Our priorities are all wrong

Tavern in the town

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I think it’s obvious our squad is full of holes. It’s well documented how we’re weak at full back, in midfield and pretty much every area. However it’s really strange to me to see us continually linked with the likes of Timber, Torres and just about any other player that isn’t an attacker.

Firepower is king. There’s a reason we all think Spurs will finish above us this season and it’s because Conte + Kane + Son = wins. Attackers are everything in this league. Fergie knew it - quality strikers on the pitch, quality strikers on the bench. That’s how you pick up points, that’s how you paper over cracks.

I read a stat on Twitter about how there’s only been one occasion in Premier League history in which a team has two players scoring more than 15 non penalty league goals and missed out on a CL spot (Spurs under Jose). That’s how we make top 4 and stay there. Sign a striker and a winger who’ll bag 40 goals between them. Worry about the rest later. Klopp knew it - all their big signings were in the front 6 positions, only once that was sorted did they spend 10m+ on defensive players.

Since Fergie retired we’ve never scored 80 goals in the league. We’ve scored 70 goals once! That’s criminal. It’s no surprise we’ve flitted in and out of the top 4 despite having many seasons of decent defensive records.

Of course to win the league we’ll have to strengthen everywhere. But priority one, two and three should be getting some fecking goals in this team.
 

Cassidy

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We’ve been linked with Nunez
 

Tavern in the town

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We don't have a spine. A midfield. Even Van Dijk will suffer here.
Like I said, that’s how you paper over cracks. We can have a top 4 quality defence if that’s what people prefer. But I highly doubt it’ll lead to us making top 4 next season with this set of attackers. 2 new signings who score 40 goals between them and I’d be astounded if we missed out.
 

Tyrion

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Like I said, that’s how you paper over cracks. We can have a top 4 quality defence if that’s what people prefer. But I highly doubt it’ll lead to us making top 4 next season with this set of attackers. 2 new signings who score 40 goals between them and I’d be astounded if we missed out.
I don't think forwards are any more important than the defence or midfield. They just finish moves. They can't start them.
 

Tavern in the town

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We’ve been linked with Nunez
You’re right tbf, although I would rather we allocate most of our budget to attackers. Regardless I should’ve specified I don’t just mean transfer links, rather the entire discussion around who we sign on social media and this forum, I don’t really think people understand how much of a priority this should be. It’s way more important than the midfield (which yes I agree is shite.)
 

Tarrou

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a midfielder should be the priority, for me

we're never getting top four with McFred as first choice

but then, we don't really know who we're prioritising, transfer links are often driven by agents or invented by journalists
 

EtH

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You’re right tbf, although I would rather we allocate most of our budget to attackers. Regardless I should’ve specified I don’t just mean transfer links, rather the entire discussion around who we sign on social media and this forum, I don’t really think people understand how much of a priority this should be. It’s way more important than the midfield (which yes I agree is shite.)
Class forwards don’t mean a thing if the midfield is being completely overrun.
 

McTerminator

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We are restructuring the hierarchy of the club. We need to do transfer business too, but seems our priorities are pretty good to me.
 

sullydnl

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We absolutely need the team to score more goals. But that's about far more than just adding "goalscorers".

The team with the most goals this season was City, yet their top scorer had fifteen league goals. Last season their top scorer was Gundogan on 13. Back to back league titles without that obvious goalscorer.

Meanwhile we added one of the greatest goalscorers of all time to our team in the summer and still ended up scoring 16 fewer goals than last season.
 

Smores

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Since when is football as simple as sign attacker, score goals though. Goals aren't scored independent of team structure and ours hinders attacks.
 

Tavern in the town

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We absolutely need the team to score more goals. But that's about far more than just adding "goalscorers".

The team with the most goals this season was City, yet their top scorer had fifteen league goals. Last season their top scorer was Gundogan on 13. Back to back league titles without that obvious goalscorer.

Meanwhile we added one of the greatest goalscorers of all time to our team in the summer and still ended up scoring 16 fewer goals than last season.
City are a unique case because any side that isn’t managed by Pep probably isn’t going to do that sort of thing. And Ronaldo may have been the best goalscorer of all time at one point but he certainly isn’t now. I think this is somehow going to boil down to an argument about how we need to service our attackers. Which is true to an extent, but top attackers bag regardless. Aubameyang was challenging for the golden boot in a truly rancid Arsenal team, you create your own service to an extent.
 

Tavern in the town

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Nah you’re way off here.

A quick glance at how Liverpool faltered without VVD should tell you otherwise.

The spine of the team is key.
Liverpool didn’t miss a beat without VVD. They were top of the league in December. They faltered once their entire backline was injured.
 

Tavern in the town

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Since when is football as simple as sign attacker, score goals though. Goals aren't scored independent of team structure and ours hinders attacks.
Do you seriously think Kane + Son in our side wouldn’t put up good numbers? Look at their stats under Mourinho who was absolutely dogshit there.
 

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I think it’s obvious our squad is full of holes. It’s well documented how we’re weak at full back, in midfield and pretty much every area. However it’s really strange to me to see us continually linked with the likes of Timber, Torres and just about any other player that isn’t an attacker.

Firepower is king. There’s a reason we all think Spurs will finish above us this season and it’s because Conte + Kane + Son = wins. Attackers are everything in this league. Fergie knew it - quality strikers on the pitch, quality strikers on the bench. That’s how you pick up points, that’s how you paper over cracks.

I read a stat on Twitter about how there’s only been one occasion in Premier League history in which a team has two players scoring more than 15 non penalty league goals and missed out on a CL spot (Spurs under Jose). That’s how we make top 4 and stay there. Sign a striker and a winger who’ll bag 40 goals between them. Worry about the rest later. Klopp knew it - all their big signings were in the front 6 positions, only once that was sorted did they spend 10m+ on defensive players.

Since Fergie retired we’ve never scored 80 goals in the league. We’ve scored 70 goals once! That’s criminal. It’s no surprise we’ve flitted in and out of the top 4 despite having many seasons of decent defensive records.

Of course to win the league we’ll have to strengthen everywhere. But priority one, two and three should be getting some fecking goals in this team.
How do you know what our priorities are? I have no idea. Can’t really say our priorities are wrong without knowing what they are.
 

Tavern in the town

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That shouldn’t matter though if they have all their forwards right?
No I’m not suggesting having top attackers solved everything. It certainly papers over the cracks more than anything else. They made top 4 with a centre back pairing of Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips because they had Salah and Mane up top. Where the feck even are Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips today? If they had the best centre halves in the world and two Championship level attackers instead would they have finished as high as they did? I somehow doubt it.
 

Tavern in the town

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How do you know what our priorities are? I have no idea. Can’t really say our priorities are wrong without knowing what they are.
Yeah I replied to someone else saying something similar. I worded it quite poorly as I did mean as a club but also as a fanbase talk of buying new attackers seems to be something of an afterthought.
 

Leftback99

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Don't believe all the links. The press are just guessing based on 'team concedes a lot of goals' = 'centre backs must be bad'.
 

TheReligion

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No I’m not suggesting having top attackers solved everything. It certainly papers over the cracks more than anything else. They made top 4 with a centre back pairing of Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips because they had Salah and Mane up top. Where the feck even are Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips today? If they had the best centre halves in the world and two Championship level attackers instead would they have finished as high as they did? I somehow doubt it.
I still don’t get the thread.

United will likely get a new forward and we already have the 3rd top scorer in the PL in Ronaldo.

Id also add Chelsea with Lukaku and Werner got top 4.
 

Bobade

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Did you miss all the matches this season where our forwards didnt get a sniff because we had a massive, slack hole between our defense and attack?

Agree on defenders kind of but midfield must surely be a priority over forwards.
 

Abraxas

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My focus would be on the midfield and attacking areas over the defence, too. I think we can probably only afford one addition in defence If we're to get the necessary quality elsewhere.

I think if we improve our ability to hold the ball in midfield, and get some energy into the team, we can protect the defence better. I don't think we're going to be able to solve all the problems at full back and centre back this window.

We are well short up front. All the way across the front line. That needs an general influx of quality, but certainly one that can play centrally and another from the right. You absolutely cannot enter a season with a 38 year old as the only obvious source of goals. We would be praying that Ronaldo doesn't break down and that Sancho produces magical form. It's just not enough.
 

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Yeah, it's a bit of a worry that, if rumours are to believed, we only want one versatile attacker, when it's clear we need two at the very least. This is something Rangnick also identified, and referenced Liverpool and Man City when it came to their forwards and how many good options they had.

At the moment, based on form, we only really have Ronaldo and Sancho who are top level attackers, and they latter isn't really a goalscorer. Adding a winger and a striker in the summer will hopefully really push us on. This will give us the options of:

Ronaldo
Striker
Winger

Sancho
Rashford
Elanga
 

Grande

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It’s an hypothesis. Then again: What were Pep’s first 6 investments? Why did Bayern have Choupo-Moting as back up for Lewa? Didn’t we do just that, introducing Sancho and Ronaldo last summer? How are RM in the CL final again without replacing Ronaldo and Bale with (at the time) fancied forwards? How could Fergie win the league with a kid from the Norwegian league as his main forward? Why would anyone base their expectations on which rumours are floating around?

Many questions, so complicated answers.
 

TheReligion

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With Cavani and likely Greenwood gone, Martial looking at moving too, I’m unsure why we won’t be looking at a forward? Wink wink we will.
 

Tavern in the town

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Did you miss all the matches this season where our forwards didnt get a sniff because we had a massive, slack hole between our defense and attack?

Agree on defenders kind of but midfield must surely be a priority over forwards.
Our forwards didn’t get a sniff because, bar Ronaldo, they have no nose for goals. Ronaldo bagged 18 goals in the worst United team I’ve ever seen.
 

Bastian

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This completely fails to factor in the style of play. Given we're finally going to be set up as a progressive attacking team, pretty much all the positions are very important, everyone will have to be technically sound and have the physical attributes to play in a very intensive manner. The goals we shipped this season were 57. That's mid table form.

We've played the last 3 years without a midfield. It was only in Jose's third, and Ole's first season that we had a somewhat competent midfield in Pogba, Matic and Herrera.

Of course we're not scoring anywhere near the amount of goals we require to be challenging for anything, but still, we can't be as leaky as we've been and to actually play football we need a midfield and that midfield needs to be connected to the rest of the team, so no passengers at full back, no super slow players at the back etc.

I'm confident we'll sign quite a few and young players will be promoted and some brought back from their loans into the first team getting bona fide proper coaching.
 

jesperjaap

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I think it’s obvious our squad is full of holes. It’s well documented how we’re weak at full back, in midfield and pretty much every area. However it’s really strange to me to see us continually linked with the likes of Timber, Torres and just about any other player that isn’t an attacker.

Firepower is king. There’s a reason we all think Spurs will finish above us this season and it’s because Conte + Kane + Son = wins. Attackers are everything in this league. Fergie knew it - quality strikers on the pitch, quality strikers on the bench. That’s how you pick up points, that’s how you paper over cracks.

I read a stat on Twitter about how there’s only been one occasion in Premier League history in which a team has two players scoring more than 15 non penalty league goals and missed out on a CL spot (Spurs under Jose). That’s how we make top 4 and stay there. Sign a striker and a winger who’ll bag 40 goals between them. Worry about the rest later. Klopp knew it - all their big signings were in the front 6 positions, only once that was sorted did they spend 10m+ on defensive players.

Since Fergie retired we’ve never scored 80 goals in the league. We’ve scored 70 goals once! That’s criminal. It’s no surprise we’ve flitted in and out of the top 4 despite having many seasons of decent defensive records.

Of course to win the league we’ll have to strengthen everywhere. But priority one, two and three should be getting some fecking goals in this team.
We have arguably the best goal scorer of all time here already who is still a world class striker even at his age. ALl very well having players that score goals, but there has to be people to create chances for them.

Not sure I agree with you anyway personally. WHat were the game chaning signings for Liverpool Mane and Salah may well be two....I would say the keeper, centre back and left back were the ones who turned them into challengers to winners though, stopped them leaking silly goals and also improved them offensively. Song and Kane have been bangin gin goals for years at Spurs and they have been leaking them at the back. People raving about the Juve signings, the huge difference to them this season has been Romero though.....a defender.

Obviously as you state, we have holes and weaknesses all over the pitch. Purely playing wise the two biggest weaknesses for me has been the protection of the back four getting exposed so easily by our midfield and total lack of a quality defensive midfielder as Matic did ok but was just too old and even mroe so the awful positioning and geeral simple cohesiveness, sterngth and decision making of our back four....until we sort that out, it doesnt matter who we sign attackign wise....lookat Newcastle under Keegan.

But in all honesty priroritising is very difficult, we still have no centre back partnership or even reliable centre back, arguably our best players last season has been poor this with Shaw, we have no right back of any proven quality from performance, no defensive midfielder, nobody out of several players has proen themselves in central mdifield and half of them are leaving, oru supposed world class attacking midfielder has shown awful form and really the wastefulness has always been there anyway, nobody has proven themselves on either flank and if we are to forget Greenwood we only have one striker who will be 38 next season. How do you even start to prioritise that
 

Charles Miller

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I'll be honest, my priorities would be top attacking players even if i had to throw away a season. You could fix other positions later. Opportunities to sign top strikers/wingers are rare, because there are not many of them in the market. I would take the risk with Nkuku, see what Gnabry want to do with his career, etc. Even if the rest of the squad was awful, i would sign top attacking players first.
 

sunama

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Forwards are the most important position on the pitch and always have been.
Agreed 100%.
There is a reason why the most expensive players on the planet tend to be Attacking Midfielders or Strikers.
Currently, the most expensive player is Neymar, who also happens to be a striker.
I actually agree with the OP. Buy the best attacker who'll join and he will at least keep us in the top 4, while we strengthen in other areas.

Fergie knew this.
I still remember when Andy Cole was the top scorer for Newcastle. He then started the new season in exactly the same form (ie. top scorer in the league). Mid season, Fergie went and bought Andy Cole for the British Transfer record, at the time. There was no transfer window in the mid 90s - a club could buy a player at any time.
Fergie also went for Shearer - offered a world record fee, which was declined.
Fergie also got RvP as a band aid for an ageing squad, to win the league.

BUT in saying all of the above, we have a history of consistently making decent players, crap.
We buy a player. He plays well. Exceptionally well. A few weeks/months pass. And that player then turns to crap.
This pattern is consistent and we need to find a way of stopping this, otherwise, it won't matter who we buy in - that player will need replacing after a single season.
 

The Corinthian

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a midfielder should be the priority, for me

we're never getting top four with McFred as first choice

but then, we don't really know who we're prioritising, transfer links are often driven by agents or invented by journalists
We got 3rd and 2nd with them in consecutive seasons.
 

Irwin99

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Yeah, it's a bit of a worry that, if rumours are to believed, we only want one versatile attacker, when it's clear we need two at the very least. This is something Rangnick also identified, and referenced Liverpool and Man City when it came to their forwards and how many good options they had.

At the moment, based on form, we only really have Ronaldo and Sancho who are top level attackers, and they latter isn't really a goalscorer. Adding a winger and a striker in the summer will hopefully really push us on. This will give us the options of:

Ronaldo
Striker
Winger
Sancho
Rashford
Elanga
Not being mean or hyper critical about them but there are serious question marks about those two. Elanga has done very well and at least plays with some energy/enthusiasm but I wonder about his overall quality. Not even going to comment where Rashford is concerned as it's all been said but let's just hope ten Hag gets him back on track.

I feel It's kind of hard to put a priority on this United side but conceding 4 to the likes of Brighton and Watford, and the thrashings against Liverpool and City shouldn't happen again. ten Hag had a very good defensive record at Ajax and i'd be somewhat surprised if he doesn't target the defence and the midfield before the attacking positions, even though they're in dire need of sorting out too.
 

matherto

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Put Prime Messi, Suarez and Ronaldo at the head of this team and we still miss out on top 4.
 

The Corinthian

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top four is much more difficult now though

Liverpool back to being good
and Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal all look stronger
Yea it’ll be a tougher ask next season without doubt. Issue with our team is it’s like whack-a-mole in terms of problems.