Paulo Bernardo

Not good enough for the money quoted.

 

The fact he looks decent in an awful season makes me want him.

 

He’s coasting, other than a spell which lasted about 5 games where he looked class he’s not shown anywhere near enough to justify paying 6m for him.

If there had been a game midweek or even next weekend I’d not have been surprised if he lost his place to Kelly to be honest, and if Hatate is back any time soon I can’t see him featuring a whole lot more. Tidy player who’s work rate is impressive but doesn’t do enough in games and his finishing (shooting in general) is dreadful.

 

At times it's worth remembering he's only just turned 22 and until he joined he had only played about 40 senior games in his career.

He's shown there's definitely ability there and for between £4 - £5m id be willing to take the chance on him

 

Hope he scores again soon, you’ll see him raise to the levels we witnessed before the break when he does.

He has a lot of quality but he absolutely is the epitome of a player thats not had a full season worth of games under his belt.

He’s not developed that confidence in play that comes with having a wealth of games behind you that reassures you that you know what to do. He shows it in bursts, tails up, sometimes you see he gets annoyed and shows some flair and creativity but when his tails not up and I don’t really mind responding like he does, he goes safe, easy balls, presses and covers, and plays within himself. Sometimes you see brief flashes of when he was very confident and flying.

He gets a goal again, then he goes back in that mindset

 

Stick or twist time.
With Cal out-and Matt and Iwata doing well, there is a place up for grab.
Would be great to have Reo in there with both of them.
Just not seeing it with Bernardo. Sure he gets about, is neat and tidy, keeps it ticking over but thats it with him. He did come onto a game in December but looks to have regressed.
So do we stick with him in the hope that he can rediscover his Dec form?
Or what are the other options? Kelly way too inexperienced at this crucial point of the season.
Holm, dont have much hope for him.
We just need a bit more creativity, so missing Reo.

 

Another good game by him today.

 

Far too alike to O’Reilly, very tidy player and plenty potential but would like to see Holm get more of a chance.

 

Bernardo is a talented guy who understands football and has the technique and ability to quietly get through a game, but has much more in his locker when you see him confident. Like earlier this season when we seen it.

And that’s a player who’s played less than 50 pro games and doesn’t have the experience to play to his best when everything isn’t going his way. But he has the unusual thing from inexperience that when that’s happening, he’ll just be confident, neither here or there but keep the ball, pass to a guy in space who’s an easy pass, not take the man on and keep it safe. Play within himself basically.

if it’s £6m (apparently it’s less than that) then I’d jump at that. Because he has so much in his locker, he just needs to hit the groove that he trusts it when it’s not always happening.

He’s not a £6m player the now for Scottish standards, but a year or two, he could be worth a lot * more. Benfica academy and La Masia produce guys that just understand the game, and baffles me why we don’t * study that, try to mimic it and if we get 25% right we’re 10x better than what we have the now man

 

Reo won’t be starting for a while after returning if we’re managing him right and not rushing it mate. But 20 mins, 30 mins, he’s the only guy we can take O’Riley off for and think like for like quality.

If we have Iwata, Calmac and O’Riley on, whoever’s the worst 60 mins in, then they’re off for Hatate coming on. And you’d hope that’d result in 3 guys making sure they’re the best and not getting whipped off. Calmac included there, he’s usually untouchable, and Calmac can usually be that consistent that he should be. But he’s had times this year that he wasn’t showing why he should be.


If thats made clear, then I’d be confident of McGregor absolutely making sure he’s not the guy to be whipped off. He’s done it his full career before he was indispensable and was the easy option as a sub, as the main man, he’ll be making * sure even more, as the example to others that sets the standard

 

It’s a weird one for me that, cos I’d love to see Kelly handed the chance and trusted and not just coming on when a games decided (whether us scooshing it or like Hearts had recognised that we were beat) but Bernardo even coasting it, you can rely on him doing a job to a predictable standard. Like when he got the nod in the CL and just took the ball in, and passed it to a teammate not losing possession and pressed and worked off the ball majorly, something he does all the time but goes a bit unnoticed because he’s not rushing about going mad closing down, he just does it constantly because he picks up the right positions. Similar to O’Riley defensively and pressing in that way as well.

Kelly could rise to the occasion, could show why we rate him highly and respond to trust shown in him playing a blinder. Or it could be too soon, too much and a disaster. Probably one or the other, more chance of a 9 or a 5 than a 7 sort of game.


But if he does have a disaster, it can take a long time recovering from that, and the fans will turn. Bernardo not so much, but I’d 100% start Kelly at Livi.

I’m more desperately hoping we can have Tomoki, Calmac, O’Riley with Hatate coming on instead though. Possibly desperation rather than expectation that but tbf

 

He’d flourish more next to Hatate or McGregor for sure, we should definitely be signing him because he’s clearly O’Reilly’s replacement.

 

Being right next door to the EPL and cities that are quite geographically close by world standards where they speak (more or less ha ha) the same language makes me wonder if the investment would be worth it. I mean, if you're a 17-year-old kid at Benfica, you're going to think twice about travelling 2,500km to Liverpool, to a different country, a different culture, a different language, a different climate and where you can't really come back to see family very often at all. If you're Ben Doak, on the other hand, Liverpool is only 285km away, it's essentially the same country, culture, climate, language and culture and you can easily visit your family every week.

Am I seeing this right, mate? Genuine question.

 

I’d sign him. I’ve always liked him to be honest.

For someone who’s played so little, his game intelligence is excellent. Protects the ball brilliantly and again, his work off the ball is so under appreciated.

He’ll only get better, and I’d rather spend the £6million on him than trust our recruitment team to find someone better than him for the same outlay.

 

Aye sadly probably right there, especially if you get the academy to a level the full worlds eyes or on it.

 

He's a strange one for me.
I really like him (but it's not a £7 million "like") and I get a feeling like he's been with us for far longer, for some reason (?)
IDK - just seems oddly natural seeing him in Hoops.
In my mind somehow, he's seen as a fairly natural fit (also character-wise) and would like to think he feels the same way and might be pushing a bit for a permanent move on more reasonable terms?

 

I thought he was great, needs to keep that consistency.

 

Far too quiet and doesn’t have enough influence in the games. Would need to step it up to have any chance of getting a permanent contract with Celtic. Thats means doing it consistently not once every 7 or 8 games

 

Don't think that would be an issue tbh. Maybe you could lose 1 or 2 players here and then but nothing too detrimental. You could make the same argument for Portuguese players vs. Spanish clubs (Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético) and it does not happen often.

Benfica also lost some youth players to the EPL. Out of those that became pros, I remember João Virginia (left to Arsenal, plays for Everton), Rony Lopes (left for City, plays for Braga) and Diego Moreira (Chelsea). Manchester United also tried to convince Jota.

But you can also find examples of players that we let go when they were young for not being good enough and made it: Nuno Santos (Sporting), Danilo Pereira (PSG), Fábio Cardoso (Porto) and Ricardo Horta (Braga). All of these are Portuguese internationals. Ederson (City) was also let go and we bought him back when he was 22y before selling him to City for 40M€.

This is to say that (i) it is really hard to identify the kids better suited to play at pro level (maybe they are behind physically as 15y olds but think much faster than the other players); and (ii) if you have 25 talented players at your u-16 teams, even if you lose 1-3 that are arguably the "best" the "worst" may step up and after being given play time and experiences can develop much higher.

I can honestly say that the investment in the academy/youth teams saved Benfica. We would be financially ruined and unable to compete in Europe without those kids. Even this year we paid 25M€ for CM Orkun Kokcu (Eredivisie player of the year) and João Neves plays so much better than him is insane. These kids can make the step up from the youth team / Benfica B to the senior squad and make it look seamless.