Unless you have a crystal ball, no one knows this. No one knew that once Liverpool bought Salah, he would be top goal scorer twice in the league, no one knew that a player from fleet wood in Vardy will turn out to be a clinical striker and there are countless examples of this. What I do knew is if we have a good footballing philosophy and the team starts playing well, then we will see better performance from the likes of Martial, Rashford and Lukaku. To get the team playing well, we just need a better footballing philosophy and better players to support some of these players. As many fans have notice, our right attacking flank is non-existent. Don’t you think if we get an attacking rb and a player with quality of Sancho, we will see a better team performance? I prefer to wait and see until the first 11 is more balanced before saying these players who has potential are not good enough.
A top quality, clinical striker
- Thread starter The Nani
- Start date
I don't need a crystal ball to know Rashford is no Ruud, Martial is no Rooney, and Lukaku is no RvP. Its pretty obvious that each are talented but not top level quality we need here. There's no doubt both would improve if we had a top quality manager here but we don't so there's no need to promote their continued stagnation as if they are going to suddenly turn into world beaters.
They don’t have to be a like to like comparison to those players to be successful here. They can develop their own stories and as statistics shows, they are already doing that. Rashford has outscored Rooney and Ronaldo at a similar age and Martial joins an elite group of French players like Henry and Cantona to score in five consecutive epl games. Only the 7th player in United history to do that. With Lukaku, his goal scoring record is also another story. He is our only player since Ronaldo in 2006 to score 6 goals in three matches and has already broken Drogba goal scoring record in 30 less games. These players that are not supposedly good enough have some positive statistics to show they are good enough. They accomplished this with the awful philosophy we have had where fans kept saying we need to attack attack and attack, moreover an imbalanced squad without a right flank to attack in.
No doubt a good squad player but not RvN quality. Isn't and will never be.
No, we need better players leading our attack.
Christ how the standards have dropped here.
If a 17 year old can look infinitetly better than anything we’ve seen this season from Lukaku and Rashford on his debut I reckon it might those two rather than the team around them.
It was a good debut by Greenwood, but let’s not begin to overhype it too much. We have seen better and Lukaku and Rashford has put in better performances for United this season. The memories of United fans must be very short and I don’t mean it as an insult, just that some fans forget things easily. Lukaku was brilliant against Southampton and there was many other instances. Rashford was brilliant against Fulham and Bournemouth, and few other matches. The standards hasn’t dropped, it just that you can’t expect to buy new players and think those purchases will somehow improve the team if they don’t have any chemistry with the current players we have. We will just have a a team of individuals that doesn’t compliment each other.
Lukakus overall movement has always been poor this season. Even when he has had a good game
A lot of his goal came from poacher-esque movement. You can say he doesn’t close down players good enough or doesn’t run behind defenders enough, but that is why we have Greenwood and Rashford to makeup for Lukaku somewhat lack of dynamism(somewhat in that he is not as agile, even though he has played on the right mutiple time this season). Lukaku should use his strength to bully defenders like he did recently against Chelsea and that is how you utilize him more effectively.
No I mean there have been plenty of times he makes the wrong runs (or none at all and waits for the pass first). I wasn’t talking about pressing or closing down players
In terms of overall play, Greenwood put Lukaku and Rashford to shame on his debut.
RVN wouldn't be as good as he was for this team or even his Real Madrid level. No support, no assists.
I think you underestimated RVN's clinical. If we use RVN instead of Rashford and Lukaku as ST in last 7 games or so, he would score at least 4-5 goals then we qualify for UCL.
Yeah, I'm also wary of over-hyping our young players. He looked good. Lukaku doesn't fit our team, so no arguments there. But if Pogba is excused time and again for not having good enough players around him, then the same applies to Rashford. The amount of runs he makes, creating options and dragging people out of position. He's had a poor season (in front of goal) as have all our players bar maybe McTominay, but he's still got the makings of a top player. And his debut and subsequent games weren't shabby either.
I hope we don't start expecting Greenwood to be a ready-made Robin van Persie come next season.
I don't think everyone would expect Greenwood to start every match but I'd prefer to use him on wide in lates 70 minutes for his development games, I don't want to see Lingard ever again.
I don't know. I value the players around RVN than the ones around any striker now. Do we have Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Keane, hell even veron or butt? Do we even have the Neville's even attempting a cross?
I don't see many of strikers missing chances that cost us - I instead see all our strikers be that Rashford, Martial or Rashford and even Greenwood in the last game with the ball at their feet with them having to create their own chances.
Whilst the traditional number 9 role is not as important when being used by itself - I look at players like sterling scoring goal upon goal and its all being set up on a plate from the rest of the team only for him to tap it in.
Even if our forwards are not good enough - I don't think we create any clear chances to atleast get a Rashford or Martial being 10-15 goals per season strikers to 15+.
Zlatan was good for us - but he made our game severely type a & B. It revolved around the whole team trying to get the best only out of Zlatan & that type of football is old now in my opinion & tactics have to be spread to get an attacking threat from every position and angle.
I'd be happy with a front 3 like this -
Rashford (LF) - Martial(false 9) - Greenwood (RF)
But we still need players who can create chances for them even if they are decent enough to occasionally create a chance for themselves by dribbling at the defence.
You will most definitely see Lingard again. I'd expect him to have 30-40 games. Young maybe 20-30 games. Smalling maybe the same. Jones 10-20 games (if fit).
Personally, I'd like to see Greenwood and his peers getting games in the Europa League and, as you suggest, coming on as fresh legs in games.
Non sequitur much?
I’m not overhyping Greenwood. I’m simply comparing his movement and general overall play in his first full performance for the first team to our first team strikers.
And I’m also not one to make excuses for Pogba. But our lack of movement and quality upfront is shocking. Greenwood demonstrated how bad it actually is in his performance against Cardiff.
We need Dybala or a comparable talent up top or we’re going nowhere.
I'd love a striker but I'd really really rather throw everything to get that defense upgraded. The goals will come if we fix defense and midfield
Kane. Only problem being is we’d need Pochettino in charge to bring him here.
Personally I think that the style of football Ole will be trying to go with for next season means our front 3 will have to have pace, good on the counter and be able to get in behind opposition defenses. This is why i believe Rashford will be our first choice number 9 next season with Lukaku(if he stays) and Greenwood as backup. Hoping Rashford improves in front of goal he seems to go through phases of being clinical for a few games to wasteful the next few. If he does improve we don't need to sign a new striker especially if Lukaku stays which i don't mind as he can be a useful alternative and also hope Greenwood gets game time.
He's also a childhood Man United fan. Here's a video where he's asked to name our squad in 2011 Champions League final in a trivia quiz during international break, starts about 1 minute mark. Later he reveals that United have always been his favourite club (he can't remember that Ronaldo was gone already in 2011 though
).I think if we spent 250m excluding player sales on RW, CB, CM, RB this summer if what reporter saying is true. Then if Lukaku, Rashford fails to live up to deliver 25-30+ goal per season next season, we'll target Kane and make him top priority.
Well we've spent big and bought Lukaku and Sanchez, who are supposed to be top 3 or 4 striker in the league at that time.
You know, Augero, Kane, Sanchez, Lukaku. The best 4 strikers just 2 years ago, we've got 2 of them.
You know, Augero, Kane, Sanchez, Lukaku. The best 4 strikers just 2 years ago, we've got 2 of them.
A front of 3 with Rashford, Sancho and Felix would be great. But I guess we would be lucky if we end up signing at least one of them.
I was just defending Rashford there, as his movement has been great. His finishing and decision-making hasn't. Lukaku's movement is static, gesticulating with the hands, etc. so I agree there.
Holy shit
It's both. In a vicious circle. The strikers don't move enough (Rashford aside), and when they do they too often pick daft options or bottle the finish. The midfielders consequently have no options so need to step up and try to do it themselves. The only one good enough to do this is Pogba so everyone just gives him the ball and stands and watches. This means he's constantly got 3 opponents closing him and a load of dipshits running away from him. This leads to lack of confidence and belief all through the side, they stop working hard enough, and everything keeps happening like this more and more, over and over.
No. It's not up to everyone else to make things happen for a striker, a striker has to move and play in a way that allows them to get chances, and then they have to able to take them. The idea that the striker just finishes chances everyone else has put on a plate for them is rot. It's that kind of buck-passing that is an issue at Man Utd at the moment. Everyone's looking at everyone else to make the difference and shrugging like it's not their fault when things don't go their way.
OK. So who are these players and who are they playing for.
100% this. People forget that he was still scoring 30 goals a season when Djemba Djemba and Kleberson were our midfield.
Well no. We can argue that all our strikers are not making the correct runs but who exactly is making the correct passes?
We don't have a single wingback who makes a cross.
Herrera couldnt play a through ball unless there was 2 red cards on the other team likewise Matic now that he should be retiring soon.
Mctomminay can't make a pass, neither has pareira attempted to play freely like he can according to butt.
Mata plays as a RM more than he does as a CAM & is past it. Martial and Sanchez are forwards & not wingers who sets up chances for strikers like Rashford or Lukaku if they are set up to lead the line like traditional strikers.
Sure the strikers movement may not be the best (even though Lukaku relied on his good ability to play well at Everton) - but if the best creative player we have in the team is Paul Pogba - that says it all.
City has Silva x2, De bryune whilst having a whole free bunch of winger/forwards setting themselves up and tapping in goals.
Liverpool have Robertson, TAA, Firminho and thats not even important since they play a counterpressing football on the front foot whilst having players like Salah or Mane that have the ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat by themselves when they need it.
Spurs have Eriksen, Ball Playing CB's in every spot, trippie, Lucas, Sissoko, Son, Alli etc.
What we have is a a mishmash of 3 different managers players through over 6 seasons and no progressive improvements made to the squad and its weaknesses.
Not a single attacking fullback, not a single creative midfielder apart from PP, no CAM, No ball playing defenders etc.
The strikers can be improved on - but it becomes obvious when the strikers are struggling whilst the rest of the team is doing fine like Forlan for example whilst RVN was doing well.
I don't think RVN would do well for this team. If you did then tell me who would set him up with the goals?
Did Djemba Djemba and Kleberson play a whole season together though? United had so much creative and attacking ability that players like the ones you mentioned could easily be played and we would still win games. That type of team is completely different to what we have right now.
When's the last time we even took a proper corner? Scored a header or 2 in a game? Sure RVN is better than every striker we have but let's not pretend that the United team he played in was rubbish at setting him up when or if he needed it.
I put a lot of our issues down to terrible coaching.
LVG may have bored us to death, but the team was well coached. Mourinho was in self sabotage mode for half his time here. With Solskjaer I just don’t think he’s up to the job.
Get a top quality coach with these players and we’d see far better football.
Ruud completely carried us for 2-3 seasons while SAF was building that CL winning side.
Our biggest issue this season has been not taking our (limited) chances. I’d say 75% of the chances Lukaku and Rashford fluffed this season would have been scored by Ruud.
Put him in this team and his clinical nature would have carried us to a CL place.
If SAF was still in charge we’d have bought Kane 3-4 years ago. He knew the importance of having a clinical striker leading the line.
I think Bale could come in and score 20 goals in the league if he were to stay fit the whole season. If he were the focal point of our attack (in a front line of three), his conversion rate in front of goal would be better than anyone we currently have and he'd get chances. The question mark is his fitness.
I think you make some good points about creativity, but quite simply good strikers are the ones who put themselves into positions to score, in my mind. Strikers who go through a match without a chance, they're simply not making the runs and making things happen with their movement. Ridiculous though it is, Greenwood showed this as a 17 year old with the positions he got into against Cardiff. A good striker has movement which makes other players look better. Pogba can pick a pass as well as anyone in world football, and Zlatan had no problem scoring goals from his passing!
Vardy is the standout for me, clinical, pacy and knows the premier league inside out.
I'm so surprised he's still there. He's a player I wouldn't mind getting. He's clinical
This. Pogba is one of the best if not best passers in the world. Zlatan could have scored at least 30 goal if he took the chance pogba provided to him.
Clever strikers knows where the ball is going to be passed to. Who's fault is it they can't move and make it simpler for the passer? Grenwood put them all to shame moving cleverly into space and receiving all the chances last match. We badly lack intelligent movers in the final third and their failures cannot be all put down to lack of creativity excluding marital because he didn't play in the middle .If we need 9/10 creative players for striker to score the striker is not good enough
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Unpopular opinions, I think Rashford and Lingard's movement is overrated, they can run all day they like but they lack intelligent move and have a poor decision. Lingard ruined a lot of counter attack with his stupid movement because he was too selfish. Same goes for Rashford.
I've said Rashford and Lingard's movement is overrated, they don't move effectively around in the third final with little space, as Greenwood do in the third final against Cardiff or Sanchez's goal against Arsenal, how many time we have seen Rashford doing stuff like this? Zero despite having more minutes 3 the time as Sanchez and Greenwood combined.
Rashford needs more spaces for his movement to work but with little space, his movement is completely useless. That's why I don't rate him so highly.
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Exactly .
The truth is Rashford and Lingard is headless chickens. I also used to think we create nothing for our strikers to work with but after I saw Greenwood it became clear they're also part of the problem. Good strikers facilitate the creating.
They have proven that all the running in the world doesn't buy a footballing IQ/brain. Zlatan had no pace but constantly broke the offside trap to receive pass after pass from Pogba. Whereas Rashbeck (yes he's now been exposed as Danny welbeck Mk2) is always offside if he decides to run so just hangs around in the edge of box waiting to hit the next shot into the row Z. There's strikers from teams below us in the table that have scored more goals than Rashford and Lukaku. So does people want to tell us midtable clubs has more creativity?