Bruno isn’t doing too little, he’s doing too much
So basically I’ve seen a lot of criticism online this season about Bruno, especially following the Wolves match. While I do think it’s reasonable, I wanted to see why Bruno isn’t performing as well this season so I took a bit of a look and this is just what I’ve found.
This is my opinion btw, if you have a different one or if you think I’ve got something wrong I’d love to hear it (Also all stats are taken from FBref and heat maps from Sofascore, and I’m comparing 20/21 Bruno with this season since 20/21 was his most prolific season for us)
And also I’m shit at formatting so this is the best I can do. The images (in order) are: Bruno’s defensive stats from 24/25 vs 20/21, possession stats from 24/25 vs 20/21 and heat maps from 24/25 vs 20/21
- His defensive numbers have increased significantly, going from attempting 1.66 to 2.38 tackles per90. Just for reference, Odegaard averaged 1.43 last season and 1.21 this season and Bruno’s average is only behind Ugarte, Case and Maz in terms of players that have actually played significant minutes for us this season. The increase mainly comes from the midfield (0.84 -> 1.34) and attack (0.35 -> 0.55) showing how Bruno pressing and trying to win back possession in the middle of the park and I think this is the main reason behind Bruno’s problems. For his entire time at United he’s always been the problem solver and you can see that when we play, Bruno’s always the one looking for the moment of magic, the winning goal and quite often he has delivered it. But now he’s pushing himself to try and fix us everywhere on the pitch and that’s really harming him on the offence. Bruno is averaging 71.82 touches compared to 78.70 per90 meaning he’s less involved in the game but even when he is involved, his touches are coming much deeper in the pitch with in increase in the defensive pen (1.16 -> 1.59), defensive 3rd (8.25 -> 9.40) and a massive drop of in attack (37.14 -> 29.47 in the attacking 3rd and 3.60 -> 2.81 in the attacking pen and receiving 4.94 progressive passes compared to 7.64). This is a massive drop, Bruno is over 20% less involved in the attacking 3rd and pen and you can see this on his heat map as well, with Bruno being practically everywhere on the pitch which could explain why he’s being sent off more, more tackles + trying to race around the entire pitch = more reckless tackles.
- He’s still giving incredible output offensively, albeit not at his previous level. Bruno still is creating quite a lot, ranking 14th in the league for Shot Creating Actions per90 and ranking highly for Key passes, Progressive passes and passes into the final 3rd. The key difference between this season and previously is that, like I’ve said already, because Bruno is trying to help out defensively much more, he’s hindering his offensive output since naturally he’s in deeper positions and playing further away from goal than he would like, he’s not able to be the decisive player in terms of goals and assists that he’s great at being but rather he’s doing more of the pre-assist work and building the attack. Again, you can see this on the heat maps, with Bruno this season playing everywhere in the middle while in 20/21 he was predominantly involved in the opposing half. I think this again is because of that thing Bruno has about trying to help everywhere, whereas in previous years someone like Eriksen (22/23) or even Mainoo to a degree last season helps with the build up, this year we don’t have that conductor in midfield since Kobbie hasn’t been on form and it’s not really Ugarte’s skillset so Bruno seems to be taking it upon himself to try and do it but it’s just not working for him.
- I think sorting the LWB position will really help Bruno out. Our problems at LB/LWB are well documented but it’s also actually hindering Bruno in the current system as well. At Sporting, Amorim played Quenda as an inverted RWB but played a traditional LWB to hold the width and stretch the defensive line, Bruno as LF and Dalot as LWB isn’t clicking down that side because Dalot doesn’t stretch the line and hold the width, he prefers to invert from there and against Wolves he kept drifting inside. If you compare the heat maps from 20/21 and this season, another stark difference is Bruno’s lack of touches down the middle in the opposition’s half, Bruno, as we know, works best down the middle. ETH trying to play him as a RAM rather than a CAM very clearly didn’t work for him and in an ideal world he would be able to drift into the middle and create from this LF role under Amorim but because Dalot doesn’t hold the width and drifts inside, he kind of draws the defender with him and so Bruno tries to shuffle out wide but he doesn’t have the speed to be a threat and we aren’t a threat from crosses either so he can’t do much with his passing prowess from out wide because typically at this point the defence is well settled and it’s not like he can whip in a ball behind either. Bruno works best either down the middle or in the half spaces (Basically within the width of the penalty box) and I really think that if we got a LWB who stayed out wide which would allow Bruno to drift inside it would help him significantly.
TLDR: Bruno’s trying to do too much: He’s trying to win us the ball in midfield, press high, help in build up and be incisive in the final third. It doesn’t fit his skillset and instead hinders his best traits. He’s still contributing offensively but in build up rather than as the decisive player. We need a proper LWB who stays wide so Bruno can work his magic from the middle without being shunted out wide due to a lack of space