We also had Pogba, Sancho and Cavani in the team back then. I know they weren't the most popular players here, but if you don't think they offered more creativity than the likes of Rashford, Anthony and Amrabat I don't really know what to tell you.
Haaland is the only striker with fewer touches than Højlund out of all the starting forwards in the league, but he's being fed by the likes of Doku, Grealish, Forden and Silva who are all often camped around the opposition's box. Let's not pretend he'd be getting the same kind of service here and he's hardly the type to create for himself out of nothing. He's clearly superior, but my point is that there aren't many out and out strikers who would thrive in our team. It would take a prime Van Persie type who can regularly create something out of nothing to get a decent goal return for us.
This post has just reminded me how far our standards have fallen in such a short period of time. It's really not Højlund's fault he isn't ready though, he is only 20 after all.
That's not a reasonable thing to say. How do you skip over Bruno and mention Amrabat instead? Your previous post mentions Rashford and Antony specifically, so I made the comparison with the wingers Ronaldo actually played with, who of course, would have been Rashford, Sancho and Elanga. Sancho and Elanga are like-for-like substitutes with Antony, productivity-wise.
That is all moot, as Ronaldo's assists actually came from the entire team not a particular player. In fact, the one player who provided the most assists for Ronaldo in that season was Telles, with a grand total of 2. The rest, at least by April 24th, were Elanga, Matic,
Bruno,
Fred,
McTominay,
Rashford,
Sancho, and
Shaw with one each, with the starters from that list highlighted.
Of the highlighted starters, 4 of 6 are still established players here. The team hasn't changed all that much - the way they play has changed as they've gone from being built around Ronaldo, to being built around our inside forwards.
If Haaland was here, it would be the same as in Ronaldo's full season here. The team would be built around him because he's sure to get you goals with service. You don't sense that sort of confidence with Hojlund and that reflects in more selfish passing decisions.