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2021-22 Performances


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jm99

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You've been quiet on him the last few games until today.
Seems some people couldn't wait til he has a bad game to say something. I mean if next year we get him playing one game a week and playing like he did Vs spurs, Norwich, arsenal, Chelsea and Brentford then have one quiet game that's better than basically any player in the league would manage.

The idea we couldn't have him the team built around him in case he has one bad game every 6 is pretty ridiculous, especially in this team
 

Bebestation

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The laugh means absolutely nothing.

The completely hapless individual performance proves that even when he’s down to one game per week his age means we’ll eventually see the same heavy legged, running through quicksand, displays he produced when asked to play twice a week.

Which confirms that building a team round him next season would be absolute madness (if that wasn’t obvious already)
For me it's more simple. It's easy to judge how we play on our best players.

Who do people call our 2 best performers over the season?

De Gea & Ronaldo.

People can see that De Gea gets better as the team plays more sh*t, more shots towards him due to less control over matches.

Then on the other side Ronaldo is our main goalscorer. He has been good on an individual goalscoring level but ultimately our team attacking tactic revolves over getting the best out of Ronaldo and not much else. There isn't exactly another attacking level to our team except creating chances for Ronaldo. Everyone else has flopped this year, from Sancho, Bruno, Rashford, Cavani, Pogba, McTominay, our fullbacks and so on.

What have the fans of Ronaldo's season said? We need to create a better team to supply Ronaldo. This is not wrong at all. But what does this prove? The rest of the team doesn't get the best out of Ronaldo, is not in a balance or Sync with a Ronaldo and therefore we play less well as an overall team leading to what? De Gea being our best player alongside Ronaldo. The player we try to get the best out of and the player that succeeds when what we do is sh*t.
 
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Thiagoal

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I think it’ll be best for both sides if he moves on to a new challenge. Ronaldo will hopefully find a team like PSG and continue smashing in the goals and ETH will start his tenure without having to worry about the circus that picking or dropping CR7 inevitably creates!
 

Pogue Mahone

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Seems some people couldn't wait til he has a bad game to say something. I mean if next year we get him playing one game a week and playing like he did Vs spurs, Norwich, arsenal, Chelsea and Brentford then have one quiet game that's better than basically any player in the league would manage.

The idea we couldn't have him the team built around him in case he has one bad game every 6 is pretty ridiculous, especially in this team
Nowhere near as ridiculous as the notion that you could describe his level of performance over the whole season as “one bad in game in six”
 

Deery

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No, didn’t do much yesterday but then again no one did, Dalot probably showed the most effort out the whole team and he was unbelievably shit so not going to even judge Ronaldo based on this game.
 

Gehrman

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I can't believe the turnaround in this thread from last week.

Ronaldo has been outstanding for United this season. He's one of the very few who has actually given a shit.

One laugh against Brighton (which if anything, shows humility and a sense of humour about the dire situation) and half of you want him out the door!
Not really. He's had a strong finish to the season, but has been bang average for large parts of it . I don't want him out the door though and don't care about the laugh.
 

Bebestation

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Not really. He's had a strong finish to the season, but has been bang average for large parts of it . I don't want him out the door though and don't care about the laugh.
It's weird how the team can set up Ronaldo to score a goal then the fan base acts like Ronaldo done all the work by himself - like he was dribbling across the whole pitch or something. Our team's only attacking ability ever since Ronaldo came is Ronaldo himself. I don't want to be a team where all we do is get the best out of our one and only striker. That football style is too generic and old. People complain about how all of the team is not getting the best out of Ronaldo - some fans talk about changing the whole team so it inevitably gets the best out of Ronaldo, whilst the others talk about simply removing Ronaldo so he is not someone we as a team have to constantly create towards as our one and only attacking ability.
 

EtH

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He was shite today. Same as January and February and half of March.

He’s just too fecking old to be relied upon regularly.
 

Abhinav

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It's weird how the team can set up Ronaldo to score a goal then the fan base acts like Ronaldo done all the work by himself - like he was dribbling across the whole pitch or something. Our team's only attacking ability ever since Ronaldo came is Ronaldo himself. I don't want to be a team where all we do is get the best out of our one and only striker. That football style is too generic and old. People complain about how all of the team is not getting the best out of Ronaldo - some fans talk about changing the whole team so it inevitably gets the best out of Ronaldo, whilst the others talk about simply removing Ronaldo so he is not someone we as a team have to constantly create towards as our one and only attacking ability.
If you go back and look at the goals he has scored this season, you will find that almost 50% of the goals have nothing to do with how the team has been setup.
And its weird how you are trying to push the narrative that team has been setup to get the best of Ronaldo when we have seen nothing like that. Its not as if he is getting any unusual amounts of crosses to attack (actually lower than any of his previous teams), nor any tap-ins. How exactly have we changed our style to accommodate Ronaldo as compared to Cavani/ Martial? Peddling this line again and again doesn’t make it true.
Frankly, we have been so shit that I find it hard to find any distinct style of play, let alone one that has marked differences since last year.
 

NoPace

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It's embarrassing that this needs to be explained to be honest, the cafe is awful these days.
Yeah, I mean I could see staying if no big CL contender will come for him, but I'd guess he'll take a paycut and do it for one last year on a big team and then go to MLS for all the money in the world.
 

sullydnl

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Given how little he generally offers in general play outside of goals, the idea that he's only had one bad game in every six is ludicrous.

He's scored in about one in three PL games this season. In the majority of the 2/3rds of league games he didn't score in, he offered very little.

Which in a way is fine. The current day iteration of Ronaldo is a poacher you play knowing that if he doesn't score he likely won't offer you much else. So you use him accordingly, which shouldn't involve the team being built around him in any way.

I hope he stays next season but not as a nailed on first choice player. He should be in and out of the team depending on the game. And he should take being benched like a professional who understands his limitations.

We've had to depend on him heavily this season, for various reasons. That's something we need to move away from almost immediately.
 

KeanoMagicHat

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
 

RepardReece

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
Yeah, because our team press and defend as a unit don't they. He literally had to cover for Rashford on the flank against Chelsea as they were exposing Telles 2v1 throughout the entire first half, but we don't talk about Rashford doing the same, do we?

You're right, it's a team game and when the team don't press and we sit back heavily, why's Ronaldo meant to bend over backward chasing a back 4 line on his own?
 

Gehrman

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
There can be a bit to it but he can't be blamed for abysmal performances of our defenders this season. Wellbeck was good at pressing. Still got sold because he couldn't find the net. I think Ronaldo has mostly been lacking this season yet he's had enough good performances to be our player of the year which tbh doesn't say much because the whole team has been wank.
 

IhabX7

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
Find god.
 

steffyr2

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I think it’ll be best for both sides if he moves on to a new challenge. Ronaldo will hopefully find a team like PSG and continue smashing in the goals and ETH will start his tenure without having to worry about the circus that picking or dropping CR7 inevitably creates!
We should be sure to get a new team of nothing players then, lest the press get interested in any of them.
 

Bobski

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
We started the season trying to fit Greenwood, Sancho and Ronaldo into the same attack, none of whom are noted for their workrate or pressing. This, while also trying to get Bruno and Pogba into the team, neither of whom have any positional discipline without a natural holding midfielder behind them to give some stability.

The balance of the team was absurd, it is not all on Ronaldo but his and Sancho's inclusion made it an impossible balance to find. Awful squad planning.
 

jm99

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Nowhere near as ridiculous as the notion that you could describe his level of performance over the whole season as “one bad in game in six”
Not at all but you could describe his level of performance once we stopped overplaying and just using him for one game a week as you said in your post, as one bad game in six. Clearly at 37 he doesn't have the legs to play every single game, and it's no coincidence that his worst run of form came during s time when he was playing 4 games in 11 days at points for full 90 mins.
 

jm99

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It’s no coincidence that we’ve conceded 56 goals with Ronaldo up front, as every team waltzes through the middle of the pitch uncontested every game. Rodgers said it, Hazenhuttl said it. Every manager would say they are exploiting it only they’re too smart to let on. In the same way De Gea is part of the season we won’t even score 60 goals with his poor distribution. It’s a team game. De Gea and Ronaldo are great at saving/shooting but they aren’t all-round players.

You defend from the front and you attack from the back. Jota has been scoring as much as Ronaldo and Klopp has been dropping him recently because his pressing and general play isn’t good enough. Ronaldo has been great individually recently in doing what he does best - scoring goals - but he has in no way brought the team along with him for the ride. I’m not seeing any sense of team chemistry or regular connection. It’s a team game and the fact is the team has got much worse since he arrived. That’s unarguable.
Yeah, it's amazing how much Ronaldo affects our defence. We conceded 8 goals in 2 games against Liverpool and city when he didn't play. It's so frustrating that even from the stands he can work his magic and stop the team from pressing
 

Irwin99

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I gave him the benefit of the doubt yesterday thinking that the last few games probably caught up with him a bit. He was terrible but the whole team was. Can't see him reaching twenty league goals for the season against Palace which is a shame as it would have been nice and it'd probably set a record for the oldest player to do so.

I honestly don't think he'll be here next season though. Maybe i'm reading too much into it but the tears at OT in the Brentford game and the laugh yesterday (probably of disgust) makes me think he's tired of this and I can't blame him really. There's a real chance that we'll be playing conference league football next season which is embarrassing for a player of his status and legendary egotism/narcissism.

In hindsight probably a bad signing and the club needs to move on but also, the only bits of joy i've had this season was seeing those hatricks, the performance against Arsenal at OT and the Champions League goals so he leaves with a lot of good will. Viva Ronaldo! :D
 

Amar__

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In the end he was much better than I expected he will be for us, he deserves lot of respect for some of his performances when entire team was shite.

However, at the same time this was a nothing business for both side involved, we didn't benefit at all from him, even if he caried the team at times. I'd say it's pretty much as his Juventus time, except Juventus paid big sum for him if I remember well. Can't really blame him for that though, and I think of him better probably than I used to before he joined us. I just hope we stop signing big names who are at end of their careers because there's absolutely nothing to gain from that on the pitch, except marketing stuff.
 

Gehrman

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Not at all but you could describe his level of performance once we stopped overplaying and just using him for one game a week as you said in your post, as one bad game in six. Clearly at 37 he doesn't have the legs to play every single game, and it's no coincidence that his worst run of form came during s time when he was playing 4 games in 11 days at points for full 90 mins.
Ronaldo doesn't want to be on the bench though. It's been a theme this season.
 

jm99

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Ronaldo doesn't want to be on the bench though. It's been a theme this season.
I mean I can't speak to what goes on behind the scenes, but he was fine doing it at real Madrid when Zidane managed his minutes, I can only imagine that when Ole and Ralf did it, he took it as being dropped, rather than them taking time to explain to him, as Zidane did, that it's about keeping him fresh at his age.
 

Alfie092

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Bring in a good backup striker with the potential to become world class and let him play in all the cup games including the Europa League/Conference League games, while Ronaldo has a night off.

Keep Ronaldo fresh for all the PL games, while resting him for the occasional league game. That way he can perform to as close to his best as possible in each game and be effective as possible.
 

AndySmith1990

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Bring in a good backup striker with the potential to become world class and let him play in all the cup games including the Europa League/Conference League games, while Ronaldo has a night off.

Keep Ronaldo fresh for all the PL games, while resting him for the occasional league game. That way he can perform to as close to his best as possible in each game and be effective as possible.
feck that. We need to bring in a quality forward (Nunez for example) to be a starter, with Ronaldo being used as a squad player.
 

RedRonaldo

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It's weird how the team can set up Ronaldo to score a goal then the fan base acts like Ronaldo done all the work by himself - like he was dribbling across the whole pitch or something. Our team's only attacking ability ever since Ronaldo came is Ronaldo himself. I don't want to be a team where all we do is get the best out of our one and only striker. That football style is too generic and old. People complain about how all of the team is not getting the best out of Ronaldo - some fans talk about changing the whole team so it inevitably gets the best out of Ronaldo, whilst the others talk about simply removing Ronaldo so he is not someone we as a team have to constantly create towards as our one and only attacking ability.
At this point it’s not about getting best of Ronaldo or anyone. It’s more about trying not to get totally outplayed by our opponents.
 

Xaviboy

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I seen something other day on social media be 1st time in 16 years Ronaldo won't be playing champions league football if he stays at utd. That's mad.
 

AndySmith1990

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I seen something other day on social media be 1st time in 16 years Ronaldo won't be playing champions league football if he stays at utd. That's mad.
That doesn't sound right. He's 37 and he joined us well before he was 21.
 

Zetrio2002

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Very few clubs will buy Ronaldo at this point. Only realistic destination among the big leagues is to go PSG and unite with Messi.
 

Amir

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Seems some people couldn't wait til he has a bad game to say something. I mean if next year we get him playing one game a week and playing like he did Vs spurs, Norwich, arsenal, Chelsea and Brentford then have one quiet game that's better than basically any player in the league would manage.

The idea we couldn't have him the team built around him in case he has one bad game every 6 is pretty ridiculous, especially in this team
But should we build a team around a 37-year old who's game time needs to be carefully managed?
 

Gehrman

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But should we build a team around a 37-year old who's game time needs to be carefully managed?
Building around someone who needs lots of rest doesn't make any sense. Also the great teams atm don't build around 1 player.
 

Stacks

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Ronaldo has scored in 12 of the 30 league games he has appeared in (including pens). Would be good to rotate him with a younger striker. He is great at scoring bunches especially vs spurs. A younger Cavani would be more suited to our plans if we want to press from the front or a Suarez. Surely they are out there
 

Beachryan

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If we accept that he'll have no takers and therefore we're stuck with his enormous wages, how does ETH convince him to be used sparingly? I'd keep him against the lower-table teams when we'll have way more of the ball, but when we need a whole-team effort he just can't do it.

Playing him in every match is madness.
 

Red Dreams

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The laugh means absolutely nothing.

The completely hapless individual performance proves that even when he’s down to one game per week his age means we’ll eventually see the same heavy legged, running through quicksand, displays he produced when asked to play twice a week.

Which confirms that building a team round him next season would be absolute madness (if that wasn’t obvious already)
I agree ten Hag cannot build a team around him.
But his presence alone is worth having him.
He should be captain I think.
Bruno the Vice captain.
 
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