Think the days of striker duos are mostly gone anyways. But I think, you are right - assuming that a finisher is called a finisher because he isn't as involved in any "mundane" activities apart from getting into dangerous positions himself, there aren't many teams, who can afford that in terms of team structure and workload. And seeing the trends of the last years, I think, the need to have everybody working really hard in a team to maximize team output will only get more important. You have to be able to afford luxury items - the 2nd CR7 stint showed that not a long time ago.
Not to intervene, interesting exchange. Just want to chip in that I had the same doubts about your heatmaps as the poster does. Rashford more often as not starts from the left because he thrives when he has room to run into. He isn't your lone striker who is leading the line, he tries to avoid the CBs for as long as possible. Osimhen can hold his own better in the centre. I'd agree to the poster, that having both Osimhen (assuming he would play more or less the same way he does at Napoli now) and the current version of Rashford would require some adjustment as those guys (while certainly also benefitting from each other) would need to adjust to each other because, as somebody pointed out, Rashfords runs are instinctive and when those spaces are occupied, he is needed to adjust. There was a time, I think, the first full year under Ole, where we have seen a version of Rashford, that was the best version I've seen so far. A Rashford, whose first thought seemed to be creating play. Even if it meant, he wouldn't be the one finishing the chance. Everything afterward (and to some degree even the current very well-scoring version of him) didn't seem to be interested in creating to that degree at all. Getting on the end of stuff plus dribbling, thats his game now and, seeing that Osimhen would also be more focussed on getting to the end of stuff, it might be too much for a team like Manchester United as it is today.
Personally, I think Osimhen is a great striker. If we are to splash the cash, it'd be him over Kane on any day of the week. Given the current state of the squad, with quite a few holes to be adressed, I think, I'd try to be smart with the striker and bring in somebody, who wouldn't be snacking away the biggest part of the summer budget. Given that we are coming from a relatively low level in terms of striker, we don't have to pick from the highest possible shelf if we want to improve.
Regarding Rashford's relative goal threat & creativity, his actual stats are interesting in this regard. These are per 90, most recent season first.
Non-penalty goals: 0.57, 0.29, 0.34, 0.37, 0.39.
NPxG: 0.45, 0.21, 0.27, 0.44, 0.41.
The key thing I'm drawing attention to here is that while this is easily his best season in terms of his rate of his returns, his underlying goal threat is still just in line with his previous best seasons.
In other words this hasn't been a season where Rashford has become fundamentally more of a goal-threat than before. It's a season where he's been finishing hot. And
regardless of who we sign at CF, that hot streak won't stay hot forever.
Meanwhile, in terms of creating chances.
Assists: 0.15, 0.15, 0.28, 0.24, 0.23
xAG: 0.11, 0.15, 0.12, 0.17, 0.19
In this case we see that while he is assisting fewer goals in the last two seasons, his underlying stats are again more steady than that suggests.
The broader point being that I wouldn't put much stock in the perception of him having radically changed as a player, become more of a goal threat or become significantly less creative. Because while his returns might give that impression, the more reliable (in terms of predictive value) underlying stats don't.
They tell us that this isn't a new Rashford. It's the same Rashford he's always been, just back in form and finishing hot at a time when we were relying on him more heavily due to the lack of goal threat elsewhere in the team.
They also tell us that he very much remains a
secondary goal threat. So when you say Osimhen also being more focused on getting on the end of stuff might be an issue for this version of United, the slight contradiction there is that we fundamentally
need someone who is going to be getting on the end of stuff a lot more than Rashford will. Which is hard to do if that
isn't your focus in terms of the positions you take up.
Even if we signed a Kane who would be better able to drop deep and create for others, we'd still need him to
also be getting in those central goalscoring positions a lot more often than Rashford does. Ditto any other striker. Because Rashford doesn't do it enough for you to plan around him being the main person doing it in your team.
