I wasn't talking about Varane. As for Bruno, this is something I was told months ago by a friend who is a Sporting fan. He is a good player but he unbalances the side. Sporting have gone from strength to strength as a side since they sold him. Meanwhile look how much Villa are struggling without Grealish and Chelsea in that first season without Hazard.
I've certainly got a few questions about Ronaldo cucking Cavani out of the No7 shirt as soon as he walked through the door, too
Bruno is a good player but his impact was massively overstated and overblown because of the amount of goals he was getting from penalties. Nearly half of them, if I have it right. United right now serve as a great example of the fact that money can’t buy good decision making if the will to do it properly isn’t there.
Fernandes scored 28 goals last season in all competitions for Man Utd. 13 of those were penalties and he missed another against Newcastle. This season he has 4 in all competitions, 3 of which were on the opening day against Leeds. He's only had one penalty, which he missed against Villa. He hasn't scored since then.
Varane is fantastic, losing him was a big loss but he seems plagued with injuries nowadays. As for Fernandes sooner or later United fans will come to understand. Michael Jordan for instance averaged more points in the NBA during 86-90 than he ever did in his Championship winning years - the penny eventually dropped and he realised playing heroball wouldn't win a Championship. Sometimes you have to be willing to give up personal stats for the benefit of the team, I don't think Fernandes (or Ronaldo) seem capable of doing that.
His record in big games is also shambolic. 0 goals against Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Arsenal. 1 penalty against Tottenham (a game he lost 6-1). Completely anonymous in the Europa League Final + all of the SF games in that 19/20 season. Decent player but massively overhyped. I couldn't believe it when mainstream media were calling him the best January signing ever given at United alone, both Vidic and Evra were January signings. David Luiz - who is completely maligned by UK media - made far more of an impact at Chelsea when he joined in January 2011. More or less replaced John Terry and won several cups to boot.
They also have to understand that there are some matches that Ronaldo shouldn't start. He's not capable of putting in a full shift any more and they can't afford to carry a player sometimes. They needed all hands on deck against City and Liverpool.
The big problem is Ronaldo is a huge commercial asset to the Premier League and all other broadcasters (which is why the ref didn't card him for what was straight up assault on Curtis Jones). Dropping him from the XI would cost them too many viewers. When he scores against Atalanta or a weaker PL team there are immediate cries of "He's not the Problem" from ex-pros who are pretty much forced to fanboy and promote him for the brand. If honest conversations were had about Ronaldo and Fernandes the outlook might be different for them. This doesn't exonerate OGS by any means but their defensive record was far superior to Chelsea's and on a par with City/Liverpool up until last season.
He's not the problem against those teams. He could still be useful against title challengers. Start Cavani or one of their many other strikers, then bring him on late if you're still in the game. 20 or 30 minutes of 100% Ronaldo effort would be more impactful in those circumstances. Their main issue is still a lack of a quality central midfielder, though. Solskjaer's lost the option of using Pogba there for a while, too. They may stick with the 5-3-2 and hope it's better against sides that aren't City.
PSG women's player, Aminata Diallo, has been arrested for hiring two men to attack her teammate, Kheira Hamraoui. She was driving Hamraoui when they got stopped by the men who then bashed up Hamraoui who needed stitches in both hands and legs. They're both in competition for a midfield spot in the French national team and that's believed to be the possible motive for Diallo setting up the attack.... Now I'm all for doing whatever it takes to beat the competition but literally beating them may be a step too far
Mmmmmmmmm...what if we suggested to Clarke that Winks, Dele, Lo Celso, Bergwijn and Ndombele were all that stood between him and regular first team football
One obvious problem: that would mean Jack Clarke was going to be a regular starter for us, which would once again lead to Leeds fans spreading that utter bollocks about his seizure being caused by drinking too many cans of Monster Energy
Just seen West Ham have sold 27% of their shares to Czech businessman, Daniel Kretinsky. Wonder if we'll see some Czech vs Portugal national sideshow in the Prem with them and Wolves... They already have Soucek and Coufal, plus David Luiz lookalike Alex Kral on loan and I've seen some suggest they might make a move for Adam Hlozek, who plays for Sparta Prague, whom Kretinsky also owns.
