How do we address our abysmal finishing?

Irrational.

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Not sure sacking ETH is the answer.

You’d have thought by having a PL goalscoring legend as part of our coaching staff this season, things would have changed but if anything we seem to have become even more limp in front of goal.

Today we should’ve won by at least 4 or 5 goals.

So, what’s the solution? Different formation? Tactics?
 
If you put hojlund in that city team he would be the leagues top scorer (I’m not saying he’s better than haaland…)

I think that’s your answer
 
I'd say it would probably be good to sign a goal scorer. Something we've been crying out for it seems like for a long time. Our attacking signings have been downright abysmal. We've spent a total of 160 mill on the right wing only to still have Rashford starting there and we've spent around 100 mill on 2 strikers that are both not known for their goal scoring....
 
If the players are confident those goals would have been scored today. They play like strangers and don’t look well coached for large periods. It’s no wonder player fail to flourish under ETH as he’s too tactical.

Change the manager and see most of our players improve.
 
If anyone believes that better finishing cannot be coached...seriously you need to decide if you know anything about professional sport!
 
We need to get back to understanding goals are usually created through teamwork and cooperation and not individual moments of brilliance. Move the ball faster. Everyone just seems to wait until their opportunity to score a wonder goal is gone, lose interest in get rid of it with a sideways nothing pass.

I'd like for us to abandon the wide players, be narrow and force them to create more through middle rather than 97% of our chances being watching someone cut inside and miss
 
One of the forwards will go on a scoring run if we continue to create chances, lack of confidence is a killer right now.
Maybe VAR will help us out for a change, as costing us big time this season.
 
ultimately it's probably the sort of thing that would fix itself somewhat naturally IF (big if) we were a much better side overall.

We don't create enough overall, so wastefulness becomes a bigger problem. The chances we do create are often not that easy, either - we don't score a lot of tap ins, cutbacks, simple finishes.

Just generally it seems like more of "build properly from the ground up" thing rather than focusing on individual finishing coaching. Presumably we do that already and it ain't working
 
Should have spent some of the £600m on good forwards.
 
Confidence and belief. That's all that's needed in front of the goal.

If it's only one player you can blame individuals, but when the whole team is misfiring it's a confidence thing. Confidence in tactics, confidence in the team, confidence in the direction the club is taking. They're full of doubt and this results in them making simple mistakes and dull plays. Sacking Ten Hag would be a first step towards clearing the air and building newfound confidence, because everyone knows he's done here and his project has failed.

Right now I'd hate to be a player in this team with dithering higher-ups.
 
Coaching finishing starts at schoolboy age and some players just have it and most don’t. You couldn’t turn Weghorst in to prime RVN just by having him on the coaching staff. They can drill positioning in to them but their influence isn’t omnipotent. At the high levels of the game it’s so fast and based on pure instinct developed from a young age. RVN will help, but it’s a much deeper problem. This is why Pep cycled through 15 fullbacks before getting the ones that could play his system, the abilities of a coach to transform players is grossly misunderstood.
 
Attackers got to read the game better.

Everything we do in attack feels like players are just trying their luck with any run, shot or cross and hope it goes in.

There is no purpose to anything we do. There is only a hope that it will work out.
 
Buy a decent forward or two instead of wasting money on the likes of Zirkzee and Hojlund.
Slott started working for Liverpool this season and didn’t buy for the sake of it, I’m pretty sure Zirkzee was a “we better buy someone, any one deal”
I honestly thought recruitment would improve under Ashworth and Wilcox, obviously I was wrong.
 
soapythecat said:
If the players are confident those goals would have been scored today. They play like strangers and don’t look well coached for large periods. It’s no wonder player fail to flourish under ETH as he’s too tactical.

Change the manager and see most of our players improve.
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This. It’s a matter of mentality.

A one legged man scores that Dalot chance if his tail is up. The pressure gets worse with every chance missed as well, as you know this one matters more. It’s a vicious cycle.
 
Irrational. said:
Not sure sacking ETH is the answer.

You’d have thought by having a PL goalscoring legend as part of our coaching staff this season, things would have changed but if anything we seem to have become even more limp in front of goal.

Today we should’ve won by at least 4 or 5 goals.

So, what’s the solution? Different formation? Tactics?
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Sack Ten hag he’s had so many chances to bring in players of quality that can finish and he brought in zirkzee Antony Hojund ,
Bring in a manager that can see the issue with not having a goal scorer in the team and go from there
 
The problem is fear.

The solution is to buy fearless players.
 
Leftback99 said:
Should have spent some of the £600m on good forwards.
Click to expand...

I imagine whoever the new manager will be will have a bit of a perplexed look on his face in the summer when they ask for his input on transfers.

"Well spend 200m on good attackers. Bloody obviously??"
 
It's been three seasons of the same problem. I'm aware Arteta's first two seasons were even worse than EtH for goals scored but I just don't think we're going to get better with EtH in charge.

When was the last time we bought a striker that wasn't either pure potential or an over the hill, stop gap option? Lukaku? I guess that didn't go so well either.
 
Malons said:
We need to get back to understanding goals are usually created through teamwork and cooperation and not individual moments of brilliance.
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Individual brilliance might be a tough ask but a bit of individual competence would've seen us do rather better in front of goal today.
 
Højlund is a good finisher who is underrated by many on here. The way some people bash him is disgusting. That being said, we need to sign Gyökeres. Zirkzee is already deadwood.
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
Højlund is a good finisher who is underrated by many on here. The way some people bash him is disgusting. That being said, we need to sign Gyökeres. Zirkzee is already deadwood.
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Yes, I agree especially with your second and fourth sentences
 
1. Send Zirkzee back to Italy and buy someone who can actually score a goal. 2. Sell Rashford and sign someone who is actually motivated and good, not a spoilt brat. 3. Sell Amad to Ipswich or another small team and buy a better winger. 4. Kick ten Hag and sign a coach who has actually some idea about tactics.
 
Our strikers are not the problem! Get them in good positions and they will score. But we can not build up any play, which would offer an easy goalscoring opportunity. We always need this genius idea, the perfect pass to set our strikers.

As a team you can create goalscoring opportunities through well trained attacks, through controlled chaos (pressing), or genius ideas (least affective). We have no trained attacks, our pressing ist a misunderstanding.
 
He signed both Hojland and Zirkzee. Should count Weghorst in too. If it is not his problem that they can't score, then who? He just doesn't know how to tweak the team and the formation to get the best of his players.
 
Yes it's the players' responsibility to finish chances, but ultimately it's on Ten Hag. He's indulged a culture of mediocrity in our forward play where the likes of Antony is allowed to take 43 shots in a PL season and score only 1 goal, and where Bruno, Garnacho and Rashford are allowed take as many low percentage pot shots from long range as they like and score practically zero goals from them, and none of them ever get dropped (or very very rarely).

They miss chances because they're not used to being in a position to score goals. So when they do eventually get into goalscoring positions they're rabbits caught in the headlights.
 
rpitchfo said:
If you put hojlund in that city team he would be the leagues top scorer
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Despite being a fan of him, that is far from guranteed in my book. If his 0,31 per game increased to 0,55 that still might not be enough for the golden boot most seasons. And it will not increase much more than that at city I suspect. Chances for a number 9 at city vs united without good movement and positioning are not night and day.
 
Erm, just what does Van Nistleroy do??? Since his arrival our finishing is probably worse than I’ve ever seen it and the decision making in the final third is abysmal.

And now they’re talking about handing over the reins to Ruud when they finally get the wit and balls to sack the Slaphead. Is this the the Glazer/ Big Dorky Jim version of idiocracy where you fail upward??
 
Stop trying to finish. These players do not possess the talent to finish cleverly and consistently so they should be under orders to just absolutely blast the ball instead.
 
I swear we are cursed. The best finisher the club has produced in the last 20 years gets sold to Marseille because, well...and now we are struggling to score goals. Just one of the many things that has gone against us in recent years.
 
Stop relying on young inexperienced players to carry your attack
 
Get in a proper manager who will get us creating chances regularly and the players will start scoring and things like today will become a rarity because they won't be totally bereft of confidence.

The idea that we have been a side that regularly create loads of chances is patently untrue. We usually create a couple of half chances, the first half against Palace and today were anomalies.

Raphinha and Yamal have equalled their goal totals from last season already and Lewandowski will probably equal his before Christmas.
 
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Hojlund should never have been selected to lead the line. He is a brilliant acquisition as a shadow player rather than main man. Zirkzee, is your regular mid table forward variety
 
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