Bruno could work well with most. Mount was a terrible purchase we’re going to keep trying to shoehorn into the team until we accept that he’s just not very good
No, Bruno only works if he's stripped of any defensive duties and allowed to wield his creativity. Only then it makes sense to build the team around him, what made sense for us in a few seasons.
Bruno is a poor imitation of a midfielder, people think he will make a good CM because he runs a lot, but he is a headless chicken and my grandma would be able to dribble past him. It's not his fault, this is the kind of a player he is, it's just shocking from the manager who figured we should give Bruno more defensive/buildup responsibilities, what apparently also resulted in him losing the X factor - and eventually made him easily "replaceable".
And while we're at it, I actually believe Mount is a better fit for us for the future, he's more all-round player, can keep possession and run with the ball. I am confident he'll show that soon, if he ever plays football again this season what I am not sure of.
Basically it only works for Arsenal against teams they are easily better than anyway and only because they don't have an ongoing injury crisis, and also have a far stronger and more settled team than United.
It isn't going to work for United with Mount and Bruno because it leaves Casemiro with too much to do, and "top 6" opponent for you also currently translates as "anyone not potential relegation fodder" for us.
We can make a better fist of it with Mainoo because he's actually comfortable playing on the half turn so doesn't have to constantly be 40 yards ahead of Casemiro, but even then you saw against Villa, as soon as there's a weak spot (I.e. when Shaw went off) its FAR too easy for them to get through and target it.
Although true, I'd make a small tweak to it - even with Mainoo on the pitch Casemiro seems like he has too much to do, both #8s starting position is just too high and they should be more compact in midfield, but the manager wants to play direct football not waste the energy for meaningless horizontal/short passes + we must be the only team that presses high and has low defensive line.
Casemiro is actually close to perfect DM for how ETH wants to play (I think he got really lucky with Case), the problem is he seems like his legs are truly gone and his tackling ability has gone south. As a result we rarely intercept the ball in midfield, what is crucial to our transition game. I do believe Casemiro is done at this level and no formation will make this work with him as DM (especially that Mainoo is another low-energy CM, he need a different midfield partner).
Even once we replace Casemiro, neither of Mount / Bruno are capable of playing Odegaard role, they are both suited to perform as pure #10/second striker, but this setup doesn't make sense, we'll still struggle to build from the back. We need two #8s who are comfortable dropping deep and helping in each phase of the game AND on top of that we can give them more freedom to make runs into the box/out wide. Mount is the right player to perform all those tasks, but Bruno makes sense only in 4231 setup.
This would be the right moment to replace Bruno in the team (or at least phase him out) as we're actually not relying on him anywhere as much as in the previous seasons to create/score. But we don't need another #10, we need Casemiro replacement as Mainoo is already our best midfielder and very clearly not a DM, and "Mount-and-Bruno"midfield will no longer be a topic.