Bruno is underrated thread

[Desert Eagle]

Imagine calling others delusional when you're the one trying to form a serious argument out of nonsensical cherrypicked stats.



You lot celebrate the few times he gets suspended but each time we look way worse without him. That Villa game the caf was excited because Beek was starting but predictably he dropped his trademark ghost performance.

We were 2-0 up against Sevilla when for some stupid reason he has subbed off. As a consequence we lost all attacking flair, got pegged back and they got 2-2. Smashed us 3-0 in the return leg without him. So 2-0 in the 60 mins with him and 0-5 in the 120 mins without him.

Some of you should be forced to watch all the games Lingard, Pereira and Beek started for us on repeat until you realise how wrong you are.

Talks about cherry picked facts then cherry picks three games to make your argument. If your argument is Bruno is better than Lingard, Perriera and Beek then sure I agree but that's not the standard is it. Go on support the argument that we are a one man team. People have made this silly claim about Rashford and Ronaldo recently too. It's standard fare for the G/A stat obsessed crowd.

The answer to that question can be found in the sample size you’re using for your “without Bruno” stats.

What ever the sample size, what I said is a fact and we are not a one man team.

 

[Zed 101]

I would say that Bruno is both under and over rated!

I dread to imagine where we would have been these last few seasons without Bruno, I do however think we have done the Utd thing and made him worse as a player.

Bruno is marmite from one minute the the next he is either making me hang my head in frustration and despair or is being brilliant in attack (or defence).

A lot of people are happy to blame Bruno in part for our lack of cohesion and use his wastefulness to hang a lot of our issues on, they are kind of right but for me it is about expectations, I think people expect him to be De Bruyne or worse a hybrid of Scholes and Keane, he ain't that although it seems he tries to be the latter, in a team with better structure, discipline and tactics Bruno would be a lot more productive, problem for me is that we have too many players who this can apply to, Bruno tries to do everything and ends up being less productive.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

What ever the sample size, what I said is a fact and we are not a one man team.

Erm, 32 PL games played. 31 with Bruno.

0-0 game without him.

Last year he missed one league game, we lost 1-3.

I posted this to you already but rather than reply to show where you “fact” comes from, you’ve instead responded to another poster and simply claimed “fact” again with nothing to back it up?

 

[Desert Eagle]

As has been mentioned already, we don't play without Bruno in the side very often. But whenever we do we have looked a lot, lot worse. Like seriously relegation level. People forget that before Bruno, we had Jese Lingard starting for us for a few years as our number 10. For those people that have a go at the numbers Bruno puts up, do you remember how many assists and goals that Lingard offered us in the entirety of 2019? Bruno joined us in JANUARY 2020 and even if he scored one goal in February that would have been more than Lingard gave us for an -entire fecking year-. If your memory doesn't reach that far back it's on you.

Lingard played 5 seasons with 30 plus games for us. 2015-2016 to 2019-2020

15/16- we won the fa cup with lingard scoring that goal
16/17- we won the league cup and europa
17/18- 2nd and highest points total since fergie
18/19- Mourinho sacked and bad season all round apart from the Ole interim period
19/20- Covid season, we finish an underwhelming third.

Half of that last season overlaps with Bruno so lets see how we've done with him being the one man team:

19/20- already mentioned
20/21- 2nd in the league
21/22- Ole sacked, finished 6th
22/23- won the league cup and finished 3rd
23/24- Probably finish 6th or 7th and if we're lucky win the fa cup.

Of course this is not an individual sport but some people obsess over numbers like they're accountants. The truth is with Lingard and Bruno as the 10 we've had pretty much identical results so please explain to me how he's improved us so much that you call us a one man team.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Lingard played 5 seasons with 30 plus games for us. 2015-2016 to 2019-2020

You should probably mention that in that 2020 season Lingard only finished third because Fernandes came in January and absolutely stole the show after he had stunk the place out for two years.

Probably also worth mentioning that Lingard was playing with the likes of Zlatan rather than Weghorst?

 

[GazTheLegend]

@Desert Eagle Johnathan Greening won the Champions League. There are some absolute dogshit footballers who have won trophies, and some world class players who have won feck all. To follow along with your (wrong) strawman argument, you could similarly make the case that Lingard is a better player than Son or Kane.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

@Desert Eagle Johnathan Greening won the Champions League. There are some absolute dogshit footballers who have won trophies, and some world class players who have won feck all. To follow along with your (wrong) strawman argument, you could similarly make the case that Lingard is a better player than Son or Kane.

Lingard’s a pretty good example of what we’re talking about though as he is typical of a player that could “get away with it” in a functioning team but as soon as the standards of that team dropped, he was beyond dog shit and as you say couldn’t score a goal to save his life or create to save his life.

The difference with Bruno has been that in our functioning teams he’s done really well but when the standards drop he can still find a way to score, assist and contribute, so to some degree “carry” the team.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

What ever the sample size, what I said is a fact and we are not a one man team.

Your “fact” is that we can beat a handful of lower league teams without Bruno in our team. So it’s a pretty useless fact. When someone says we’re a one man team they don’t literally mean we can field Bruno as our only starter and still win football matches.

 

[Desert Eagle]

@Desert Eagle Johnathan Greening won the Champions League. There are some absolute dogshit footballers who have won trophies, and some world class players who have won feck all. To follow along with your (wrong) strawman argument, you could similarly make the case that Lingard is a better player than Son or Kane.

Don't be silly. Did Jonathan Greening play 35 plus games for us 5 seasons in a row? You yourself said Bruno replaced Lingard. So they are playing in comparable teams in a comparable position. I've already conceded Bruno is better than Lingard but if you stop looking at the individual stats and look at how the teams they were in performed you will see very little difference. A far cry away from the one man team narrative you're trying to claim.

 

[Samid]

Talks about cherry picked facts then cherry picks three games to make your argument. If your argument is Bruno is better than Lingard, Perriera and Beek then sure I agree but that's not the standard is it. Go on support the argument that we are a one man team. People have made this silly claim about Rashford and Ronaldo recently too. It's standard fare for the G/A stat obsessed crowd.



What ever the sample size, what I said is a fact and we are not a one man team.

Date	Competition	Result
05/08/20	Europa League	Man Utd 2-1 LASK
30/09/20	EFL Cup	Brighton 0-3 Man Utd
09/01/21	FA Cup	Man Utd 1-0 Watford
23/05/21	Premier League	Wolves 1-2 Man Utd
08/12/21	Champions League	Man Utd 1-1 Young Boys
30/12/21	Premier League	Man Utd 3-1 Burnley
12/03/22	Premier League	Man Utd 3-2 Tottenham
06/11/22	Premier League	Aston Villa 3-1 Man Utd
10/01/23	EFL Cup	Man Utd 3-0 Charlton
20/04/23	Europa League	Sevilla 3-0 Man Utd
26/09/23	EFL Cup	Man Utd 3-0 Crystal Palace
17/12/23	Premier League	Liverpool 0-0 Man Utd

Let's go through this list:

- LASK. Dead rubber. We beat them 5-0 at their place before the lockdown.
- Brighton. 3rd round. They played their reserves. We beat their full strength team 3-2 at the same ground 3 days earlier with Bruno getting a 100th minute winner.
- Watford. 3rd round. They played their reserves.
- Wolves. Dead rubber. Last game of the season. We rested players for the EL final.
- Young Boys. Dead rubber.
- Burnley. We managed to beat an eventually relegated team at home without Bruno. Well done.
- Spurs. Ronaldo rolled back the years with an individual brilliance hat-trick. This is the only instance of us beating a decent team without Bruno.
- Villa. Not a dead rubber, not a 3rd round. So predictably we got spanked.
- Charlton. What division are this lot in? To think you are using this game as a decent chunk of your argument of us scoring more and conceding less without Bruno. Laughable.
- Sevilla. Not a dead rubber, not a 3rd round. So predictably we got spanked.
- Palace. 3rd round. They played their reserves.
- Liverpool. A month ago you could've made a case that we would've lost if Bruno featured. But since then we've faced them twice with Bruno and they still didn't manage to beat us.


Just admit that you loathe the player and that you're completely agenda driven. That's better than hiding behind this shitty "we are better without Bruno" narrative.

 

[Desert Eagle]

Your “fact” is that we can beat a handful of lower league teams without Bruno in our team. So it’s a pretty useless fact. When someone says we’re a one man team they don’t literally mean we can field Bruno as our only starter and still win football matches.

My "fact" is without Bruno in the team we win more games, score more goals and concede less. Who we played and how many games that includes doesn't change the 'facts'.

No shit sherlock. Explain to me how the guy who in the last three seasons has these stats: 46 games/10 goals, 59 games/14 goals and 42games/ 12 goals is so irreplaceable. Any decent number 10 could come in and if given all the set pieces replace him.

 

[Desert Eagle]

Just admit that you loathe the player and that you're completely agenda driven. That's better than hiding behind this shitty "we are better without Bruno" narrative.

I don't loathe the player, I just don't think he's good enough. I know it's hard for some of you to not take it personally like you did with Ole but my sentence is a fact no matter how many times you say they played their reserves. Some of the worst losses we've had have been with Bruno playing. What did Mr one man team do in those games? In the last three seasons you could probably count on one hand the number of games where you would say Bruno really carried us today. In no world are we a one man team. He just plays almost every game and in case you haven't noticed he's about to get another manager who plays him all the time the sack.

 

[Jeppers7]

I mean no they really, really haven't. I like Garnacho and he has been "ok", but he's hardly been consistent. I don't think anyone without an agenda could ever argue Hojlund has been better than Bruno Fernandes with a straight face. And Jonny Evans has been better than any of us could have hoped for but let's be realistic here: there's a reason we are facing 30 shots every week and it's not because we are defending well.

Garnacho has been better than ok…he hasn’t been consistent, well if Bruno has been consistent he’s been consistently bad.

Hojlund has had very little to work with but his individual performances and impact has been better than Bruno.

There’s a huge issue in what you’re saying in that you’re implying that just by being Bruno, he’s been better than others. His individual performances week in and week out have been terrible. Last weekend was his first actually good performance, not decent, in god knows how long. The others I mentioned have had good games, and good periods of form.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Great argument. I'm sure, fecking KDB watches every minute of United and spends his freetime analyzing our team performance.

Bruno has qualities, not many others have. His vision and quickness of execution is 2nd to none. And his fitness and injury record is as good as it gets. But there are a few aspects in his skill set, that cause issues. Obviously that is intertwined with the way ETH sets us up. Obviously, there are more urgent areas in the squad to take care of. Thinking about selling him is purely pragmatic - he is 29, we probably can get a nice fee for him that could be re-invested in the squad or even just in a mere successor for Bruno himself. We are not going to challenge for anything next year and most likely the year after anyway - the current quality of the squat is bad anyways. Lets think about the future. And the future isn't Bruno anymore. No matter how much he cares.

To say he is underrated is crazy. The guy who earns 220 per week, wears the captains armband, starts every game and is never subbed - but sure, he is really underrated.

Is this rant supposed to be serious?

Have you actually red some of the threads on the cafe lately?

Have you seen the nonsense regularly stated about him on prominent pundit shows like "Monday Night Football" and Overlaps' "Stick to football"?

 

[tomaldinho1]

Surely the whole 'with or without' Bruno argument is pointless because one of his great assets is he's always fit?

I don't think he's underrated, I think most people see him where he is - a good but not great player. When he had a free role in front of a pivot and took penalties, he put up great numbers, once that ended and he had to form part of a functional midfield 3, he's ranged from ok to atrocious for the most part.

Genuine question to our fans but would you still plan around him as 10 for the next few seasons? Or are we expecting he will be gone in that time frame?

 

[Zed 101]

I don't loathe the player, I just don't think he's good enough. I know it's hard for some of you to not take it personally like you did with Ole but my sentence is a fact no matter how many times you say they played their reserves. Some of the worst losses we've had have been with Bruno playing. What did Mr one man team do in those games? In the last three seasons you could probably count on one hand the number of games where you would say Bruno really carried us today. In no world are we a one man team. He just plays almost every game and in case you haven't noticed he's about to get another manager who plays him all the time the sack.

I appreciate the irony of your scathing take on the epithet "Mr one man team" for his inability to produce individual brilliance, but are more than happy to single handily attribute our losses and bad performances, and also the upcoming sacking of ETH to him

 

[Jeppers7]

As has been mentioned already, we don't play without Bruno in the side very often. But whenever we do we have looked a lot, lot worse. Like seriously relegation level. People forget that before Bruno, we had Jese Lingard starting for us for a few years as our number 10. For those people that have a go at the numbers Bruno puts up, do you remember how many assists and goals that Lingard offered us in the entirety of 2019? Bruno joined us in JANUARY 2020 and even if he scored one goal in February that would have been more than Lingard gave us for an -entire fecking year-. If your memory doesn't reach that far back it's on you.

Our record without Bruno since he joined…

City away 1-0w
Wolves away 2-1w
Watford home 1-0w
Brighton away 3-0w
Young boys home 1-1d
Burnley h 3-1w
Spurs h 3-2w
Sevilla a 3-0L
Villa a 3-1L
Charlton H 3-0w
Liverpool A 0-0d
Palace H 3-0w

Played 12
Won 8
Drew 2
Lost 2

For 25
Against 6

Yeah relegation level stuff and wins away at City, Wolves, Brighton at home to Spurs and a draw away at Anfield.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Surely the whole 'with or without' Bruno argument is pointless because one of his great assets is he's always fit?

I don't think he's underrated, I think most people see him where he is - a good but not great player. When he had a free role in front of a pivot and took penalties, he put up great numbers, once that ended and he had to form part of a functional midfield 3, he's ranged from ok to atrocious for the most part.

Genuine question to our fans but would you still plan around him as 10 for the next few seasons? Or are we expecting he will be gone in that time frame?

He'll be 30 next September and his contract expires in 2026 (with the option of a one-year extension for the club). Given that one of his strengths is his energy, regardless of what you think of him, any sane management would be making plans for life without him. For what it's worth, i think it's one of the reasons why Mount was chosen over other - seemingly more functional - midfield options. But, with United, you can never be sure.

I think i agree with your assessment. If he's being deprived of something, that would be the cult hero status during a club's lean years. Some would argue that he lacks the cult of personality element (something that Gerrard, for example, had in abundance) that goes with it, but i believe the whole thing's dying out in this era of instant gratification in which a lot of people never bother to look beyond trophy counts.

Not underrated so much, as you suggested, but underappreciated.

 

[Jeppers7]

Erm, 32 PL games played. 31 with Bruno.

0-0 game without him.

Last year he missed one league game, we lost 1-3.

I posted this to you already but rather than reply to show where you “fact” comes from, you’ve instead responded to another poster and simply claimed “fact” again with nothing to back it up?

see my response above with all games without Bruno. Your point on 0-0 this season is disingenuous since it was a good result away at Liverpool.

 

[troylocker]

Perhaps the most overrated but more overstated. He’s a good player but he’s not a great player, he’s been terrible this season despite having a good game last week, he wasn’t great last season and the season before under Ole/Ragnick he was dreadful.

Take away the first calendar year through Covid and he’s not even statistically very good either. How a player who’s been bad for so long can get such praise and poor performances disregarded for having a good game, at Manchester United is an indictment of where the club has been for ten years.

We have an attacking midfielder who's scored and assisted 138 goals in a bit more than 4 seasons for us, who's top 3 in chances created in the PL every season, who runs his socks off every week, who's never injured and is still getting this from our fans. He's been our best player this season by quite a margin in my eyes.

When it comes to his stats:

19/20 season. He arrived for GW25 and we went from 5th to 3th with him, being the best team in the league from GW25-38 with 32 points ahead of City with 30 and Liverpool with 29.
He had 20 goalcontributions in 4 months for us that season.

20/21 season. We came 2nd in the league and Bruno had 45 goalcontributions

21/22 the season Ronaldo returned. Horrible season for the whole team. Would be very interesting to turn back time and not sign Ronaldo, and see how that would have turned out. Bruno still contributed to 24 goals. This was such a weird season.

22/23 the Ronaldo out season. We got 3rd and Bruno contributed to 28 goals.

23/24 ETH chaos season. We're 7th and should be 15th and I can't even remember seeing us this bad pre Fergie. Bruno one of a few players who looks like they care. 21 goal contributions so far.

He's on 0,60 G+A/game for us total while he's been here. Since 1/1 2021 ("when he turned crap") to now, the number is: 0,52 G+A/90 for us.

Compared to some greats:
KDB: 0,71 G+A/game for City
Lampard: 0,55 G+A/game for Chelsea
Fabregas: 0,50 G+A/game for Arsenal and 0,45 G+A/game for Chelsea
Ozil: 0,48 G+A/game for Arsenal
Gerrard: 0,48 G+A/game for Liverpool
Scholes: 0,33 G+A/game for us

Some more recent ones in similar roles:
Maddison: 0,46 G+A/game Leicester and 0,46 G+A/game
Odegaard: 0,38 G+A/game

I'd say he's decent when it comes to stats. Maybe even better than decent. No?

 

[tomaldinho1]

He'll be 30 next September and his contract expires in 2026 (with the option of a one-year extension for the club). Given that one of his strengths is his energy, regardless of what you think of him, any sane management would be making plans for life without him. For what it's worth, i think it's one of the reasons why Mount was chosen over other - seemingly more functional - midfield options. But, with United, you can never be sure.

I think i agree with your assessment. If he's being deprived of something, that would be the cult hero status during a club's lean years. Some would argue that he lacks the cult of personality element (something that Gerrard, for example, had in abundance) that goes with it, but i believe the whole thing's dying out in this era of instant gratification in which a lot of people never bother to look beyond trophy counts.

Not underrated so much, as you suggested, but underappreciated.

This really sums up how I think it is as well.

I can't say he'll ever be close to my favorite United player (I doubt any of this crop rank that high for most people!) but when he leaves, which I agree I expect we will already be planning for, I hope people give him his fair dues.

 

[Desert Eagle]

I appreciate the irony of your scathing take on the epithet "Mr one man team" for his inability to produce individual brilliance, but are more than happy to single handily attribute our losses and bad performances, and also the upcoming sacking of ETH to him

Show me where I did that. It's single handedly btw, single handily sounds like you're doing a horsechoker. We are discussing Bruno in this thread which I've stayed out of till today because discussing Bruno is a chore and everything has already been repeated ad nauseum but when people say we're a one man team because of a guy who has been average for three seasons, it's a bit much. I've had my say on the manager, the owners, the other players in plenty of threads. Try to not get emotional and read what has been said.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

As has been mentioned already, we don't play without Bruno in the side very often. But whenever we do we have looked a lot, lot worse. Like seriously relegation level. People forget that before Bruno, we had Jese Lingard starting for us for a few years as our number 10. For those people that have a go at the numbers Bruno puts up, do you remember how many assists and goals that Lingard offered us in the entirety of 2019? Bruno joined us in JANUARY 2020 and even if he scored one goal in February that would have been more than Lingard gave us for an -entire fecking year-. If your memory doesn't reach that far back it's on you.

Yes I love referencing 5 years ago when talking about how the team plays worse without Bruno. That's a great example

 

[Desert Eagle]

This really sums up how I think it is as well.

I can't say he'll ever be close to my favorite United player (I doubt any of this crop rank that high for most people!) but when he leaves, which I agree I expect we will already be planning for, I hope people give him his fair dues.

Just out of curiosity what would you consider "fair dues"? He's already probably the most popular player in this current bunch maybe excluding Mainoo. The clubs social media suck him off constantly. He will be thanked for his service like any player who gave their all while playing for us. I hope for his sake and the clubs we don't do a De Gea and keep him so far past his sell by date that it will actually turn ugly. Although to be fair even after all of Daves howlers and poor play, he still got a nice send off from the fans.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

I would say that Bruno is both under and over rated!

I dread to imagine where we would have been these last few seasons without Bruno, I do however think we have done the Utd thing and made him worse as a player.

Bruno is marmite from one minute the the next he is either making me hang my head in frustration and despair or is being brilliant in attack (or defence).

A lot of people are happy to blame Bruno in part for our lack of cohesion and use his wastefulness to hang a lot of our issues on, they are kind of right but for me it is about expectations, I think people expect him to be De Bruyne or worse a hybrid of Scholes and Keane, he ain't that although it seems he tries to be the latter, in a team with better structure, discipline and tactics Bruno would be a lot more productive, problem for me is that we have too many players who this can apply to, Bruno tries to do everything and ends up being less productive.

The problem is many here think he's on that level. Which is where the arguments stem from, because when those of us suggest that we should move on and not build around him because of his clear deficiencies we are met with a cult like level of backlash about how he's carried the club and gives 100%

 

[RedfromIreland]

We have an attacking midfielder who's scored and assisted 138 goals in a bit more than 4 seasons for us, who's top 3 in chances created in the PL every season, who runs his socks off every week, who's never injured and is still getting this from our fans. He's been our best player this season by quite a margin in my eyes.

When it comes to his stats:

19/20 season. He arrived for GW25 and we went from 5th to 3th with him, being the best team in the league from GW25-38 with 32 points ahead of City with 30 and Liverpool with 29.
He had 20 goalcontributions in 4 months for us that season.

20/21 season. We came 2nd in the league and Bruno had 45 goalcontributions

21/22 the season Ronaldo returned. Horrible season for the whole team. Would be very interesting to turn back time and not sign Ronaldo, and see how that would have turned out. Bruno still contributed to 24 goals. This was such a weird season.

22/23 the Ronaldo out season. We got 3rd and Bruno contributed to 28 goals.

23/24 ETH chaos season. We're 7th and should be 15th and I can't even remember seeing us this bad pre Fergie. Bruno one of a few players who looks like they care. 21 goal contributions so far.

He's on 0,60 G+A/game for us total while he's been here. Since 1/1 2021 ("when he turned crap") to now, the number is: 0,52 G+A/90 for us.

Compared to some greats:
KDB: 0,71 G+A/game for City
Lampard: 0,55 G+A/game for Chelsea
Fabregas: 0,50 G+A/game for Arsenal and 0,45 G+A/game for Chelsea
Ozil: 0,48 G+A/game for Arsenal
Gerrard: 0,48 G+A/game for Liverpool
Scholes: 0,33 G+A/game for us

Some more recent ones in similar roles:
Maddison: 0,46 G+A/game Leicester and 0,46 G+A/game
Odegaard: 0,38 G+A/game

I'd say he's decent when it comes to stats. Maybe even better than decent. No?

Very well said.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Just out of curiosity what would you consider "fair dues"? He's already probably the most popular player in this current bunch maybe excluding Mainoo. The clubs social media suck him off constantly. He will be thanked for his service like any player who gave their all while playing for us. I hope for his sake and the clubs we don't do a De Gea and keep him so far past his sell by date that it will actually turn ugly. Although to be fair even after all of Daves howlers and poor play, he still got a nice send off from the fans.

It's already started to turn ugly, look at the Bruno threads for the past season. It's gone from the very fair criticism of him not being the right type of player if you want to control games to him being cack and a stat padder.

 

[Desert Eagle]

It's already started to turn ugly, look at the Bruno threads for the past season. It's gone from the very fair criticism of him not being the right type of player if you want to control games to him being cack and a stat padder.

Fair, i do think him being made captain( and not being a good one) has probably expedited the process. Best case scenario we get decent money for him this summer and start fresh next year.

 

[Scandi Red]

Best case scenario we get decent money for him this summer and start fresh next year.

Best case scenario: Bruno ages as gracefully as Modric and help us build the next great United team.

 

[lost7]

Best case scenario: Bruno ages as gracefully as Modric and help us build the next great United team.

Modric is like the anti bruno, his retention of the ball is extraordinary while Bruno plays a game of "hot potato" with every touch of the ball. Also Bruno's level is nowhere near as high as Modric, so even if he doesn't get worse physically (which obviously he will) we can still find an upgrade in his position. In fact, I'd go as far as to say we don't need no more 10s. Let's just get proper midfielders who can control the tempo and dominate games. I'm sick and tired of this transitional style of football

 

[Desert Eagle]

Best case scenario: Bruno ages as gracefully as Modric and help us build the next great United team.

Bruno, graceful and Modric in one sentence. Congratulations on winning the Tyrone Biggums award.

 

[Scandi Red]

Modric is like the anti bruno, his retention of the ball is extraordinary while Bruno plays a game of "hot potato" with every touch of the ball. Also Bruno's level is nowhere near as high as Modric, so even if he doesn't get worse physically (which obviously he will) we can still find an upgrade in his position. In fact, I'd go as far as to say we don't need no more 10s. Let's just get proper midfielders who can control the tempo and dominate games. I'm sick and tired of this transitional style of football

Bruno, graceful and Modric in one sentence. Congratulations on winning the Tyrone Biggums award.

Congratulations on the worst reading comprehension I've seen in... Ah, who am I kidding, every page of this thread is littered with it. Still shite though!

By the way, to the wannabe bankers in here: how much money do you honestly think we can get for Bruno? If it's a dime less than 50 million then it's a beyond stupid deal for us. I can't imagine Bruno going to Saudi Arabia, so that is out. And I can't see a mid-tier club paying that much for a player who's soon to be 30 years old.

It's a lose/lose/lose situation. Bruno probably doesn't want to leave. We probably can't find a decent replacement even if we're given a good price. And the potential buyers can't afford the risk.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

see my response above with all games without Bruno. Your point on 0-0 this season is disingenuous since it was a good result away at Liverpool.

I did and the first thing I noticed is that you’re terrible at counting goals for & against.

 

[noodlehair]

He's underrated by the significant element of United fans who repeatedly slag him off or want to blame him for all of the team's problems.

I think outside of that he's mostly seen for about what he is. A fantastic player but who has limitations/draw backs. e.g.:
- He's one of the very best in the league at creating chances, but can also be very frustrating because part of the reason is his habit of always wanting to look for the difficult/final ball.
- He works very hard but is also not very physical or positionally minded. So often sprints 50 yards just to end up fouling someone or have them swat him aside, which can be a liability defensively
- He is very passionate but also very complainy which can end up being a negative when things aren't going well.

I mean I can see why people would rate him but also why people would find him extremely frustrating, and I think I'm somewhere between probably like most of us.

I think in a better team they would utilise his strengths a lot better and take the weaker parts of his game out of his hands. You don't see Odegard or De Bruyne sprinting the length of the pitch to foul someone for example because the team is set up and disciplined in a way so they don't have to. He also probably wouldn't try the impossible pass quite so often if he was seeing enough of the ball that there wasn't the pressure to score from every attack.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Fair, i do think him being made captain( and not being a good one) has probably expedited the process. Best case scenario we get decent money for him this summer and start fresh next year.

Yes it definitely did. It wasn't his fault that we have such a dearth of characters in the team that he was the obvious choice though, it's not like he was going to turn it down. I would think moving the armband to Martinez is what will happen assuming he recovers well but the truth is who else is there? He's still probably the best candidate for the role and that's saying something.

I doubt he leaves this summer but I think he'll go the next unless Saudi come in.

 

[Zed 101]

Show me where I did that. It's single handedly btw, single handily sounds like you're doing a horsechoker. We are discussing Bruno in this thread which I've stayed out of till today because discussing Bruno is a chore and everything has already been repeated ad nauseum but when people say we're a one man team because of a guy who has been average for three seasons, it's a bit much. I've had my say on the manager, the owners, the other players in plenty of threads. Try to not get emotional and read what has been said.

err I don't know how could I possibly have misinterpreted:

"Some of the worst losses we've had have been with Bruno playing. What did Mr one man team do in those games? In the last three seasons you could probably count on one hand the number of games where you would say Bruno really carried us today. In no world are we a one man team. He just plays almost every game and in case you haven't noticed he's about to get another manager who plays him all the time the sack."

 

[Desert Eagle]

err I don't know how could I possibly have misinterpreted:

"Some of the worst losses we've had have been with Bruno playing. What did Mr one man team do in those games? In the last three seasons you could probably count on one hand the number of games where you would say Bruno really carried us today. In no world are we a one man team. He just plays almost every game and in case you haven't noticed he's about to get another manager who plays him all the time the sack."

You said " single handily attribute our losses and bad performances, and also the upcoming sacking of ETH to him "

I don't see that in what you quoted. He is part of the problem not the only problem. I'm going to assume you're posting in good faith and just don't know what single handedly means.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Yes I love referencing 5 years ago when talking about how the team plays worse without Bruno. That's a great example

One of the games he points to is hilarious as it’s Man City in the second leg of the league cup in which Fernandes had only just signed and couldn’t play. It was 4 1/2 years ago with a completely different team and even the poster himself admits that that season Manchester United were absolutely miles better once Fernandes joined and came into the side.
He even fecking doubled down and singled that game out

In this current Eric Ten Hag team, he has missed two Premier League games in the past two seasons. We have drew one and lost one, with a -2 GD. This stat obviously tells us feck all as well by the way, because you clearly can’t pick 2-3 games a season and compare it to hundreds of games.

 

[NZT-One]

Is this rant supposed to be serious?

How is anything I wrote a rant? I outlined his qualities and gave a plausibe and pragmatic outline of the future. Why would that be a rant?

Have you actually red some of the threads on the cafe lately?

I've been in quite a few. It is the Manchester United forum and as the team is playing pretty shitty these days, obviously the mood around here isn't great. I guess some of us are happy to slag the manager off (sure not undeserved) and support the players while others are slagging off players and the manager.
I would confirm that some of his critics are OTT. But I think that everytime somebody brings up a keypasses stat.

Quite a few posters on here have a hard time differentiating between opinions and facts. Applies to both sides of most arguments.

Have you seen the nonsense regularly stated about him on prominent pundit shows like "Monday Night Football" and Overlaps' "Stick to football"?

No. But I guess they are criticizing a player who is supposed to play better than he does these days, isn't he? Pretty sure they are also talking about Rashford in a similar way.
You don't like the current coverage - I know the feeling, I didn't like the shallow praise during some times in the past. I guess we all have to learn to live with it.

Best case scenario: Bruno ages as gracefully as Modric and help us build the next great United team.

Don't think anybody even has the slightest of ideas how that would look like. The thought of Bruno being around for so long is, to me, a bit scary. I certainly wouldn't put it past the United decisions makers. In their proud traditions of doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

 

[Scandi Red]

Don't think anybody even has the slightest of ideas how that would look like.

Imagine a great team. Now imagine that Bruno also starts in that team.

For some of you that is impossible imagine. But I have seen many worse players do it, so for me it's very easy.