A numbers story of how Bruno Fernandes has impacted Manchester United
Almost at the end of 29th January 2020, Fabrizio Romano tweeted how Manchester United had successfully negotiated an 18-month long pursuit of Sporting Lisbon midfielder and talisman Bruno Fernandes, spanning over 2 transfer windows which costed an initial €55m payment with a further €25m in variables. United fans were ecstatic over the signing of an attacking midfielder, who had been instrumental in Portugal’s Nations League success the summer prior, especially with the woes the club had in breaking down opposition low blocks.
However, nobody in their right mind would have expected him to do what he’s gone on to do. United was languishing at 5th in the Premier League table with 34 points after 24 matchweeks. Bruno made his debut on the 2nd of February vs Wolves at Old Trafford, which ended in a goalless stalemate. By the end of the season, United had almost doubled their points tally to 66, climbing to 3rd on the table over Chelsea on goal difference, a fixture where coincidentally Bruno got his first goal contribution for United too. He would end the season with 12 goals and 8 assists for Manchester United, 8 goals and 7 assists of which would come in the Premier League. United would go on an unbeaten streak for the rest of the season in the Premier League, albeit losing twice in crucial semifinal ties- vs Chelsea in the FA Cup and then vs Sevilla in the Europa League
P.S.-Some terms I’ll be using frequently G/A-goals and assists, xA-expected assists, xG-expected goals, 90s-number of minutes played represented in 90 minutes
A BRIEF STORY OF THE 19–20 SEASON
I’ll not delve too much into this, but Bruno Fernandes completely changed the United team's dynamic. He scored 8 goals and 7 assists in the Premier League in 1211 minutes at 0.595 goals per 90 and 0.52 assists per 90. He accumulated 5.99 xG, majorly from penalties(from which he scored 4 of his 8 goals) and 2.76 xA which put him 9th on xG and 16th in xA for the time post his Premier League debut. In truth, they’re nothing special, because he stat padded a lot of easy assists due to Anthony Martial’s and Mason Greenwood’s hot streak in front of the goal. He scored an additional 4 and assisted 1 in other competitions. However, his impact on the team can be quantified by xG and goals the team were scoring post his arrival.
Though there is a slight decrease in xG, we also need to keep in mind that United won 9 penalties before his arrival and 5 after, and the 0.76 xG per penalty awarded significantly alters this. Taking just non-penalty xG, the difference is still 0.02 more for the pre-Bruno season. We also need to consider United had fixtures such as Wolves, Chelsea, City, Tottenham, Southampton, Sheffield, West Hame left in those 14 fixtures that would decrease xG per game. But we can wholely consider that Bruno did not have that much of an impact on an increase in xG, at least last season. The difference however is goals scored.
United scored almost 0.6 goals a game more on average than before him. United who constantly underperformed xG before his arrival by almost 0.25 per game exceeded 0.3 per game now. They managed to score 5 past Bournemouth, their first since Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s debut as a manager in the 5–1 win vs Cardiff in December 2018 and only the 2nd time since Sir Alex Ferguson left. They only failed to accumulate less than 1 xG in two games post his arrival, in the 2–0 win vs Chelsea and 1–1 draw vs West Ham.
He ended the season with 12 goals and 8 assists in 1832 minutes at 0.983 G/A per 90
A BREATHTAKING 20–21
Bruno Fernandes has arguably been the best midfielder in the league, maybe the world this season. He’s not flashy or aesthetic, but he’s damn well efficient. He currently has 26 G+A in the Premier League, only second to Harry Kane’s 30, and leads various playmaking numbers in the league. Some people doubted him as world-class, but he’s long-silenced those critics.
Let’s get into numbers now. Bruno Fernandes’ creative stats in the Premier League this season [competition rank] by Statsman Dave:
- 82 total chances created [1st]
- 79 passes into the box [1st]
- 17 big chances created [1st]
- 17 through balls [1st]
- 10 assists [3rd]
- 9.7 xA [1st]
Bruno Fernandes has also scored seven winning goals in the Premier League this season, more than any other player. The last player to score more in a season for United was Wayne Rooney, with nine in 2011–12.
His percentile scores per 90 over the past 365 days across the top 5 leagues also show him a great light(taken from this link):
- Non penalty goals = 0.33(80th percentile)
- Non penalty xG = 0.25(71st percentile)
- Shots Total = 3.07(93rd percentile)
- Assists = 0.35(92nd percentile)
- xA = 0.34(97th percentile)
- Non penalty xG+xA = 0.59(88th percentile)
- Shot Creating Actions = 4.76(92nd percentile)
- Progressive Passes = 7.02(99th percentile)
- Progressive Dribbles = 7.02(65th percentile)
- Progressive Passes Recieved = 8.78(87th percentile)
- Pressures = 20.02(90th percentile)
- Tackles = 1.65(75th percentile)
- Clearances = 0.76(73rd percentile)
He is in and around the best in playmaking stats, he’s also an incredibly good finisher as evidenced by the 0.08 difference in non-penalty goals and npxG. His high progressive passes played and received show he can able to bypass opponents very well, putting him high in Impect’s Packing metric.
Also surprisingly for an attacking midfielder, or unsurprisingly for someone who watches him regularly, he has very good defensive contributions, ranking around the 80th percentile in pressures, tackles and clearances and is often the first line of press for United.
Let’s delve into each of these a bit deeper.
PLAYMAKING
According to Understat, Bruno has 9.65 xA, the most in the league. His xGChain is 18.44, 4th highest in the league xGBuildUp is 7.23, 18th highest in the league. With 138 shot-creating actions, he ranks in at 2nd in Europe behind a certain Lionel Messi and a similar case in goal creating actions with 22 to Messi’s 32.
Bruno Fernandes has 81 Key Passes, the most in Europe’s top 5 leagues, 28th in passes into the final 3rd with 151 and 2nd in passes into the penalty area with 79, again behind a certain Argentine.
Finally, Fernandes’ xA tally of 9.7 puts him in 2nd spot only to Memphis Depay. He’s also joint 4th with 10 assists in the top 5 leagues and is overperforming xA by only 0.3.
Goal Threat
Bruno Fernandes’ 26 goals and assists in the league should already establish himself as a pretty predatory player. His 36 goals and assists according to Transfermarkt put him 7th for most G/A across all competitions for players in the top 15 leagues.
Bruno is a voluminous shooter. He ranks 10th for total shots and 23rd for shots on target. He’s also an ambitious shooter as his 438 rank in non-penalty xG per shot out of roughly 700 forwards and midfielders with more than 900 minutes show. He ranks almost smack middle with his goals per shot of 0.1 at 313.
His non-penalty xG + xA of 15.6 is the 15th highest in the top 5 leagues, and he has a similar rank for his total xG + xA of 0.82.
A look at his xG numbers also show him ranking quite high, especially for a midfielder, he ranks 14th for total goals at 16 and 22nd for xG at 12.8
Bruno also ranks 17th for goals+assists per 90 at 0.95 and 61st for non-penalty goals+assists per 90 at 0.66 for players with at least 900 minutes, both very good numbers for a midfielder. Bumping up the number to players with 20 90s, and his rank jumps to 11th and 21st respectively
Defensive Contributions
I’ve mentioned most of it initially so I won’t go into much detail into this. For forwards and midfielders, Bruno ranks 3rd in pressures, and is within the upper 12 percentile in successful pressures, tackles won and tackles won vs dribbles. The two graphs below will illustrate the following.
Bruno’s position in the 2nd graph may not appear very outstanding till you considering the dataset also considers ball-winning midfielders, box to box midfielders and defensive midfielders
HIS IMPACT ON UNITED
Now, I’ll just try to briefly analyze his impact on United.
We all know Bruno Fernandes is basically United at the moment, but how much exactly? Seeing the net goals scored by players by the team while the player was on the pitch minus the net goals allowed while the player was off the pitch gives us a better picture per 90 minutes. Normally this favours players who were there for a lesser period but the results here are startling.
This is pretty fantastic I guess. The way to interpret this result is for a particular player, the net goals in the goal difference of the team per 90 while he is on the pitch minus the goal difference per 90 while he is off it. For United, most starters get punished because of the habit they had of conceding early goals. In general, starters who get substituted get punished because of the habit of scoring late goals in some games. But not Bruno Fernandes. If anything, this shows that United are conceding more than scoring while Bruno is off the pitch. His being present on the pitch gives United a goal edge of over 3 goals a game.
A similar portrait is portrayed for the net xG graph where he is 3rd in the league only to Leeds United’s Stuart Dallas and Aston Villa’s Matt Targett.
This graph doesn’t intend to slander Luke Shaw, Paul Pogba and co by the way. It just tells us that United create more or concede less when they’re off the pitch than when they’re on it. This is natural as these players will only be rested for comparatively easier games or the last few minutes of a game where stronger teams accumulate higher goals or xG. But for a player like Bruno Fernandes, this tells a lot.
He’s contributed to 22.5 xG of Manchester United’s 45.5 xG in the league, contributing to almost 49.6% of his side’s xG, only surpassed by Harry Kane for contribution to a particular team. He’s also contributed to 26 of United’s 53 goals this season, contributing to 49% of his side’s goals. Only Callum Wilson of Newcastle and Harry Kane have contributed to a higher proportion of goals for their side.
CONCLUSION
Bruno Fernandes has established himself as a world-class footballer. He’s versatile and can play a 10 as well as a no.8, as evidenced by his national team exploits. He contributes to his side in various forms, through playmaking, scoring as well as defensively. A natural leader, he demands more and raises the quality of his teammates while maintaining a high standard for himself.
He’s not an aesthetic player who scintillates you like a De Bruyne or Kroos, but he’s mastered the ability to contribute to his side in whatsoever way possible. Even on bad days, he can come up with a magic moment and conjure up something from nothing.
Till now, he’s contributed to 23 goals and 13 assists this season, at 0.93 G/A per90, including 4 goals and 2 assists in the Champions League. At this rate, he’ll very well go on to become an elite player and a cult hero at Old Trafford.
Here’s hoping to many more, and hopefully successful years at the Theatre of Dreams.
