With the kind of service he's been getting, I think van Persie would have scored 30 goals for us this season.
10
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 46
- Goals
- 28
- Assists
- 9
- Yellow cards
- 8
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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He had a shit game and it happens, but he really shouldn't have taken the pen. I know you can say hindsight blaba, but it was so obvious he'd miss after his terrible 70 minutes before the pen.
In regards to potential Champions league qualification, he is as much to blame as others if we don't make it. He saved our arses many times this season, but he also bottled it heavily against the likes of Stoke, Burnley or Bournemouth at home.
In regards to potential Champions league qualification, he is as much to blame as others if we don't make it. He saved our arses many times this season, but he also bottled it heavily against the likes of Stoke, Burnley or Bournemouth at home.
Mata is probably the best we have at them and has scored a few for us.
Yeah, I just can't see him ever coming here though, but that's for another tread.
He's been an important player for us this season but not clinical at old Trafford. He missed too many chances, again today. He never gets subbed so we can't give someone else an opportunity, that is mourihnos fault. We really need to buy someone in the summer that can finish. Zlatan at times again missed tap in's again. Rooney never looks like scoring, Martial rashford play the wings and are never in there. Simple, look at our goal difference. We rarely score 4 in any game but create more than anyone else. Same old story at old Trafford, people shouldn't wonder why there might not be cl football here next year considering our home form. Yeah it's frustrating, because it's poor finishing.
How about a bit of variety in the penalties please? Every single one he's taken for us has been bottom left. If I was Boruc I wouldn't exactly have had to spend hours studying Zlatan's penalty techniques. And on a bad day like today he should have shown a bit of creativity and done something different. I'm not just saying this with hindsight, but him missing was the most obvious thing in the world considering the game he had.
Shite Zlatan regularly costs us points; great Zlatan wins us trophies.
When he has an off day (like he did today) we really need somebody else to step up.
When RVP had an off day, at least we had Hernandez scoring important goals.
I have no issue with Zlatan hving an off day here and there (cos it happens) but where was everybody else? Others missed chances too.
Im not sure if he will get a 3 game ban or not. Ref spoke to him with Rooney there, so he obviously saw something. (and it happened in the second half to the Bournemouth player who escaped the second yellow).
When RVP had an off day, at least we had Hernandez scoring important goals.
I have no issue with Zlatan hving an off day here and there (cos it happens) but where was everybody else? Others missed chances too.
Im not sure if he will get a 3 game ban or not. Ref spoke to him with Rooney there, so he obviously saw something. (and it happened in the second half to the Bournemouth player who escaped the second yellow).
He had a bad day. I'm not sure he really owes us very much this season. Yeah, of course he should have scored some of his chances this season, but there's a reason no mere mortal scores 60 a season. The problem isn't him letting us down today, it's the others who've been watching him dig them out of holes for much of the season.
Ibra is a brilliant player, but when it is one of those days, then one of those things should be done. Sub Ibra and let somebody else try to lead the line. Over-relying on 35 year-old Ibra is too risky and it does not pay off.
In fairness, we barely get any penalties, so Ibra probably didn't think he had to mix them up!
He was always going to miss today, he'd lost it earlier.
My thoughts exactly. Make no mistake, he was dreadful from start to finish today, but what worries me is that no one else stepped up when Zlatan was not up for it.
Greizman can't come quick enough, because we are in dire lack of match winners in our squad
Just shows how dependent you guys are on Zlatan. I'd be very concerned if I was a Utd fan if he gets a ban for a few matches now.
Mings jumped into my elbow 
Classic Zlatan
Classic Zlatan
if he gets a retrospective ban, does it apply to Europa?
Nope, just in competitions under FA.
This thread really demonstrates how a goal can completely change the perception of a performance. We've seen Zlatan put in a good number of similar games, this shouldn't come as a shock. Today was Saint Etienne without the luck. Posters who dared to mention his performance in that game were shot down.
He'll be scoring again soon but as I've said before, lone strikers in a good team(which we are) will get lots of chances. What constitutes a great tally needs to altered slightly in my opinion.
He'll be scoring again soon but as I've said before, lone strikers in a good team(which we are) will get lots of chances. What constitutes a great tally needs to altered slightly in my opinion.
Shocking performance. He's won us a lot of games but has also been responsible for some of our worst results at home with poor finishing.
We'll have a serious problem if he gets a retrospective 3 match ban.
Our attacking game is built around Zlatan. Small wonder then that everything sucks when he is shit. United are too dependent on Zlatan because Jose has decided to organise the whole play around him.
Agree completely. Cue the accusations of being a "body language expert" but I could tell from the way he lined up to take the free kick and the pen that his head wasn't in it. Seemed rushed and nervous after the elbow incident.
He's been a brilliant player for us this season...he can't do it all on his own, every single game. He pretty much won us the cup last week on his own! Had an off day, but that is when others need to take more responsibility. To be honest, we were pretty poor against Southampton and poor again today. We're just not a great team at the moment, albeit a difficult one to beat.
Exactly this.
Mourinho won't even entertain the idea of subbing him off once in a while.
He was poor today and he deserves criticism for it, but has our second top goal scorer even scored ten goals this season? There's a few who have 6/7/8.
But as far as the three in behind him go we need a bigger output, and probably some improvements.
If Ibra keeps playing how he did today that's our season ruined.
But as far as the three in behind him go we need a bigger output, and probably some improvements.
If Ibra keeps playing how he did today that's our season ruined.
If we only had some more pace upfront we'd definately be up there with Chelsea. Zlatan is holding us back so much this season. Mourinho clearly hates United and never subs Ibra, intentionaly holding us back from winning and scoring goals. Is there any other explanation as to why Ibra plays every minute? This also explains the exclusion of our version of Messi, Martial.
He will most probably get it. Though based on his post-match comments, he is not just the god of Manchester but also the Chuck Norris of United. He did not elbow, Bournemouth player ran right at his elbow.
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I don't care if sl he stays after this season to be honest because too often he is detrimental too our play and results. He may score the goals in other games but i don't think we'll ever be great in attack whilst it is centred around him. And he stifles Martial so much. I actually think he ignores Martial in good positions too much and you can see Martial getting frustrated.
Yeah. As a bonus, he does his talking out there on the pitch.
If he does get a 3 match ban, we'll have a chance to test this a little bit. Be interesting to see how Jose sets the team up.
Not the trophies we want though.
How does a yellow card nullify a striker's game? That too of a 35 year old who rarely tries to track back/win the ball/put in tackles. I don't see how the it impacted Ibra's game in 2nd half. For the most part, he played exactly like he normally does. Shame he couldn't put the penalty away and again, I can't see how the yellow card had any role to play in the miss. He did have a poor second half but no way was that down to his yellow.
The fact that Mourinho kept him on despite bringing 3 attacking changes speaks for my argument. I would argue that a top-top manager knows way better than us. You simply do not sub players like Ibra and Pogba because they can win you games in the blink of an eye. Especially not because they are on a yellow. Besides, anyone you could bring on for Zlatan was on for good twenty minutes. It didn't change anything so had we not brought a good player off of the bench, I may have been inclined to agree with you. Even then it would have been a ridiculous change. Yeah, he cost us the game today but you will do well to remember over half a dozen games he has won us (a very recent cup final) and the alternatives we had if we had decided to sub Ibra. Neither the yellow card nor his performance in 1st half justifies the idea of his proposed substitution thrown up by you at halftime.
Mings jumped into my elbow
Classic Zlatan
But you don't understand. Without Zlatan on the field, our attacking players will magically turn into world beaters scoring many goals.
If we only had some more pace upfront we'd definately be up there with Chelsea. Zlatan is holding us back so much this season. Mourinho clearly hates United and never subs Ibra, intentionaly holding us back from winning and scoring goals. Is there any other explanation as to why Ibra plays every minute? This also explains the exclusion of our version of Messi, Martial.
I keep thinking you guys will get bored of this joke but nope...you just keep on with it.But you don't understand. Without Zlatan on the field, our attacking players will magically turn into world beaters scoring many goals.
I haven't even read all the pages since a while back, not been on the forum much lately. So I'm sorry if I'm repeating what others have said.
He should never have taken that penalty, I knew he was going to miss. His head had completely gone after the nonsense in the first half. He just seemed hell bent on getting revenge.
He should have had a hat-trick today. Massively disappointed with his penalty Miss too but for people to suggest he shouldn't have taken it is silly.
Him being the lone striker, yes you could say the attack is built around him to some extent, but i really doubt Mou has told the players to "just pass it to Zlatan and let him fix it". With Zlatan having scored nearly half of our goals this season we need more goals from our other attacking players
Point is... I knew he would miss. When you're having a bad day just let others take the peno. Im sure some players felt confident enoughl to convert.
Yeah I completely agree with the last part.
He plays every game across several comps in a team that creates loads of chances. Most high-level strikers would have got around 20 goals by now.
The goals he gets seem to come in bunches and when he's off form, he's really off form. People say today was an off day but he's had too many days like that, and given the team is built around him it tends to cost us.
I'm not saying he's a bad player, obviously not, far from it. But he's not the world-class number 9 people make out.
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