Spot on.
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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I can't believe there are people who consider his output today masked a poor performance. Who on earth was having a better match out of our attacking players today?
I'm starting to doubt that he can do anything to shut up the remaing nay-sayers. Last year Martial scored 17 goals in all competitions, leading our scoring charts. We've already scored more goals as a team than we did all of last season (I believe?). Sure, there were a few important sitters that Zlatan should have scored, but if we want our fortunes to improve, he's the last player we'd need to take a hard look at.
I'm starting to doubt that he can do anything to shut up the remaing nay-sayers. Last year Martial scored 17 goals in all competitions, leading our scoring charts. We've already scored more goals as a team than we did all of last season (I believe?). Sure, there were a few important sitters that Zlatan should have scored, but if we want our fortunes to improve, he's the last player we'd need to take a hard look at.
Actually, we have drastically improved in creating chances and yet this season we haven't yet crossed 50 goals. We have 46 and 22 less than top scorers Liverpool.He has to take the blame for the amount of chances he misses. He is leading the line. He does score some great goals. But he just takes more chances and his conversion rate doesn't seem to be that good.
Today's game sums him up. Scored a goal but probably cost us three or four others with terrible passing and poor decision making. Even his assist for Rashford was lucky as he gave the defender a good chance to win it and overlooked Martial completely free on the other side.
He's also created a ton of chances that others ought to have finished off. His tally is so good, and his chance creation is so good, that it's ludicrous to focus on him when talking about room for improvement, or even talking about moving him along.
If you want to get more out of our attack as a whole then I think you need a different attacker to Zlatan. Everything is focussed around getting the most out of him and hoping he gets the goals.
Today he was pretty crap apart from the goal. He messed up many great opportunities with his passing.
Nobody has a 100% ratio in football. Even the greatest are going to misplace or miss a chance.
As long as he is scoring goals and assisting that leads to us winning then I'm happy.
Seriously man, give your head a wobble.
It was a perfectly weighted pass for the guy in the best position to just smash it in the corner.
Take a break
I'm confused. I thought he timed the pass perfectly, Rashford got the ball on his feet and didn't have to run to the ball. Sure he could have passed Martial but as I see it (a bit hard because of the angle) Martial was behind Ibrahimovic so he saw him a bit late. Probably already decided to make the pass when Martial was in Ibra's 'sight'.
Cost us 3 or 4 goals? Bit of an exaggeration? He had a couple of good passes that could have resulted in goals but they don't count? They can't score on the passes he gives to them, only the 'occasions' that he 'ruins' for them?
I get the feeling that some people expect flawless performances of Ibrahimovic. Why? Name 1 player that constantly does everything right, movement, goals and passes. If he'd done Everything the way some expect, he'd without a question be the greatest of all time by a mile. You wan't him to be as quick as a sprinter, have the lungs as a marathon runner, be able to pass as Xavi and score goals as Ronaldo and Messi. Is he supposed to do evertything for the team? I'm surprised no ones blaming him for the goals they concede. Ibrahimovic must have 'startled' de Gea and Rojo in the Everton game which caused them to make a simple mistake.
Some are also acting as if the rest of the team is great at the moment and Ibrahimovic is ruining for them. And also act as if they are on i.e. Bayern Munich's level right now.
Sure he makes mistakes, but so does everyone else. And he should be the last player (together with Valencia) to be criticised this season, since there's a whole bunch of players underperforming.
Sorry if I sound harsh. I just think it's sad to see that he gets critique even when he's doing something good. Why always focus on the negative?
He made the right choice. Passing sideways to Martial would give Sunderland time to reposition themselves yet he still managed to make a decoy out of him. Rashford, on the other hand, had just started his run to go through on goal. Great assist.
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While I don't disagree Martial was in a better position, I think you're being incredibly harsh here.
We would be absolutely fecked without Ibra.
Can't begin to fathom how we could bridge the gap between our perceptions. Very few players have everything come off. He usually makes smarter choices than any other player we have, and usually his execution is fine. We're a team that's not exactly in a flow state, and the impact he's had has been incredible. Often our new signings (since Fergie's departure) have started bright, only to fade as the lack of cohesion in the team rubs off. Zlatan's imposed himself, and is lifting us, IMHO.
What more is he supposed to do? I thought he was a striker?
Whilst that's true, he doesn't score every game. And whilst he is wasteful in possession and our whole attack is built around him and gets nothing out of our other attackers, this it's an obvious issue.
It's easy to say that when it goes in. But I've seen him do the same thing many times this season and the defender wins the ball. His cut back to Herrera another example of either a poor pass or bad decision making, esoecially when their keeper and defenders were all over the place.
Seriously man, give your head a wobble.
It was a perfectly weighted pass for the guy in the best position to just smash it in the corner.
That's great, but what about the ricidulous amount of chances he has squandered when we have drawn games?
Yep i think we're too far apart in how we see him. If you think he's smart in what he does and I think he's only interested in doing something that might make him look great, then it's too big a gap to bridge.
He's been a good signing for this season but in the long run we won't look great in attack until we have another striker that has more aspects to his game which brings out more in Mkhi, Martial etc. That's my prediction, let's see how next season goes if he's still here.
Maybe.
I don't disagree that we'd be nowhere without him this season, but i also think we'll go no further with him.
What can he do about that? Martial was bad during the Euro's with different teammates. Wouldn't that mean that the problem lies with him?
How do you know that any other striker would improve the other players? It's wishful thinking and simply a guess.
Why not make the same assumption but the other way. Other offensive players around Ibrahimovic and the team would win the PL? I can't know, it's just a guess.
That's still a mistaken sentiment.
I think EVERYONE would agree that we would go no further next season if we continue to be this dependent on him. But if we had an actual productive forward line with wingers and the shadow striker contributing more goals, we'd still do much better with him. If we bought well in every other position except striker next season, we'd still have better results because we're so reliant on Ibra today.
Given that we have a limited amount of resources every transfer season, my opinion is our priority is to buy quality on the wings and in the attacking midfielder or second striker role, before a central striker. I'd have Rashford/Martial/Lingard competing for one role on the flanks, and buy a world class starter for the other flank. Then, I'd buy a second striker like Griezmann to assist and score. And then I'd buy a central striker who can compete with Ibra.
Calling out Ibra as our season's problems or our team's biggest problem is simply a mistake.
Seems to me that you're only focusing on his mistakes and don't notice the good things he does. You don't have to like the player but the way you're explaining things is as if he's the problem. Like he makes mistakes and the others don't. Someone wrote that Rashford, Rooney and Martial were top 5 in PL's worst conversion rate this season. Is this because of Ibrahimovic? And when there are so much worse performances from others at the moment, how can you not appreciate what he does even more?
That's all I have to say about this.
Some people here will just never accept what Zlatan provides to this team whatever he does .
When he doesn't score he's hammered because of missing chances .
When he score goals , he's hammered due to some bad passes or slowing the game .
While on the same time some players can miss the hell they want and will never get the same hammering as him . Martial can play as bad as he wants and always got his excuses : " the LB wasn't helping him , the manager benched him , the manager doesn't trust him , the manager plays a style that only helps Zlatan .. etc " . Same for almost all of our attackers except Zlatan . Whatever Zlatan scores or not he'll get hammered here .
Zlatan isn't and will never be our problem . It's his teammates who got problems with their number of goals this season .
When he doesn't score he's hammered because of missing chances .
When he score goals , he's hammered due to some bad passes or slowing the game .
While on the same time some players can miss the hell they want and will never get the same hammering as him . Martial can play as bad as he wants and always got his excuses : " the LB wasn't helping him , the manager benched him , the manager doesn't trust him , the manager plays a style that only helps Zlatan .. etc " . Same for almost all of our attackers except Zlatan . Whatever Zlatan scores or not he'll get hammered here .
Zlatan isn't and will never be our problem . It's his teammates who got problems with their number of goals this season .
The thing is, without him in the team we rarely create any goalscoring chances.
Well done, big man!
28 goals and 9 assists is a fabulous return this season (hope he ends up with 35+ goals). Really hope he's here next season.
28 goals and 9 assists is a fabulous return this season (hope he ends up with 35+ goals). Really hope he's here next season.
He wasn't particularly sharp today, but he scored a great goal to open the game up without which we might have struggled. A goal and an assist is always a productive performance for a striker. Done well
Another win and a goal and an assist. Naturally that leads to talks about how we would be better off without him. Well thought out comments made after this win: His assist was lucky and he should have tried the harder pass to Martial. He doesn't score in every game (most other footballers do). We should find a striker with more aspects to his game, which should be quite easy (zlatan is well known as a one-trick-pony).
The comments have mostly always been made by Martial fans who for some reason think Martial could do a much better job as our striker and even attribute his poor form this season to Zlatan's presence and his guaranteed starting spot. They probably think had Zlatan not been here, Martial would have been our striker, our main man and we would be scoring goals right, left and centre and they simply cannot take it that their superstar is underperforming and can't seem to make a single quality pass when he gets into attacking positions. The number of times people have bashed Zlatan for not passing to Martial during a match this season simply proves it that they will never be happy as long as Zlatan is here, whether performing or not, and will never stop nitpicking and pointing out his mistakes.
I really want him to stay next season as well but I'm worried he won't. At this stage of the season, if he wanted to stay he would've signed already. I don't understand the big hold up.
The premier league needs to see more of Zlatan. I fecking love him.
The premier league needs to see more of Zlatan. I fecking love him.
One thing I really don't get are the claims that our attack is designed to get the best out of Zlatan. It may just be me but I really don't see that when I watch us play. What does getting the best out of him entail? Loads of crosses? We don't particularly do that. He drops deep and helps to drive the attacking play forward, which only him, Pogba, Micky and Lingard have really been doing this season.
The big issue is that he's basically creating for no one most of the time. The rest of the attack always seems to static around him. I don't think Zlatan is making Rashford/Martial not make good runs in behind the defense to get the ball played to them. Pogba for example is always looking for the decisive long ball forward, yet most times the person on the end of it is Zlatan.
He has been sloppy at times, and definitely blew chances that would have turned those draws into wins, but he is far from the biggest problem in our attack. When you look at the results, he is the one scoring, no one else. The issue lies in the rest of players not stepping up in the slightest. Rashford seems more kick and run than he did last season, Martial has been in and out and not overly outstanding (Still one of my favorite players in the team), Jesse is Jesse, he links up reasonably well with Ibra but there's only so much he can do, and Micky has been stop start due to his injuries.
Bottom line, Ibra isn't the root of the problem with our attack this season.
The big issue is that he's basically creating for no one most of the time. The rest of the attack always seems to static around him. I don't think Zlatan is making Rashford/Martial not make good runs in behind the defense to get the ball played to them. Pogba for example is always looking for the decisive long ball forward, yet most times the person on the end of it is Zlatan.
He has been sloppy at times, and definitely blew chances that would have turned those draws into wins, but he is far from the biggest problem in our attack. When you look at the results, he is the one scoring, no one else. The issue lies in the rest of players not stepping up in the slightest. Rashford seems more kick and run than he did last season, Martial has been in and out and not overly outstanding (Still one of my favorite players in the team), Jesse is Jesse, he links up reasonably well with Ibra but there's only so much he can do, and Micky has been stop start due to his injuries.
Bottom line, Ibra isn't the root of the problem with our attack this season.
Thank you. I am pleased I'm not the only one who can see what is as clear as day.
Criticising the pass is just absurd. The pass to Martial was probably more difficult and he would need to take a touch.
Some fans just want to see nice dribbles and pacy runs. Easy on the eye things. And the potential of youth, who are almost guaranteed to outscore the top scorer just because. Stuff like sensibly holding up play, dropping deep to collect the ball, drawing defenders away are unimportant. And scoring goals, i mean, it's the worst thing.
Glad that someone for the first time dared to call it as it is regarding the conection between Martials fans and Ibras harshest critics. You just have to look at the posters history who are over the top Zlatan critics and look at their posts in Martial thread. They are usually the same people who defend anything Martial does.
There's no sense even trying to reason with these people when their opinion is based only on emotions and are so far from reality.
Nice to see a sensible poster among us, totally agree we must keep him here next season. Top quality goal scorers are hard to come by and some of our fans can't seem to fathom that.
There's no deadline, remember how the story about him joining or not dragged on. And he then came.
He should start pushing Rashford/Martial towards the goal, literally throw them in with the ball so they start scoring.
I don't understand how some can criticize Ibra for Rashford, Martial, etc mishaps this season. It's nonsensical.
And criticizing that pass to Rashford? Mind-boggling really.
If we had WC players supporting him in attack, we'd challenge for the title.
And criticizing that pass to Rashford? Mind-boggling really.
If we had WC players supporting him in attack, we'd challenge for the title.
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He has a combined 37 goals and assists in 43 appearances but some think he's the problem.
Mind boggling. If the rest of our attack had performed anywhere near his level we'd be higher up the table.
Mind boggling. If the rest of our attack had performed anywhere near his level we'd be higher up the table.
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