I think he's been an absolutely outstanding player for most of his United career. And I like him. Nonetheless, I wondered before Erik took over whether his brand of football would be suitable for a possession oriented team (let's assume that Erik will want more control in games going forward, despite the back and forth messaging from him).
He over-performed in his first few seasons with Ole's counter attacking football, both in terms of goals and assists. Tapered off a little in Erik's first season and hasn't really come back from that. Now of course he's had to contend with the same thing all the other non-injured players have to this season in so far as there hasn't been a settled back four nor a settled midfield and that has obviously affecta our general play (see @BenitoSTARR 's injury thread). However, we have, like we did under Rangnick, squandered so many chances this season and Bruno is definitely doing his part there. He's erratic in and out of possession, though it's mainly with the ball that his tendency to constantly create a goal scoring opportunity at the cost of ball retention and possibly better goal scoring opportunities that I feel let's the collective down, not least in terms of transitioning our style of play.
We have now got an absolutely top class prospect in midfield who is born to play a more progressive style of football and today (against Luton) we saw how far above the rest of our midfielders he is technically, in terms of composure and game intelligence. And he's 18. Next season Bruno will be 30 and he still has a couple of years running on his contract.
For different reasons I would raise tactical suitability in the case of Rashford and Maguire, but Maguire has been transformed into a squad player (likely sold if any takers this summer) while Rashford is worth a conversation in another thread. Erik obviously made Bruno captain and bigs him up at every opportunity, but he also bigged up de Gea throughout last season and now he's without a club. And the captaincy is a tricky thing with a leaderless team (bar Martinez). Bruno might court quite a bit of interest and we could likely break even (not adjusting for inflation) by selling him.
Some might think of this as heresy but I genuinely wonder about how many supporters think for all his individual brilliance collectively we could be a better team without him.
He over-performed in his first few seasons with Ole's counter attacking football, both in terms of goals and assists. Tapered off a little in Erik's first season and hasn't really come back from that. Now of course he's had to contend with the same thing all the other non-injured players have to this season in so far as there hasn't been a settled back four nor a settled midfield and that has obviously affecta our general play (see @BenitoSTARR 's injury thread). However, we have, like we did under Rangnick, squandered so many chances this season and Bruno is definitely doing his part there. He's erratic in and out of possession, though it's mainly with the ball that his tendency to constantly create a goal scoring opportunity at the cost of ball retention and possibly better goal scoring opportunities that I feel let's the collective down, not least in terms of transitioning our style of play.
We have now got an absolutely top class prospect in midfield who is born to play a more progressive style of football and today (against Luton) we saw how far above the rest of our midfielders he is technically, in terms of composure and game intelligence. And he's 18. Next season Bruno will be 30 and he still has a couple of years running on his contract.
For different reasons I would raise tactical suitability in the case of Rashford and Maguire, but Maguire has been transformed into a squad player (likely sold if any takers this summer) while Rashford is worth a conversation in another thread. Erik obviously made Bruno captain and bigs him up at every opportunity, but he also bigged up de Gea throughout last season and now he's without a club. And the captaincy is a tricky thing with a leaderless team (bar Martinez). Bruno might court quite a bit of interest and we could likely break even (not adjusting for inflation) by selling him.
Some might think of this as heresy but I genuinely wonder about how many supporters think for all his individual brilliance collectively we could be a better team without him.
