I really do not get this continuous, lazy Ronaldo narrative regarding Bruno. Like, in real time, when you are watching the games - how often are you seeing instances of this Ronaldo submission? It’s a total myth.
What exactly is it that Ronaldo has changed from his game? Is it that he is no longer willing to shoot and instead passes to Ronaldo? Is there any evidence of this at all? He shoots plenty, he gets forward plenty, gets good goalscoring chances plenty, and often misses them. A lot of these chances are even created for him by Ronaldo!
One of his biggest assets is his creation of chances anyway. How does him looking for Ronaldo impact his ability to create chances? Is Ronaldo playing at left back or something? There is also a theory that Bruno only has a particular skillset that allows him to exclusively create chances for Marcus Rashford or Anthony Martial. This is also nonsense, and if it were true, it would only serve to expose his weaknesses as a supposed world class 10 if he can only create chances by punting it into open space for strikers to run on to. The inability to create chances for a 25 goal striker and the greatest goalscorer ever is not a testament to his ability. But it is not true anyway. Bruno has shown himself capable of creating many chances for Ronaldo, and created a fair portion of those 25 goals, particularly in the Champions League. The idea that ‘he looks for Ronaldo all the time’ is firstly not true, and secondly, not abnormal at all, given that he is our number 10 and Ronaldo is our centre forward! Who is he supposed to be looking for?!
The only thing I can think of is that the player has lost confidence and belief in himself due to sharing a pitch with Ronaldo. Which again, is an indictment on the player, not a testament. I see no reason why people should be coming out with nonsense like ‘it’s because he’s not the main man anymore, once Ronaldo fecks off bla bla’ - we should be looking to improve, and we should be looking to have a 25 goal striker in our team. If that adversely has a mental effect on Bruno, then he should perhaps be more of a team player and be more concerned with the greater good than whether he gets the most praise or attention.
Anyway, much of this doesn’t matter IMO as there is no tangible evidence for Ronaldo being responsible for Bruno performing poorly, and even the theoretical arguments have been poorly made and mainly a regurgitation of microwaveable rhetoric. What exactly is Ronaldo doing?
Or is it a problem that he now has to share penalties with Ronaldo? That wasn’t even the case at first, and Ronaldo started taking them because Bruno missed the first one. Even then, big overpowering Ronaldo stepped aside and let him take our penalty at Arsenal, which he missed also. A player is responsible for their form generally speaking, but in this case, there is not even any real strong argument of Ronaldo being accountable.