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2021-22 Performances


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Adam-Utd

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This sums it up really.

Yes he makes mistakes and isn't faultless, but he keeps hammering away and eventually he will create a goal scoring chance which is what he's there to do.

Tonight he could have had 3-4 assists again. I get why people feel frustrated with him, but they are forgetting how bad we were without him.

He just needs to tidy it up a little and stop rushing on every attack - but I feel that's through the weight of expectation.
 

romufc

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People saying he should play the ball safe more, if he does that we do not get the first goal. No other player would have even attempted that pass. To be able to see Rashford's run and execute the pass is special.

When you attempt killer passes like those, it is obvious they won't come off all the time, if they did any odd player would be making them passes.
 

gajender

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It’s simple - we are nothing without Bruno.
God forbid he gets injured, we will be fecked
He is the engine, heart and soul of this team. Literally everything good we create is because of him.
Just plain and utter nonsense we aren't pulling up trees with Fernandes ,our underlying stats are more or less same even with him in the team it's not big stretch to say we would be more or less at similar level in terms of points even without him under this manager
 

captaincantona

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Ronny has changed the way we play in a drastic way and Bruno is carrying the can.

When it comes to being out of possession, I think of it like a car with 3 flat tyres and one good one. You don’t blame the one good tyre because the car is imbalanced. Also, if you took that tyre and put it into another car- say city or pool, that tyre would work perfectly. So how could the problem be Bruno and his rogue pressing?
 

Toshey

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Just plain and utter nonsense we aren't pulling up trees with Fernandes numbers it's not a stretch to say we would be more or less at similar level in terms of points even without him.
You are talking about points. I’m talking about our play.
 

Cassidy

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This sums it up really.

Yes he makes mistakes and isn't faultless, but he keeps hammering away and eventually he will create a goal scoring chance which is what he's there to do.

Tonight he could have had 3-4 assists again. I get why people feel frustrated with him, but they are forgetting how bad we were without him.

He just needs to tidy it up a little and stop rushing on every attack - but I feel that's through the weight of expectation.
9 chances? Are they sure
 

Vaibhav Raj

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You claimed it's the most productive way to get the best out of our players and directly linked it to the quality of our players and if despite Bruno's brilliant creativity our team is sub-par in creativity compared to its peers so what good is it to us playing this way.
Saying it is the most productive way to get the best out of the team doesn't equate to saying it is the best way of playing football. Saying Bruno Fernandes is laboured with having to offer all creativity by himself doesn't equate to saying the team is very creative overall.
 

Zlatan Ibrahomovic

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This guy is always the reason we lose game and orten the reason we win them. Not sure its worth it. A nice assist yesterday though.
 

Vaibhav Raj

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This guy is always the reason we lose game and orten the reason we win them. Not sure its worth it. A nice assist yesterday though.
What a stupid opinion considering most our problem comes from our inability to defend set pieces or defenders switching off. You couldn't name one game that we lost because of Bruno Fernandes.
 

Toshey

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This guy is always the reason we lose game and orten the reason we win them. Not sure its worth it. A nice assist yesterday though.
:eek:
surely this can’t be serious.
We have a fatal personal mistake from defenders every single game, yet fecking Bruno is the reason we lose.
feck off, really
 

hungrywing

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But that's it, they don't press, everyone knows they don't, so when he rushes a cb who then slides it to his partner who then slips it into midfield and suddenly its 3 v 2 in the centre of the park we are in trouble.

I'm not debating why we don't do it, that's for another thread, but the fact is we don't, and if one person does it and no one follows they can play out so easily.

Savage mentioned it a few times last night.
If we could press properly, one imagines that he'd get so many more of those break opportunities on which he seems to excel.

Seems a situation where it's weird that the staff don't tell him to not press so much on his own but also that they don't(?) see that if we press properly, Bruno would shine even more.
 

Adam-Utd

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9 chances? Are they sure
I can think of 4/5 off the top of my head, they might include free kicks won in dangerous positions etc also. Either way he's one of the best creative players in Europe.

This guy is always the reason we lose game and orten the reason we win them. Not sure its worth it. A nice assist yesterday though.
often the reason we lose? are you sure?
 

charlenefan

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My word can you imagine the abuse De Bruyne would get if he played here
 

arnie_ni

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If we could press properly, one imagines that he'd get so many more of those break opportunities on which he seems to excel.

Seems a situation where it's weird that the staff don't tell him to not press so much on his own but also that they don't(?) see that if we press properly, Bruno would shine even more.
Yea that's what I'm saying. He'd be a godsend for pep or klopp in that regard. But if we don't press as a team it actually hinders us.
 

Kramer

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Capable of the outrageous and it’s hard to criticise someone when they create so many chances. But in the first half, he was pretty erratic at times.

Absolute world class assist for Rashford’s goal.

Solskjaer needs to ask him to play as an 8. He shd be closer to the double pivot in midfield. Forget chasing down the opposition goalkeeper - completely wasted doing that.

Also, keep getting amazed at his work rate in every game. I keep wondering if he plays deeper and conserves all the energy from not pressing as the first man, might improve his %passes completed as well. He must be so winded half the time he receives the ball because he just never stops running.
 

GueRed

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Overall passing was well off last night.

First half he was woeful :D

But still contributed with the lovely assist to Rashford.

Hopefully turns it on against Liverpool this Sunday..
 

gajender

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Yea that's what I'm saying. He'd be a godsend for pep or klopp in that regard. But if we don't press as a team it actually hinders us.
Pep would utilise him similarly to DeBruyne infact there are lot of similarities between them and he would excel under Current version of Liverpool team as well . It would be interesting to see him under manager of similar ilk I have no doubt he would actually go another level up infact most of our team would.
 

largelyworried

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The problem with Bruno isn't Bruno himself. The problem is that he's another player that you have to partner up with compatible players, and there are only so many of those players you can fit into a team. Bruno needs to be given a free reign to move to wherever he thinks he can generate chances. But Ole doesnt seem to be able to get a team around him that allows him to do so without causing problems.

We need to make sure that the spaces that he leaves behind get filled. There's loads of ways to do that. We could have strikers that drop deep, wide players that prefer to come into central areas, we could play a super-compact high line and compress the play, we could play a 4-3-3 and have the other forward midfielder be someone who fills in the space he leaves to give us balance.

What you can't do is play him alongside two attackers who like to play wide, a deep-lying midfield behind and a striker ahead who sits in the penalty area. Because that just leaves us outnumbered in the middle of the park. This in turn makes it impossible to build effectively from the back and it gives the opposition loads of room to counter attack into.

I don't really have a strong view on the exact solution, there are probably several options, all with their own upsides and downsides. But I think that a forward line that contains Rashford, Bruno, Ronaldo and Greenwood just has no balance whatsoever, given how our midfield & defenders play. If we're going to stick with Bruno - which we probably should, given that he's our best creator - then we need to build around him.
 

TMDaines

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Or just someone who can help us control games, direct the play and spread confidence and composure, someone who can recognise when the rhythm’s not quite right and we need to shore up the foundations before going for the kill. Bruno is absolutely terrible at that, so it is true that when the opposition isn’t vulnerable to the bulldozer approach, when they are good at capitalising on loose passing and picking us off on the counter, he often hurts more than he helps.

That’s particularly obvious in big PL games and European games. He’s not going to get the ball often enough to lose it so frequently, and he’s not nimble enough to create those chances in crowded areas against elite players, so he’s often really easily nullified in those games and he becomes increasingly careless, always increasing the odds of the other team controlling the game. In this types of game, control tends to matter more than volume of chances because it’s so tight.

And because our flow is so heavily built around him going for the spectacular, the other attackers are faced with the choice of always going for the spectacular themselves or simply being a foil for him. It doesn’t allow us to get any rhythm. So when top teams mark him out of the game, as they often do, we look even more clueless than we otherwise would because we’re so unused to playing collaborative, coherent football with patient build up.

It’s weird that people can’t accept Bruno’s flaws when they’re staring you in the face. Some people weigh up his pros and cons differently, some people value risk taking activity and spectacular passes more than others, and so you can reasonably say he’s a brilliant player while acknowledging those faults. Other people prefer poise, patience, control etc. so his cons can outweigh his pros. But to shoot down any criticism of his flaws is just a bit silly. They’re there in literally every game.
This right here is it.
We all love Bruno, and he’s clearly been our catalyst in growth in the last 18 months or so - however at this stage it’s clear to see that either he’s given no instructions, or his instruction is to have a free role & do what he likes, probably borne out of the fact that he’s so ridiculously efficient in providing for us.

However, when we talk about our midfield - Bruno is the only consistent player in there, and he's often closer to the strikers or the wingers than he is to the midfield because he's often one of 2/3 players that press at any given time. Once our "press" gets thwarted, the opposing team now have a counter attack on, with 5/6 players running towards our midfield, CB pairing and whichever FB stayed back. It happens every time, then we wonder why every midfield pairing we have struggles to gain control.
When we do have the ball and are trying to build an attacking play, it's clear that the players are looking for Bruno to pass to, but often times he's up the other end of the pitch and Maguire will be in possession, so he passes it to Shaw, who passes it to Fred, who passes it back to Maguire, who passes it to Lindelof, who passes it to Fred etc and if we play a high pressing team, they can intercept us or cause errors like Leicester did for their first goal.

At this stage in our development if we are to succeed, he & the rest of the team need to be coached with instructions on what to do both in & out of possession. I don't think we need to be a high pressing team because 95% of matches the opposing team will let us have possession anyway. We need to be able to play quick 1-touch passes from defence to midfield to bypass the opposing press, with runners off the ball so that when Bruno gets the ball - in the midfield area - he should have 1 FB, and 3 attackers ahead of him, from there we can play the pass over the top, play 1-2s on the edge of the box, use a FB overlapping and cross a ball in etc.
We can't keep attempting to build play from the back, when our most creative midfielder is next to the attackers.
He was both the best and the worst player on the pitch last night. Proper Jekyl and Hyde performance.

The amount of chances he created was absolutely incredible - that assist for Rashford was special. However in the first half when as a group there were clear nerves, there has to be a balance between playing a Hollywood pass and keeping it simple - it just creates more anxiety throughout the team as once we lose the ball we aren't great at winning it back
I agree with all these posts. He needs to rein in his aggressive passing a bit, he needs to start from a deeper midfield position ordinarily (i.e. be closer to our defensive line), and he needs to not readily vacate the midfield to engage in a foolhardy lone press.

I can’t stop laughing about that second goal yesterday. It sums up Bruno so well. He’s such a disruptor and makes things happen in the game. We just need him to mature to ensure that we’re more readily claiming the benefits.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Just plain and utter nonsense we aren't pulling up trees with Fernandes ,our underlying stats are more or less same even with him in the team it's not big stretch to say we would be more or less at similar level in terms of points even without him under this manager
:lol:

You have to be kidding, surely? Did you not see any of our games when Ole tried to rest Bruno?!

This thread has a lot of surreal/bizarre posts but this one takes the biscuit.
 

TMDaines

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I don't really have a strong view on the exact solution, there are probably several options, all with their own upsides and downsides. But I think that a forward line that contains Rashford, Bruno, Ronaldo and Greenwood just has no balance whatsoever, given how our midfield & defenders play. If we're going to stick with Bruno - which we probably should, given that he's our best creator - then we need to build around him.
Sancho for Greenwood is the move that needs to be made for me, which will further help the balance. Greenwood is a great player, but he’s more of an attacking inside forward who really wants the ball in and around the opposition box. Sancho is someone far happier collecting the ball in deeper positions to help progress down the field, sucking defenders in, before release the ball and moving quickly.

You then have Rashford on the left running in behind. Ronaldo either probing in behind himself, or pulling wide left from the centre, creating those pockets of space for Rashford. Sancho is deeper on the right contributing more to the build up and linking with Bruno to feed the other two.
 

gajender

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:lol:

You have to be kidding, surely? Did you not see any of our games when Ole tried to rest Bruno?!

This thread has a lot of surreal/bizarre posts but this one takes the biscuit.
We got grand total of 74 points with him playing almost every game last season in the league , where our underlying stats pointed to even more modest total do you honestly believe we wont be in and around same total with our current options if that's the case Solskjaer is even worse manager than I currently give him credit for.
 

matsdf

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I think he`s been very poor lately, would like for him to rest a bit. I`d play Pogba more as a 10 against Liverpool instead.
 

André Dominguez

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Suddenly we have mancunians who are fans of "Guardiolismo" and want to play high possession and high passing rate football. Even if you don't like the player let me tell you a non-secret: if you sell him you will get much worse from the transfer market and spending more money.
 

Pogue Mahone

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We got grand total of 74 points with him playing almost every game last season in the league , where our underlying stats pointed to even more modest total do you honestly believe we wont be in and around same total with our current options if that's the case Solskjaer is even worse manager than I currently give him credit for.
I’m actually not sure what point you’re making here. But I can confirm we would definitely have had a hell of a lot less points if Bruno missed the whole of last season (or the season before). To try and argue our points total would be identical (or even similar) is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read on this website.
 

LoneStar

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Single handedly keeping Ole from getting the sack. And not the first time either. No wonder he is undropable under Ole. Credit to Ole I suppose, for not subbing him off after the first half, but then again, he never subs anyone off during HT.

I honestly think he would be much more effective under a better manager. Every game we play, the burden of creating seems to be on him. And the fact that he keeps trying with hopeful balls sometimes is clearly due to instructions, otherwise he would be asked to cut it off.
 

gajender

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I’m actually not sure what point you’re making here. But I can confirm we would definitely have had a hell of a lot less points if Bruno missed the whole of last season (or the season before). To try and argue our points total would be identical (or even similar) is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read on this website.
I am not talking about last season where our options were limited but this season the post you quoted was in response to the poster who said we would be really fecked if Bruno gets injured and we are a nothing team without him , which I don't agree with and it's not a critique of Fernandes it's more of indictment of our Current manager . I think under more progressive manager Bruno would refine and evolve his game a bit and we would be a better team for it but under Current regime I think our limit is set at 72-77 points whether we have all the players available or even some important ones Like Fernandes are missing it won't deviate much from there.
 

Nick7

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Still can't get his performance out of my head. It was so damn strange. Like, at times it seemed like he'd mess up a simple 2 yard pass under no pressure and then he pulls out the assist for the first goal. Just a damn weird performance.
 

largelyworried

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Just to follow on from my previous post, I had a look at the heatmaps from the game last night and noticed this. This is the heatmap of Fred, McTominay and Bruno combined.



Check out that doughnut! It's like they're actively avoiding the centre circle. That is ridiculous for a home team with more possession trying to control the game. No wonder we struggle in midfield areas.
 

roonster09

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Just plain and utter nonsense we aren't pulling up trees with Fernandes ,our underlying stats are more or less same even with him in the team it's not big stretch to say we would be more or less at similar level in terms of points even without him under this manager
Some of you go to extreme levels to make your point.

Bruno is the main player for this team, he is the one who creates chances, presses from the front and also makes lot of runs.

He topped chances created stats last season, scored shit loads of goals and created most assists (IIRC), still if the underlying numbers are not good then you are pointing finger at wrong player.

It's always the same trend, when the team doesn't do well the best player gets the shit instead of improving on the average players we have.
 

Jeppers7

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He was playing against us.
Honestly can’t believe some people thought Bruno played well last night. From games I’ve been to this season at OT, I thought he was our best player and a really big influence on the team vs Leeds and Villa. However last night he was horrendous. To the point the Stretford End, who idolise him, were getting audibly frustrated with him more and more. The amount of times he disrupted good play. It got to the point of ridiculous. People around me were bemused he wasn’t brought off. It was a shocking performance in terms of the way he negatively impacted the team with poor passes and constant stopping to moan when he should’ve been defending.

Playing like he does, he will always get some passes right. The first pass for Rashfords goal is world class in isolation. But when you’ve fecked as much up as he did last night, inevitably somethings going to work.

Last night was the epitome of moments player negatively impacting team performance and positively impacting his own stats. Sometimes an easy pass gives an easy assist and someone else gets the assist. Often not with Bruno and his own incredibly high stats impact overall on everybody else.
 

roonster09

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People really abuse the use of words like "moments player".

Created chance for every 8 passes completed and for every 10 touches, maybe whole game was full of moments, which justifies this "moments player"
 

Brwned

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That's a really interesting point, imo.

That being said, I think he has the mentality where if someone were to sit him down and bring it up, he'd instantly get what you were talking about "Goddamit-I-thought-I-was-being-selfless-but-I've-been-too-selfish" and adjust his game to try and better help the team.
Yeah, while Bruno obviously has a bit of an ego, he clearly cares about team success enough to put his own desires above the team's. I don't think just a conversation would really get you there though. He'd need to be reassured that if he does moderate his game, it would lead to better outcomes. He'd need to know he was submitting to being part of a more coheisve unit. If it just meant we were playing the same individualistic football and he was just handing over more responsibility to other individuals, he wouldn't do it for very long. He'd just demand it back again, because he likes to be at the centre of things - as all #10s do - and he thinks that's the right way to lead the team.

I'm sure they've talked about it all before. He's mentioned a few times that he obsessively analyses his own performance with his coaches. I suspect his coaches have suggested alternative routes, he's given it a chance and then he's given up on that notion when we haven't shown much progression, and the coaches have tolerated it because he comes up with those moments.

We need a better alternative before he'll give up the responsibility. But at the same time, him hogging all the responsibility makes it difficult for more collaborative playmakers like Sancho to get into their groove. You either play at Bruno's rhythm or you watch him play another 50-50 ball to someone else every time. That's not an easy cycle to break and it needs a manger with more conviction in his own ideas to do it. Just giving it to Bruno and hoping for the best is the easy option, even if it doesn't produce the best outcomes long-term.

@Brwned

Are you aware that the difference between De Bruyne’s composed control of the game (surrounded by better players, in a better coached team, geared to constantly provide multiple passing options in attack) and Bruno’s supposed chaotic abandon is 76% vs 74% pass completion? Can’t be bothered checking heat maps but I’d imagine Bruno plays a higher % of his passes in more crowded areas further up the pitch as well.

I think you’re exaggerating Bruno’s faults here.

EDIT: According to this article De Bruyne’s pass completion this season in all competitions is 70%.
Yeah, I think Bruno and de Bruyne play the role in a similar way, which is why they make for a good comparison. There wouldn't be much point in comparing him to someone like Bernardo Silva because they're just at opposite ends of the extreme.

I don't think that pass completion is a good proxy for controlling the game. But to be clear, if de Bruyne does have a fault, it's giving the ball away carelessly too. He just does it less often, and in situations that are less likely to disrupt the flow. Many more of De Bruyne's misplaced "passes" are those low crosses into the box after allowing the team to build up the play. It still results in turning over possession, but it does so in less dangerous areas, and it does so in a way that doesn't hinder the build up prior to that point.

I think it's arguable that Bruno is making the right choices in these situations because we're not actually capable of building up properly, we don't have the team or supporting cast to do it, so Bruno going for the jugular is genuinely our best route in almost every situation. But you still have to acknowledge in that point that we are willingly giving up the possibility to control the game, to build the play up cohesively, and the player we give the most responsibility to is the architect of that. It's really obvious that we can't succeed if our play revolves around that dynamic. That's just not what de Bruyne is doing.

When Bruno plays in de Bruyne's deeper position, where he's given far less freedom to dictate how and when we go for the kill, and instead just has to be "the blade" in key areas, he doesn't really perform (for Portugal ). De Bruyne is able to balance up those responsibilities better, for club and country. That's not especially a criticism of Bruno either because no-one's expecting him to be as good as de Bryune. He's just an example of someone who plays the same role in a similar way, but does so without killing the team flow. That's not some mythical idea.
 

Lewnited

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Honestly can’t believe some people thought Bruno played well last night. From games I’ve been to this season at OT, I thought he was our best player and a really big influence on the team vs Leeds and Villa. However last night he was horrendous. To the point the Stretford End, who idolise him, were getting audibly frustrated with him more and more. The amount of times he disrupted good play. It got to the point of ridiculous. People around me were bemused he wasn’t brought off. It was a shocking performance in terms of the way he negatively impacted the team with poor passes and constant stopping to moan when he should’ve been defending.

Playing like he does, he will always get some passes right. The first pass for Rashfords goal is world class in isolation. But when you’ve fecked as much up as he did last night, inevitably somethings going to work.

Last night was the epitome of moments player negatively impacting team performance and positively impacting his own stats. Sometimes an easy pass gives an easy assist and someone else gets the assist. Often not with Bruno and his own incredibly high stats impact overall on everybody else.
I'm usually one of his biggest defenders but I have to agree regarding his performance last night. You can create a few chances, get a few assists and still put in a crap performance; you can also not get any assists, create a single chance and put in a masterclass. He fell in to the former last night. I don't understand the desperation to paint yesterday's performance as a good one, he's still one of our best players, he had an off night... it happens.

However be absolutely does need to start picking his moments better and not going for the killer pass every time as these performances are starting to become a little too common. I don't care how close his pass percentage is to De Bruyne's, nor how much creative players should have licence to lose the ball - turning the ball over that often and that carelessly in midfield against any decent team is absolutely suicidal.
 
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