It’s Time To Talk About Bruno Fernandes…

This is going to be a little strong, as much as I love Bruno to death, he needs to play the role that helps us win games, and that’s not being a creator. At least not in the 10, he’s gotta drop to a CM position, focus on being a deep playmaker and let’s have Mainoo get more attacks. I’ll go as far to say, Bruno is approaching 30, he’s gonna start slowing down…might be time to cash in. NOT NOW! But soon.

We don’t talk about Bruno….

Mainoo been juat as bad this season

Have never ever thought he’d be in a united team that wins champions leagues and league titles. He’s been living off a great 18 months at the start of his united career. Carragher summed him up perfectly if we are all honest. With the likes of de light at the club I’d hope we can see a new captain at the club within the next 12-24 months and Bruno moved on now. Wages aren’t worth the return.

Not beating around the bush here – I never liked Bruno , he may be good at certain things but he is simply not well rounded enough as a player . We have ourselves a tantrum throwing wreckless passer of the ball as a captain & he fools all of you by running around like a headless chicken .

He's not the worst player , but just because he would die for the shirt doesn't mean he should be overlooked . I would die for the shirt too & I'm just a fan of the club . Don't play that game .

You can’t have one player who undermines the entire tactical shape and gameplan. When that one player is the captain, who criticises others for doing whag he does – it’s just never going to work.

Please stop comparing him to Cantona and Keane – this guy is a lot closer to Steven Gerrard in terms of how you hold him up as the benchmark when in reality we’ll win nothing with him in the team apart from the odd cup here and there.

We need players that look after the ball AND create – it’s possible and those players exist.

Bruno is a liability and has been for years.

Comparing bruno to cantona is actually blasphemy.

Admittedly those stats are reason to think twice about Bruno. Good point.

We are the team in the league that has missed the most chances and people are talking about giving the ball away we can't score that's the real problem.

Bruno is the heart and soul of the team so that means it's a crime for him to have a bad game. Him and The Butcher are our most important players.

My god, these players aren't robots. Dudes been playing every single game. Yes performances will go up and down, but he's won us more games than he has lost. Dude need a break, he looks absolutely burnt out. You cannot expect someone to run 15 k every 3 days for 5 years and expect 8/10 performances every single time.

I love Bruno's game but he stunk up the field so bad against Palace, it was unacceptable

On the point of mazraoui, just imagine mainstream media when he makes a defensive error 😅 "does united miss wan bissaka?" "united should have kept wan bissaka!" 🤣 media these days is absolute shit. On the main point though… bruno needs to be able to rest aswell, nothing wrong with rotating this squad a bit when we finally have a squad! Play people on form and lets face it some teams we face we wont need to play the starting eleven for 90. Get the bench players into match fitness!! Think we look way better offensively, just keep building from this and the goals will come. People need to chill a bit.

Bruno and Rashford performance dropped ever since they got a new contract. A coincidence? Agree to rest him, refresh and come from the bench. Captaincy can also be rotated. City does it all the time. Casemiro or Licha is more than capable. Even De Ligt later

We have the players for midfield to rotate. It’s a matter of finding a working combination without playing Bruno all the time. Surely with many games to play adequate rest will keep injuries away and from being burnt out. Mount or Fernandez. Not together

I've reached the point where i can't defend him anymore and its time to move him on…

I love Bruno, but we need to stop using stats from 4-5 years ago when we talk about him. It doesn't help fix the problems we're having.

When Ten Hag came in, Bruno's creativity jumped up a notch, he averaged 0.45 xA/90, but only got 0.22 assist/90. Bad finishing, or more likely, high volume but to players in low xG areas (Rashford/Antony/Sancho cutting in for shots).

So we sign a striker, but everything else fails, and Bruno did not find a way to link up with Hojlund. Highest chances created in the league, but lower total xA, lower per 90 xA, than the season before. That means high chance creation but in low chance areas. Ends up having to come further forward, takes the exact same amount of shots as the previous season, but he's shooting in better areas, gets more goals. A lot of those digging us out of bad performances to win or tie games.

And now, it's only a limited number of games, but the first couple of games he's basically a striker, and then Zirkzee comes in and plays target man for Bruno to have more shots too. His shots/90 goes up to 3.47 (higher than the 3.03/3.23 under Ole, much higher than the 2.45/2.6 under Ten Hag so far). His xG/90 is the lowest its been since that first season with Ole, but back then he made up for it with the ridiculous 0.47 xG/90.

We play him further forward, he can meet or beat his xG, he can score us goals. We play him deeper, he creates chances, but he's not getting the ball to a striker often enough. Even in his best seasons under Ole, his strength was finding wingers in space for a counter attack, he doesn't look for the striker that often. So then we need forwards who can create for the striker to get better chances, not just taking potshots themselves.

Rashford is trying, but it's not natural for him. Garnacho tries sometimes but he's not good at it. Amad is probably the best at it.

I would be trying 4-3-3 with Bruno on the right of the 3, linking up with Amad. Palace he was basically a 10 next to Zirkzee, which worked well but he didn't score his 3 chances. Got about 10 minutes in that midfield 3 with Amad before he got taken off, and then it's Rashford, Hojlund, Garnacho, 3 players who didn't want to come short against a team that was low blocking and playing for a point. No forward ball to play, so Bruno just started trying stuff for the last 20 minutes.

If you gave Bruno to Pep, he'd be the best player in the league. Simply put because Pep would instill in him, the discipline to know when it's the right time to play a risky pass, and when it's time to recycle the football. He would also demand of him more tactical discipline, to stay in his fucking zone out of possession. Rather than chase the life out of everything, vacating huge spaces that get exploited.

He's our biggest strength and greatest weakness at the same time.

And ste just because he plays most games doesn't mean he should be captain

Why isn't anyone talking about eriksen playing as a number 10 because that's his normal position and I think he should be the one resting Bruno not Manoo nor Mount. Rest Bruno midweek