This forum never stops to amuse me. So many posters who actually think they know better than every manager United has had after Ferguson. I mean it is one thing to in a humble way say that "my opinion is that we should play like xxxx or he should have started yyyy" but that is seldom the case here.
The above is not related to the post quoted above because mmm-Qatarians post has a point. Vardy and Ronaldo do not have the same pace anymore but still enough pace to be dangerous. But way more important is that both of them are still deadly strikers with great ability to make the right runs, taking the right positions and have great finishing. It is so easy to say age is the only factor when players
like those are hitting a slump. Ronaldo hasn't had a pre-season and the fact that he has tried to offer his services to every CL-team out there and been rejected must have put tremendous pressure on him to perform while still being far from his best physical shape and without the timing you get by playing games.
I have never understood the "Rashford is worthless"-agenda but I also have a real hard time seeing Rashford as a better alternative than Ronaldo as a no 9 if it is goals and structure in the offensive play United want. If you want to be a counterattacking team always giving up the possessiongame Rashford could suit better. And if, which I think is the main reason TenHag at the moment prefers Rashford/Martial as no 9", you want to play a high aggressive pressing game Rashford is also a better alternative. But in a United that has the ambition to dominate games Ronaldo is imo a far far better striker than Rashford. His game against Real Sociedad reminded of Haalands game against Liverpool(no other comparisons). A little bit mistimed, a little bit "trying to hard" but ticked every other box on the list what a good striker should do.
And let's not forget last year:
Vardy 15 goals from open play in 1800 minutes
Ronaldo 15 goals from open play in 2459 minutes
Salah 18 goals from open play in 2762 minutes
Kane 13 goals from open play in 3232 minutes
With the above in mind It is really really hard to imagine that Vardys and Ronaldos ageing is the main reason for why they are struggling at the moment. It is reasonable to just bench Ronaldo for the rest of his United career. But if you do I think it should be because the priority is improving longterm-results and team spirit. If the priority is short-term results exclusively from a striker then getting Ronaldo fit by starting him surely is a better option.
You're almost definitely correct to say that not having a pre-season will have played a part in Ronaldo's poor form at the start of this season; Hell, it'd affect any player. I also think you're probably right to say that Ronaldo and Vardy do still possess the instincts required to make them somewhat potent goalscorers in the right set-up. I also appreciate that you've backed up this argument with stats, and further gone to the effort to use non-penalty goals (which is the actually worthwhile goalscoring metric to use when evaluating a player). Where I disagree with you is the wider point is that Ronaldo will be better off starting under Ten Hag than Rashford up front.
The issue I have with Ronaldo is that, at this stage in his career, he offers very little else besides his danger in front of goal. You might say "Well so what, isn't that what a striker's supposed to do?", and I guess you might have a point with that. What it does mean, however, is that for Ronaldo to look in any way effective the team's attacks have to centre around creating chances for him. The stats last season somewhat reflect this; only Teemu Pukki for Norwich (47.8%) and Heung-Min Son for Spurs (33.3%) scored a greater percentage of their team's goals than Ronaldo for us last season (31.5%).
Now, in the context of our poor performance, you might look at that statistic in two ways. On the one hand, you could say it shows that Ronaldo was mightily impressive in spite of a poor team around him. On the other hand, you may say that our attack being built around creating chances for Ronaldo served to detriment the team as a whole. What I think is a more informative question to consider is whether or not such a player is congruous with Ten Hag's system. In other words, have Ten Hag's sides generally been highly reliant on one player when it comes to goalscoring?
The statistics below will list the top scorer for Ten Hag's Ajax sides across each of the four full seasons they played under him in the Eredivisie, alongside the percentage of Ajax's total league goals they contributed in said season:
2018/19 - Dusan Tadic (23.5%)
2019/20 - Quincy Promes (17.6%)*
2020/21 - Dusan Tadic (13.7%)
2021/22 - Sebastian Haller (21.4%)
* Season was not completed due to the pandemic
As can be seen, none of these even come close to our reliance on Ronaldo for goals last season. I think the primary reason for this is the importance of fluidity and multi-functionality to Ten Hag. Since Ajax predominantly faced sides who sat deep throughout Ten Hag's reign, it was important that players were constantly moving in order to create overloads and stretch opposition defences. For this to work, you need your striker to be capable of running the channel and holding up the ball just as well as they attack the box and ultimately put the ball in the net. To be frank, Ronaldo doesn't do these things particularly well any more, and all of this is without even mentioning his lack of pressing. I'm not even a massive fan of Rashford but I think he is a more multi-functional player than Ronaldo. (Although for the reasons I've just stated, Martial would be my starting striker this season)
For keeping Ronaldo in the side to be worthwhile, I'd argue he'd need to be providing a goalscoring threat on the level of Erling Haaland. He's just not capable of that any more.
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