• Hellow Guest, there has been an update to Stretford End Arising's Terms and Rules, please take a moment to read here

Bruno Fernandes | Match Discussion Thread 2023/24

Apparently his passing was around 58% successful. For a so called world class player that is abysmal, and not for the first time either. I'm fed up with him
 
Pedro Porro taking the corners for Spurs showed how poor Bruno's delivery is from out set pieces. Also, Bruno does not have the personality to control games.
 
Thought he played okay, funny how often his lung-busting runs to try and correct a teammates feck up are overlooked .....
 
This is where I am going to get slaughtered but I have always thought that he is not going to thrive in a team the way ETH wants to play. He cannot hold possession and he does not do the one tough short passes very well. A flick is not that. An Eriksen, Mainoo and a Casemiro midfield is going to do much better. Or even an Amrabat, Mainoo and a Casemiro midfield.
 
It really wouldn’t. Here’s an idea. Let’s not drop our only creative player and our most hardest working player.

If he was English people wouldn’t stop raving about how good he is. Issue is he looks like a rat and waves his arms about a lot. So people forget just how bloody good at football he is. Because his tendencies annoy them.
 
Only problem I have with him is the hollywood pass and to be fair I think a lot of them would come off, if we had players who could read him. He's played some class reverse passes recently - I just feel they're wasted on these particular types of players. They're not reading anything that isn't super obvious. He's our most valuable player in many ways.
 
He is very annoying there is no denying that and refs are wise to it, he must do their heads in during games.

My view is he’s a player who’s starting to decline and if there were good offers they probably should take them. I don’t think there will be as not many sides play with a true number 10 like him anymore.

He still has a positive impact in most games but I don’t think we can play him and Eriksen together.

He needs to be high up the pitch when he drops deep and starts trying those Hollywood balls I don’t think he helps the team.
 
jsp said:
He is very annoying there is no denying that and refs are wise to it, he must do their heads in during games.

My view is he’s a player who’s starting to decline and if there were good offers they probably should take them. I don’t think there will be as not many sides play with a true number 10 like him anymore.

He still has a positive impact in most games but I don’t think we can play him and Eriksen together.

He needs to be high up the pitch when he drops deep and starts trying those Hollywood balls I don’t think he helps the team.
Click to expand...

He's not a no.10, never has been, he's a no.8
 
He’s an out and out 10. That’s where he plays his best football.
 
No doubt he is a very good player but not everyone can play every style of football. He is not a player who can play the possession based football and certainly not in a team like United where no one has a good first touch and no one can hold the ball.
 
IDFD said:
You can role your eyes all you want. Where’d he play the first 18 months for us?

Oh in the 10. And performed his best football.
Click to expand...

Not sure the no.10 role exists anymore, most teams play a 6 and two 8s, or two 6s and an 8, don't be fooled because Bruno usually plays in the middle of two wide-men behind a lone-striker and thinking he's a 10, he ain't., he's just an 8 pushed on.
 
Little video I've thrown together, hope it helps, you kids pfft

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Opera-Snapshot-2024-01-18-231823-www-youtube-com.png
 
Justin Cider said:
Not sure the no.10 role exists anymore, most teams play a 6 and two 8s, or two 6s and an 8, don't be fooled because Bruno usually plays in the middle of two wide-men behind a lone-striker and thinking he's a 10, he ain't., he's just an 8 pushed on.
Click to expand...

Okay. In Bruno’s first 18 months he pretty much played as a second striker.

I’m sorry your memory doesn’t take you back that far.

Next you’ll be telling me Maddison doesn’t play the 10 either.

Yes it’s moved to more of a 4-3-3 in football. No Bruno isn’t an 8.
 
IDFD said:
Okay. In Bruno’s first 18 months he pretty much played as a second striker.

I’m sorry your memory doesn’t take you back that far.

Next you’ll be telling me Maddison doesn’t play the 10 either.

Yes it’s moved to more of a 4-3-3 in football. No Bruno isn’t an 8.
Click to expand...

Yes I will, the nearest anybody at Spurs comes to playing as a conventional no.10 is Son, Maddison like Bruno a no.8
 
You really are a mad man. Son, a 10? Rofl. Maddison is their 10.

If you honestly think the 10 doesn't exist anymore, who the hell is Kevin de Bruyne kidding trying to play it?! He best have a word with you.
 
So much nonsense to unpack here.

Son a number 10? Absolutely not.

Bruno a number 10? Absolutely yes.

A real lack of knowledge on display? Absolutely yes.
 
The calm before the storm.......... we await the arrival of hurricane Justin. A mega storm of irrelevance.
 
IDFD said:
If he was English people wouldn’t stop raving about how good he is. Issue is he looks like a rat and waves his arms about a lot. So people forget just how bloody good at football he is. Because his tendencies annoy them.
Click to expand...
That may be the case for some but it isn’t how I see it.

I see a player who is capable of the most incredible and sublime moments. Goals, passes and assists. Someone who can win you a game in the blink of an eye. But that’s what he is. He’s a player who plays in a moment not in 90 minutes.

Fernandes is too inconsistent, disappears for periods of games and gives away possession too much. Top players in the world need to play with control and he just doesn’t do that. I’ve honestly never seen a player who can do such special things but make the basics look so hard at times.

Nobody can fault his effort but then is that effort always channeled the right way? It may be but I believe he’s been an issue with the press before.

In my opinion, not that it’s worth much, he’s a part of why United aren’t playing the way ETH has played before. Because these are players who play in moments and do special things at times rather than being a collective group.
 
I have some sympathy with Justin's view as I think there aren't that many out-and-out no.10's, not in the more traditional sense of a second centre-forward who supports the no.9 striker.

Players like Maddison, De Bruyne, Erikson, et al play more like hybrid 8s and 10s.

Anyways, saw an interesting stat on the Athletic that whilst Bruno is number three for the number of assists created, he's not in the top five for passes into the box.
 
I would say the truth is the way the number 10 role has changed and most people now interpret it as the player who plays ahead of two holding midfielders. The role now has a lot more defensive responsibility than it did before and the freedom to go anywhere you want to get on the ball has probably gone as a result.

It is a bit of a dying role in the game a lot of teams are going for the 3 in midfield with a holder and two box to box players rather than 2 sitting and 1 given the freedom to attack. Arsenal played Odegaard as a 10 last season ahead of Partey and Xhaka but they've more towards the two box to box system with Haveart and Rice coming in.

Utd under ETH I think have probably used Bruno more as a box to box player whereas Ole used him more as a number 10 high up alongside the striker.
 
jsp said:
I would say the truth is the way the number 10 role has changed and most people now interpret it as the player who plays ahead of two holding midfielders. The role now has a lot more defensive responsibility than it did before and the freedom to go anywhere you want to get on the ball has probably gone as a result.

It is a bit of a dying role in the game a lot of teams are going for the 3 in midfield with a holder and two box to box players rather than 2 sitting and 1 given the freedom to attack. Arsenal played Odegaard as a 10 last season ahead of Partey and Xhaka but they've more towards the two box to box system with Haveart and Rice coming in.

Utd under ETH I think have probably used Bruno more as a box to box player whereas Ole used him more as a number 10 high up alongside the striker.
Click to expand...
Odegaard is still probably in that 10 role this season. I've been watching most Arsenal games due to how good they are with quick flowing moves. Great stuff to watch. He's operating all over the place - and looks to be somewhat in a Mesut Ozil role. Not a lot of defensive duties, and just looks to move in to space. Martinelli, Zinchenko and Saka create gaps for him but the downfall is a striker. Bit like us. If they had someone up top of real quality Odegaard will explode. He'll be the best 10 in the league. It's all in the eye of the beholder though - I think you could call him an advanced 8 too.

Tactics are advancing quickly though and it's tough to pin point exactly what all players are doing on the pitch exactly. I think these days individual player instructions are where it's at. Particularly when it involves Pep. He's evolved football in our league IMO.
 
Jayc1860 said:
Odegaard is still probably in that 10 role this season. I've been watching most Arsenal games due to how good they are with quick flowing moves. Great stuff to watch. He's operating all over the place - and looks to be somewhat in a Mesut Ozil role. Not a lot of defensive duties, and just looks to move in to space. Martinelli, Zinchenko and Saka create gaps for him but the downfall is a striker. Bit like us. If they had someone up top of real quality Odegaard will explode. He'll be the best 10 in the league. It's all in the eye of the beholder though - I think you could call him an advanced 8 too.

Tactics are advancing quickly though and it's tough to pin point exactly what all players are doing on the pitch exactly. I think these days individual player instructions are where it's at. Particularly when it involves Pep. He's evolved football in our league IMO.
Click to expand...

The point was more Arsenal last season played 2 clear holding centre mids in Xhaka and Partey with Odegaard given that license to road this season it's only Rice holding with the other two Havertz and Odegaard both playing a more box to box role. Last season they were clearly a 4-2-3-1 team this season they look more like 4-3-3. He's a very good player and I'd say over the last 18 months he's been the best in that role in the league and I think Jesus is perfect for those other 3 attackers at Arsenal because his link play is so good.

The game is always changing think the biggest change I see is since 2021 they have allowed the game to become more physical, VAR was giving to many penalties so they did ease the rule to allow a bit more contact. Think we first saw it in the Euro's where refs were told to allow more contact, contact in a tackle was no longer enough for it to be a foul and I think that was for the good of the game.

That is a change that I think hasn't helped Bruno as he was very good at playing for contact and winning free kicks or penalties. Now teams are allowed to be a lot more physical with him and because he's not particularly quick or strong he is finding it harder to get out of those situations. I haven't got the stats but by eye it feels to me like he's tackled a lot more than he was when he first arrived and when he feels he's fouled and doesn't get the decision that is when "bad" Bruno appears with all the arm waving and mouthing off.

That change has certainly seen a big change in the type of player City have bought in the smaller technical players have been replaced with much more physical players. There team is now stacked with 6ft plus units and they maybe only have 1 or 2 of the smaller technical guys in the line up now in wide areas.

Utd I think have got a big problem with physicality at the moment.
 
It's funny, although we haven't seen much evidence of it so far EtH came with a reputation as a tactical genius and he plays Bruno 40 yards deeper than a traditional no.10 would play, yet Ole, who the more entitled amongst our fanbase said was a friggin idiot who didn't know what the hell he was doing started with Bruno in a position you'd expect a traditional no.10 to play despite not having the tools for that job(no.10) and he scored and created for fun.

Would love to ask Bruno which of the two Manager he enjoyed playing for more.
 
Probably he'd say Ole he was given loads of freedom to go wherever he wanted and at the time he was probably playing the best football of his career. The first 18 months at Utd and the last 18 months with Sporting he was unbelievable he will probably on an individual level never play as well as that again. Over those 3 seasons 161 games 88 goals that was crazy stuff.

Ole's teams were all about individual expression with the ball players given loads of freedom to do as they wanted and very little structure to attacks.

ETH I think does require players to follow more instruction with the ball than without it so he does have more of a team role to play as opposed to an individual one.

One of the biggest changes that needs to happen in the team is we cannot just rely on this guy to create the chances as under both managers this has been what's happened.
 
jsp said:
The point was more Arsenal last season played 2 clear holding centre mids in Xhaka and Partey with Odegaard given that license to road this season it's only Rice holding with the other two Havertz and Odegaard both playing a more box to box role. Last season they were clearly a 4-2-3-1 team this season they look more like 4-3-3. He's a very good player and I'd say over the last 18 months he's been the best in that role in the league and I think Jesus is perfect for those other 3 attackers at Arsenal because his link play is so good.

The game is always changing think the biggest change I see is since 2021 they have allowed the game to become more physical, VAR was giving to many penalties so they did ease the rule to allow a bit more contact. Think we first saw it in the Euro's where refs were told to allow more contact, contact in a tackle was no longer enough for it to be a foul and I think that was for the good of the game.

That is a change that I think hasn't helped Bruno as he was very good at playing for contact and winning free kicks or penalties. Now teams are allowed to be a lot more physical with him and because he's not particularly quick or strong he is finding it harder to get out of those situations. I haven't got the stats but by eye it feels to me like he's tackled a lot more than he was when he first arrived and when he feels he's fouled and doesn't get the decision that is when "bad" Bruno appears with all the arm waving and mouthing off.

That change has certainly seen a big change in the type of player City have bought in the smaller technical players have been replaced with much more physical players. There team is now stacked with 6ft plus units and they maybe only have 1 or 2 of the smaller technical guys in the line up now in wide areas.

Utd I think have got a big problem with physicality at the moment.
Click to expand...
We have a lot of big players and the problem as you say we go down if someone breaths down their neck. As ETH says we have to be more strong. Reminds me of Nani going down always. Bruno could be our shortest player and Ole's teams actually defend a lot more and the defenders join the attack a lot less. This is where get countered. They join the attack willynilly and that means when we lose possession we are always in trouble. For all his tackling abilities I have never seen AWB run back to defend. That means Bruno is the one who is also trying to get back to defend. This is why I think a Mainoo and Casemiro midfield is what we should be aiming for. He should look for that early pass over the top and it is not a Hollywood pass. All our 3 forwards are very quick.
 
Not normally one to get on his back but he was really poor tonight, end product was woeful.

Still worked his nuts off but the quality was nowhere near what we expect from him.
 
He played an absolutely stupid ball when we should have scored late on in the first half.
 
I think he was lucky to see the end of the game, I’d have happily had him off for Eriksen at 3-1 up.
 

Login or Register

Forgot your password?
Don't have an account? Register now
or Log in using
Back
Top