Like him, he’s a good player and improves us but the deal has shades of Mount. In that a good player is available so we’ve jumped and flashed the credit card.
Not sure how this leaves the first eleven, and with no Europe next season there’s not a great deal of rotation and you wanted a generally settled team.
Fernandes, Cunha and Mbuemo are all starter level - but they all operate in the two 10s…. This means either Fernandes drops to the midfield two which is far from ideal when we get walked through the middle of the park, or one of the three will be leading the line meaning we won’t be going for an established nine.
Back line to be debated but this doesn’t fill me with confidence and feel there were bigger priorities to address first and foremost
————————-—9
———-—-Cunha——Mbuemo
Dorgu—Casemiro—Bruno—Amad
——Martinez—De Ligt—Yoro
———————-Onana
Or
——————-—Cunha (rotating front three)
———Fernandes—Mbuemo
Dorgu—Ugarte—Casemiro—Amad
—Martinez—De Ligt—Yoro
———————-Onana
Then Mount/Kobbie/Zirkzee to rotate around them?
This is all based on Hojlund not leading the line for us next season but who even knows what’ll happen with him at this point.
Love Bruno but just not confident with him in the middle, we lose all midfield battles and aren’t even an effective counter team. If Amorim still wants to build a controlling team we can’t have Bruno in the middle, he operates much better in the advanced role.
Likewise even Mainoo I think will end up more advanced than someone in the middle leaving us essentially with Ugarte and Casemiro for the middle two who actually play there.
Again - I like Mbuemo, very solid player that improves us. Just lean towards 9/GK/Effective 6.
I dont see the Mount comparison, at all.
Mount was coming off a poor season with Chelsea in 22/23 - 24 games, 3 goals and 2 assists. He missed the last 3 months of the season.
The year before he played 32 PL games, scored 11 and assisted 10.
So we signed Mount on the back of a down season. It was also a terrible deal because we paid 60mil when he only had a year left on his contract at Chelsea, paid him 250k a week and bailed Chelsea out of a whole heap of PSR pain.
Then, there was the tactical questions. Where was he going to play in Ten Hags 433 as he would never push Bruno out? Ten Hag started with two 10s and Casemiro sitting. After getting ripped open in the first 3 games of the 23/24 season to Wolves, Spurs and Forest, Ten Hag dropped the two 10s system. Of course, Mount predictably spent most of the rest of the season injured.
Compare that to Mbeumo, who has come off the best season of his life, played all 38 PL games and scored 20 goals. We also know where he is going to play in Amorim's system.
There is no real comparison, in my opinion.
I think you should probably forget about team line ups right now because we are going to see a lot more ins and outs. Dont bank on Bruno being here.
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