amount for a player in his position.

 

[Marwood]

Ffs - signing him and then ‘playing’ him has prevented this. Yes, we have other players, but we play Bruno, which is what I’m discussing, the existence of Bruno in our team, let’s not get into pedantry. They obviously haven’t wanted to ‘try something different’, so therefore, any conversation about the impact of Bruno in our team is what we are discussing.

Bruno is stopping something. He is impacting us from consistently keeping shape and consistently keeping possession. Whether we were disjointed before we signed Bruno is irrelevant. If we saw that as an issue and instead sought to buy players that correct it, then perhaps we wouldn’t be anymore. But we didn’t go in that direction, and as a result, we are still playing a game of chance every week. The fact is, the other midfielders are not good enough for it either, and I’m sure you can find enough examples of people saying so. They also impact us keeping possession, but there is a consensus that they do, and not one that Bruno does, so I’m pointing out his role in it, in my view.

I also have an issue with the shape, not just us keeping possession (although they are linked tbh, we would keep the ball better if we had more numbers in certain areas) - but I feel like Bruno is often a bit too high.

I get that he creates a lot of chances and has a good goals record. Just like Aguero scored a lot of goals but Pep didn’t see him as the right fit, or Aubameyang likewise with Arteta. I suspect we may see a drop there in the short term if he wasn’t on the pitch, but ultimately - I am of the view that us keeping the ball better (which is not on him alone) and having better team structure would see us create more once we get it right.

I think we got there in the end.

Bruno alone hasn’t stopped anything. He alone hasn’t stopped us playing a different way.

It's actually Bruno along with about six other players (i.e. most of the team) preventing us from playing a possession game.

Equally culpable the managers who keep signing and playing guys who can't pass.

Which in summary is what we all know. The management and players need changing on a mass scale.

Taking Bruno out and changing him won't solve or change or unlock anything because this is a team game.

 

[Owen11]

His all-round play has been a struggle to watch recently. It seems like he's trying to shoulder all the responsibility to create in the absence of everyone stepping up and taking more risk than usual, which combined with being bang out of form means most of what he tries isn't coming off. He's still trying his hardest and was the only player still making runs behind in the last few minutes against City, but it's clear he's frustrated and that seems to only be making things worse. The problem is that we don't really have the luxury of resting him because, even off-form and playing badly, he's still our most creative player and we're far more likely to score goals with him on the pitch than we are with him off it.

The criticism he gets is justified in one sense but daft in another. Justified in that he is playing poorly, daft in that he's the least of our problems at the moment and is probably the only outfield player we have who has demonstrated he can play at a consistently high standard in the Premier League. Occasionally it gets to ridiculous levels where he's blamed for the inability of other players to do their jobs. Apparently the reason we can't control games has little to do with our midfield losing their battles or our defence shipping goals out of nowhere - it's Bruno's fault for losing the ball a relatively normal amount for a player in his position.

Stop making ridiculous excuses.

Nobody is hiding, we have Pogba (one of the most technically gifted players of this generation), jadon Sancho who's also great technically and creatively.

The reason Bruno Fernandes is trying all those ridiculous "hope for the best" long balls is because he's a selfish player with poor positional sense, poor hold up and poor technic. nobody needs him to do everything by himself,we have Pogba, Sancho, rashford, martial and Ronaldo all of whom has won more than him and are better technically.
He's not the best player in this team and needs to stop being so selfish, this isn't sporting Lisbon.

His criticism is not daft in any sense and he's also a big reason why we can't build play. Watch the way Pogba, Mata, scholes and giggs played midfield, he doesn't recycle the ball properly at all, he's either looking for a killer pass or taking shots from ridiculous angles, it's incredible infuriating and frustrating.

He needs to be cautioned or benched.

 

[Rozay]

I think we got there in the end.

Bruno alone hasn’t stopped anything. He alone hasn’t stopped us playing a different way.

It's actually Bruno along with about six other players (i.e. most of the team) preventing us from playing a possession game.

Equally culpable the managers who keep signing and playing guys who can't pass.

Which in summary is what we all know. The management and players need changing on a mass scale.

Taking Bruno out and changing him won't solve or change or unlock anything because this is a team game.

And if you would like me to go to Scott McTominay’s thread and discuss his limitations I am happy to do so with you. But as for Bruno, he is amongst the problems, and my position is a team with him in it doesn’t flow the way it should. Before we signed him, we could have gone a different direction and tried to start building a team with different qualities, but we didn’t. And as a result, we will still remain the side that we are, which isn’t good enough.

And yes, the managers are equally culpable for signing these players. And Bruno is one of these players, which was the whole point of the conversation when ot was said that the scouts assessment should have stood and we should not have signed a wasteful player, which you basically said was incorrect and we should have. But are now saying the manager should be held accountable for signing players who do not keep the ball. So indeed, we did get there in the end.

 

[Marwood]

And if you would like me to go to Scott McTominay’s thread and discuss his limitations I am happy to do so with you. But as for Bruno, he is amongst the problems, and my position is a team with him in it doesn’t flow the way it should. Before we signed him, we could have gone a different direction and tried to start building a team with different qualities, but we didn’t. And as a result, we will still remain the side that we are, which isn’t good enough.

And yes, the managers are equally culpable for signing these players. And Bruno is one of these players, which was the whole point of the conversation when ot was said that the scouts assessment should have stood and we should not have signed a wasteful player, which you basically said was incorrect and we should have. But are now saying the manager should be held accountable for signing players who do not keep the ball. So indeed, we did get there in the end.

If you were in the McTominay thread saying he alone has sent the team in a negative direction I'd ve saying the same there. No one player has that influence.

Of all the signings/players to sight as a negative pivot point for the team Bruno should be bottom of the list.

 

[Redlyn]

If you were in the McTominay thread saying he alone has sent the team in a negative direction I'd ve saying the same there. No one player has that influence.

Of all the signings/players to sight as a negative pivot point for the team Bruno should be bottom of the list.

Except he isn't saying that. He is saying Bruno is one of our problems. Immediately after the line you bolded. So Basically the right signing could have helped to steer us in the right direction but instead Bruno just adds to our problems.

 

[Marwood]

Except he isn't saying that. He is saying Bruno is one of our problems. Immediately after the line you bolded. So Basically the right signing could have helped to steer us in the right direction but instead Bruno just adds to our problems.

He is saying that. You've taken one sentence out of a long exchange where Rozay has backtracked slightly.

Read the full exchange and you'll see Rozay and a few others really believe Bruno has stopped the entire team from developing in a certain way. It's nonsense. Again you're saying the right signing. There is still nothing stopping us making the right signing. We signed Beek after Bruno didn't we? So Bruno isn't stopping us from looking at attacking midfielders.

Like I said before, you've got folk in the Ronaldo thread saying the same about him.

You get a functioning team around him, one that can keep the ball in the opposition half and Bruno's stats will go through the roof.

Yeah he's too loose with the ball, he needs to sharpen up on that. But certain players should be allowed more wiggle room because of what else they bring you.

Walker and Sterling aren't exactly typical Pep players but they're in the team because they bring something the others can't.

Bruno is that player for us.

Right now he's struggling but any players game will eventually decline playing in a poor team week in week out.

It's something ex pros like Keane, Neville and Scholes miss. They never played in bad teams(Keane for a season when he was young maybe). They were always surrounded by top quality. They never had that challenge of maintaining their own high standard in a badly disfunctioning team.

You could put De Bruyne in this United team and eventually what's going on around him would eventually chip away at his own game.

 

[RedDevil250]

Looked much better going forward without him. I hope he misses the Atletico match as well. He disrupts our attack badly, especially against bigger teams.

 

[Rozay]

Looked much better going forward without him. I hope he misses the Atletico match as well. He disrupts our attack badly, especially against bigger teams.

I feel we missed him today solely because he can run more than Pogba. Now I’m not one of those who values running around above all, but against good sides like Spurs (sort of) and Atletico, we need to put pressure on the man on the ball and Pogba struggled badly with that today.

 

[Gottabekiddingme]

He should start being worried for his spot.

 

[lex talionis]

We missed Bruno, but we also looked more cohesive without him. The man is a swashbuckling footballer who would improve if he sharpened his short passing game.

 

[Greck]

I feel we missed him today solely because he can run more than Pogba. Now I’m not one of those who values running around above all, but against good sides like Spurs (sort of) and Atletico, we need to put pressure on the man on the ball and Pogba struggled badly with that today.

We didn't miss him merely because Pogba was shite. They have big flaws when they have to perform against press intensive midfields. I definitely didn't miss the get the ball over the top to Ronaldo nonsense. Sancho as a primary creator was nice. I also enjoyed watching CR drop into the number 10 pockets. I don't think CR and Bruno make each other better tbh.

 

[Canagel]

He wasn't missed simply because he goes missing in big games.

 

[Kag]

Did you halfwits watch Pogba today?

Bruno walks back into the side and, in spite of his flaws, is still an incredibly important player for us.

 

[flappyjay]

Not going for hail Mary passes every 10 seconds can be a good thing.

 

[El Jefe]

We missed him in parts but showed we can definitely play without him especially if Pogba could run for more than 55 minutes.

We benefitted from more of the play going through Sancho and looking a bit more structured in midfield. With the way today's game went his rogue presses and carelessness in possession could have been costly.

 

[Yagami]

Did you halfwits watch Pogba today?

Bruno walks back into the side and, in spite of his flaws, is still an incredibly important player for us.

Our best chance of winning in the big games is him on the bench.

not good enough to start but a great option to have if we need to go gung-ho for a goal.

 

[Kag]

Our best chance of winning in the big games is him on the bench.

not good enough to start but a great option to have if we need to go gung-ho for a goal.

Rubbish. There’s zero evidence to support this view.

 

[united for life]

Looked much better going forward without him. I hope he misses the Atletico match as well. He disrupts our attack badly, especially against bigger teams.

have we not had good games offensively with him on the pitch? Having him on the pitch today would’ve actually been better than having pogba. He performs best in open games like this. He might have scored in a game like this. The disrespect this man gets is unreal. Hoping he misses the game? He disrupts our attack? The man with the most goals and assists since joining us? He’s done so much and still we get comments like this…

 

[Yagami]

Rubbish. There’s zero evidence to support this view.

There's evidence in every big game he's played in bar PSG away in the group stage last year.

We don't win today with him starting.

 

[Someone]

Think we missed him today, Pogba was terrible, and in the first half we needed someone like Bruno badly.

 

[Kag]

have we not had good games offensively with him on the pitch? Having him on the pitch today would’ve actually been better than having pogba. He performs best in open games like this. He might have scored in a game like this. The disrespect this man gets is unreal. Hoping he misses the game? He disrupts our attack? The man with the most goals and assists since joining us? He’s done so much and still we get comments like this…

Indeed. We were absolutely appalling today. How anyone can use this game as some sort of argument in favour of looking better without Bruno is folly.

Ronaldo won the game for us. Apart from that we were pathetic.

 

[charlenefan]

Our best chance of winning in the big games is him on the bench.

not good enough to start but a great option to have if we need to go gung-ho for a goal.

There's evidence in every big game he's played in bar PSG away in the group stage last year.

We don't win today with him starting.

Fecking hell

 

[Kag]

There's evidence in every big game he's played in bar PSG away in the group stage last year.

We don't win today with him starting.

He’s started in plenty of ‘big game’ wins.

We won today because of Ronaldo and Ronaldo alone, in one of our worst performances of the season.

Strange take, this.

 

[Yagami]

Fecking hell

It's funny that people laughed when I said this when Bruno was actively hindering us in every big game, and now that we win a big game without him it's still crazy.

We're a better team without him.

 

[united for life]

Indeed. We were absolutely appalling today. How anyone can use this game as some sort of argument in favour of looking better without Bruno is folly.

Ronaldo won the game for us. Apart from that we were pathetic.

i expected that by some overly excited fans. But still annoys me!

 

[Yagami]

He’s started in plenty of ‘big game’ wins.

We won today because of Ronaldo and Ronaldo alone, in one of our worst performances of the season.

Strange take, this.

We also won because we played as a team. We didn't have one player going for glory every chance he got.

 

[pratyush_utd]

He could have replaced Rashford and we would have still won the game

 

[Viral United]

It's funny that people laughed when I said this when Bruno was actively hindering us in every big game, and now that we win a big game without him it's still crazy.

We're a better team without him.

We won because of Ronaldo, we are not better team without him for sure.

 

[V.O.]

He could have replaced Rashford and we would have still won the game

I could have replaced Rashford and we would have still won the game.

 

[shamans]

He's lucky our alternative in Pogba can be lazy sunday league level at times. For us to mature as a club and move forward, I really don't think Bruno has a spot. Too much of a luxury player that imbalances the squad.

 

[Greck]

Sorry but it's incredibly idiotic to make it about Pogba. Neither player has made a case in big games. Bruno shat the bed last week and Pogba this week yet some want to force a decision between one or the other. How about neither. We can get back to the top without building around big game choke artists.

 

[Yagami]

We won because of Ronaldo, we are not better team without him for sure.

And Ronaldo was able to flourish because the team behind him played as a team. We only conceded because of two mistakes, and we could've scored more ourselves outside of Ronaldo.

if he starts against Atletico, I hope you're all right, but I think his best role in big games should be as a super sub. If we're losing, he comes on and takes all the risks he wants. If we're winning, his work rate could see us through when defending the lead.

 

[pratyush_utd]

I could have replaced Rashford and we would have still won the game.

Fair enough

 

[McGrathsipan]

I didnt even realise he wasnt playing.

Dont think he was missed

 

[charlenefan]

It's funny that people laughed when I said this when Bruno was actively hindering us in every big game, and now that we win a big game without him it's still crazy.

We're a better team without him.

A- Spurs isn't a big game
B- we beat Spurs earlier this season far more comfortably with Bruno in the team (he got an assist as well)

 

[Redlyn]

He’s started in plenty of ‘big game’ wins.

We won today because of Ronaldo and Ronaldo alone, in one of our worst performances of the season.

Strange take, this.

There is no way this is anywhere near one of our worst performances of the season with or without Ronaldo's goals. Fred, Sancho and Ronaldo all very good. In our very bad games it's poor all round.