Bruno Fernandes has easily been our best signing of the last decade. The only two complaints anyone has with him is that sometimes his attitude can come across petulant, and that he doesn’t have the best pass completion numbers.
Both of which I think are more than a little harsh. The petulant attitude thing I think is more a cultural difference. British people particularly are brought up to have a stiff upper lip, whereas many other parts of the world they find it totally acceptable to wear your heart on your sleeve.
While his passing numbers I think are an unfair complaint as it’s often talked about our of context. A midfielder tasked with staying deeper and protecting the defence needs to have a high pass completion rate, but a No.10 or winger isn’t expected to have a high pass completion rate as they are supposed to be trying the more risky and creative passes.
In Bruno’s case he has often been tasked with being our main creator, and he’s carried that burden well, no one has created more chances in the EPL than Bruno since he joined. While you can also suggest that some, maybe many, of the passes that Bruno “gives away” are not that they are bad passes, but that his teammates limited ability/ understanding meant they didn’t read the game and make the run to receive the pass.
This season where he has played deeper he is still right up there with chances created, has high ball recovery numbers, and has a higher pass completion rate. He’s been very good for us this season. His creative passing from midfield has been vital as we lack some creative passing from the current crop of CB’s, especially when Yoro isn’t playing. Maybe if we had Martinez at LCB or if Heaven was ready to play more regularly then we wouldn’t need to rely so much on the midfield to progress the ball through passing.
The two issues I’ve seen with his game this season is that he still has to learn about maintaining his position, his instincts are to step up and try and win the ball at every opportunity, but that can leave big gaps behind him if he doesn’t win it. He needs to be more measured and know when to step up and when to protect the space. The other “issue” is that he does seem to be tiring a little later in games. Maybe that his age and the sheer amount of football he’s played, or perhaps it’s his all action style combined with his deeper role meaning he is having to cover more distance per game while he tries to do so with the same intensity that he uses when he plays higher up.
Regardless he is still a key player and someone who currently adds more to the team than he costs us with his positional lapses and occasionally giving the ball away in dangerous areas. Hopefully he can learn and adapt while playing deeper and improve on these weaknesses in his game.
Obviously at 31 he isn’t the long term solution, and if he keeps playing at the same intensity he will need to have his game time managed more, especially next season if we are back playing European football.