I just want to start by saying I love Bruno Fernandes, he has easily been out best signing post SAF, his numbers and the way he has dragged us up time and again have been amazing. I also appreciate the fact that he clearly loves the club, choosing to turn down life changing money twice this summer to stick with Manchester United and to try and help get us back to the top. Given his age and the clear amount of time it will take to get us back challenging, he will obviously know that he is unlikely to be a key player if / when we get back to being in title races. Yet he chose to stay and try and help us get there anyway. I think that shows how much affection he has for us.
All that said, I think he is unfortunately the biggest factor holding us back. He is without a doubt our best player, but he is a player who needs a free role further up the pitch to play his best football. Which is luxury that not even the best teams in the world can afford. With the fine margins at the top of the game now, no team can afford to carry a player, or build their team and tactics around one player. The days of maverick footballers seems to have past, certainly at teams who consistently win the major honours.
Bruno doesn’t fit into any position naturally or without major drawbacks in Amorim’s system. Some would say then we should change the system, but in truth while there could very well be merit in that it could help some players in our squad. It doesn’t actually get us back challenging for top honours with Bruno in the side. Sure we could maybe go back to a 4231 shape and have Bruno in the free attacking No.10 position, and I’m sure that would get the best out of him. But we cannot build around a 31 year old like that and expect to actually get back to challenging for major honours.
That might be good enough to get us back to around 6th maybe 5th place, but that isn’t sustainable, Bruno will start to decline and if the team is built around him then so will the team. It’s a short term fix that delays long term recovery. Whether it’s Amorim’s system or someone else’s Bruno lacks some key elements needed to be able to be a part of a team that can consistently challenge at the highest level.
In Amorim’s system he lacks the ball carrying ability to play in the inside forward/ No.10 positions. To create high quality chances we need these players to be able to dribble past a player to open the opposition up. It’s no coincidence that we are creating more chances, having more shots, and shooting from better positions this season with Bruno not playing in one of these more advanced attacking positions.
Amorim knows this and it is why we spent so heavily on both Cunha and Mbeumo this summer despite having several players who on paper looked like good options to play in these positions.
The issue is that Bruno is too good to drop, not just in terms of his ability but also in his role as captain and as a leader on the pitch. So we have to look to crowbar him in somewhere else. Which has lead to him playing in the midfield pivot. This isn’t something entirely new for Amorim, he did on several occasions at Sporting look to play a player who had traditionally been more of an attacking midfielder/ No.10 deeper in the double pivot. He did so most notably with Pedro Goncalves.
He wants one of his midfielders to be able to push up higher when his team have sustained pressure to be the extra man, the guy who arrives late in the box unmarked and free to sweep the ball home.
Bruno definitely has some of the skills required for this role. But he has one major flaw which ultimately makes him unsuitable for his position. He plays with his heart and not his head, if he sees that he he has even a 10% chance of winning the ball he dives in for it. He doesn’t check his position, and only make the move if he has both a good chance of winning it AND there is someone to cover the space he vacates. If you play in midfield, particularly a two man midfield, and there isn’t someone to cover you then you don’t jump out of your shape.
Bruno plays on instinct, he chases down every ball, and sometimes that makes him a one man pressing machine. He jumps when the rest of the team know to sit. Which leaves huge gaps for the opposition to play into and they can then outnumber us in those areas.
I love Bruno, I love his attitude, his passion, and all the great moments he has given us. But he is the last big tie holding us back. He is still seen as the talisman, and that makes it almost impossible for other players to step up. While he is here this will always be Bruno’s team, and sadly Bruno’s team will never be able to consistently challenge for major honours.
I’ve heard it said and I agree, that him NOT leaving in the summer could well be a watershed moment for us. Like other formerly great sides that were stuck in not being able to get back to the top despite them having a talisman player, a player their team was built around. We need to move on from the past to be able to embrace the future, sadly Bruno isn’t part of that future, and the sooner we move on from him the sooner we can start moving forward.