We lack creativity

One year left on his contract in the summer. Time to act like a big club. Also he can play right wing.

A right winger will create more problems and block path of one of our forwards as well and there ain't good enough options available who are ready made.

Sancho & Thauvin are options who can hit the ground running and make a serious impact for us from the right
 
For once, we should act like a big club and compete. Barca just got de jong, and Madrid are beatable.

I would like that as well, I just think Levy would make it much harder than it needs to be and there are options like Sancho and Thauvin who are a bit more attainable to us.
 
Nothing to do with the creativity apart from us lacking a right sided attacker. This is what you get when you don't play your first choice front 3 and drop one of your best midfielders in Herrera. Play Mata on the right and you get a non-existent right flank and a very congested midfield as he offers no width hence why we were so predictable.

If anything the problem is when we don't have our attacking first teamers available, do we have adequate back up? Evidently not. Lingard on the right isn't always perfect either but he's a far better option than Mata. Invest in a right winger.
 
I think we have all the creativity and more. Tonight was a blip, the players looked jaded after a tough few games. The last ten minutes showed we could combine creativity with high tempo - not many teams have that.
 
Sancho & Thauvin are options who can hit the ground running and make a serious impact for us from the right
Unless you can spend dembele type fee, and still not sure they can hit the ground running in a new league that is so different to Bundesliga.

If we are to spend that kind of money we better do it on a experienced quality player like erikson who's contract situation suits us.
 
I think we have all the creativity and more. Tonight was a blip, the players looked jaded after a tough few games. The last ten minutes showed we could combine creativity with high tempo - not many teams have that.

We are too dependent on pogba to create.
 
Unless you can spend dembele type fee, and still not sure they can hit the ground running in a new league that is so different to Bundesliga.

If we are to spend that kind of money we better do it on a experienced quality player like erikson who's contract situation suits us.

I think Levy would sell Eriksen for arouund 150 to Spain but the price for us would be closer to 200m... same thing he did when Bale was being sold. We actually outbid Madrid.
 
Unless you can spend dembele type fee, and still not sure they can hit the ground running in a new league that is so different to Bundesliga.

Interesting but not sure that’s the answer.

If we are to spend that kind of money we better do it on a experienced quality player like erikson who's contract situation suits us.
We are too dependent on pogba to create.

True to a point but tonight Mata was making a lot happen as Pogba seemed to hold back. I thought Matic stepped up in the latter part of the second half.
 
We also would've scored more having Dalot pinging in crosses instead of fecking Young.

I mentioned this in the Young thread too. In games where we should be on the front foot it’d be nice to see what Dalot has got. Seems to have a good cross and might be more willing to take on his man. Young slowed us down and wasted a lot of good opportunities today.
 
I think Levy would sell Eriksen for arouund 150 to Spain but the price for us would be closer to 200m... same thing he did when Bale was being sold. We actually outbid Madrid.

Oh, fexk him. He has a year left on his contract in the summer as compared to coutinho or dembele or neymar or van dyk deals. He can not ask anything that he likes and fund the squad with sale of one player.
 
We lack in most positions on the pitch and thats due to the owners, don't let a purple patch under a caretaker manager tell you otherwise.
 
No, we don't. We need defender, maybe winger, maybe better full backs but creativity......nope. We have that
 
We lack in most positions on the pitch and thats due to the owners, don't let a purple patch under a caretaker manager tell you otherwise.

Agreed, out of all the top tier sides, we currently have the most deadwood. Young and Jones would start for no other top team in Europe.
 
Jesus, this is the most knee-jerk thing I've ever seen. After 8 games full of verve, creativity and exciting attacking play, one draw against Burnley (featuring 28 attempts on goal) and we 'lack creativity.'

Whilst this has knee jerk elements to it I actually agree with his point. Like title winning Leicester we can't counter attack forever with impunity. Teams will get wise to us. It could be said that Burnley were the epitome of what getting wise to us means, what countering our counter looks like. Therein lies the issue, creativity against compact defences.

We crossed forever today to the point where every time the ball went wide, I expected nothing, zilch, nada; both before and then most certainly after Lukaku went off. Young was so damn bad, Shaw not aggressive enough with overlaps, driving runs. Yet we continued to go wide, wide, wide; with miniatures in the middle against Burnley's behemoths. Centrally there was no guile, and centrally was where we should have been attacking.

Yes we were shackled by Pereira's timid performance. We were restricted due to poor movement from forward players & yes, a lack of space to move into. Yet we still control our own destiny and creativity through the centre was sorely lacking today.

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If even remotely worthy of one, please help me out of Newb land with a like. Five utterances a day is killing me.
 
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Yes we do.

But tonight he played well when the others were slacking and he rarely gets any credit for his efforts.

"Well" is not good enough to win titles. The quality of final ball was lacking. Lukaku used to bully these defenses if there is someone to find him with accurate final balls, our team lacks that accuracy and we need a upgrade.
 
Herrera is decent at creating.

It think RB, CB and DM needs addressing first.

Imagine if we had a right back who was competent at crossing the ball. Today would have been a different game with the amount of opportunities Young had to deliver a chance.
You mean like Dalot? The lad is young and needs to improve but he’s got a hell of a cross on him. Would have come in handy today with all the time Young had, as you rightly pointed out.
 
agree with the OP

it's a team issue rather than a forward issue and we started to lump the ball far too often tonight

my priorities

1. we need to bring in that right sided attacker to add more balance to our attack

2. swapping Lukaku for a Dybala style player would be great

3. full backs with a better output than Shaw and Young - I wonder how effective Dalot would have been against Burnley considering how wasteful Young was

4. a better passer in midfield than Matic - a playmaker

5. Mata is a 6 or 7 out of 10 player.... there's room for improvement there
 
This has nothing to do with creativity. We were playing with a limping leg on the RHS. While Mata worked hard running into empty space, which wasn't much credit to Burnley defence, Mata was simply too slow for the job. Rashford was off and should have been taken off by half time.
 
Massive drop off without Martial playing, really lack players who can beat a man.

Mata shouldn’t play in the front three. Lukaku is woeful.
 
We've been pretty creative under Ole. Didn't we have 28 shots yesterday? Did we struggle to create chances (missed the full match)?

You also have to account for Periera playing terribly as one of the two more attacking CMs as well as Martial not starting, and Lukaku playing.

I do think we can up our creativity quotent with the addition of a RW and a playmaker. Essentially right handed threats from the wing and midfield to the LW focus of Pogba, Martial and Rashford. That'll give us balance as an attack.
 
Before we worry about creativity, you have to worry about the missing 33% of our attack today. We were running on 66% of our attack because we chose to not have a right wing.

Previous games we have had 100% of our attack and plenty of creativity. No worries there
 
Well he'll probably have learned a lot about mata from that showing. No end product either creatively or in terms of goal threat. He's been underwhelming since we signed him in fairness. He needs replacing. Doesn't look like pereiras going to make it here as well. Looks like a poor man's Wilshire.
 
Look how many games we've played in such a short time without stopping and Arsenal away only a few days ago. It was gonna happen and although shit result the comeback was good.
 
I think he's good enough to be a starter in a top team and won't accept rotation roles. Lovely long passing and good defensive workrate.
If he's good enough Herrera/Matic will rotate for the other position. That's how it'll be at every top club. None of them is going to guarantee a starting place to a young CM.
 
We need 6-7 players but its imposible to get it in one window.

Rw, cmf, dmf, Rb, 2xCb, Lb.

I will be happy with cb, rb, rw and one player who can play cmf and dmf.
 
If he's good enough Herrera/Matic will rotate for the other position. That's how it'll be at every top club. None of them is going to guarantee a starting place to a young CM.

Reminiscent of "You'll never win anything with kids". Iirc class of 92 was about Neves age when they broke into first team. I reckon he's good enough for first team United
 
We created enough chances for 4 goals today, it was just one of those days where not everything comes off. Of course, the right wing situation does need sorting out, and Mata really isn't good enough anymore IMO. Neither is Lukaku or Sanchez. But as depth they're fine, just I doubt the latter 2 are okay with that.

Even with Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney, Giggs, Scholes and Carrick with Evra at full back under Fergie we had bad games or games where we struggled to break down the opposition. No need to go overboard and say massive changes are needed. 1 center back, a right winger, a right back and our first 11 would be pretty set along with the depth being much stronger because of 3 current starters dropping down.
 
This place is a joke at times. Sanchez and Martial create more on average per game than Pogba yet you have posters(who are clearly clueless) claiming that Pogba is our only source of creativity.

We get a bad result this game nit due to a lack of creativity as shown by numerous chances created, heck we scored 2 goals against a packed and resilient defense yet you have threads like these lamenting our lack of creativity.

Caf and kneejerks, name a worse duo.
 
What we need to add more creative and balance in the offense.

Attacking fullbacks
Neves(£70m)
Herrera - Pogba
Sancho(£90m) - Rashford - Martial

Alternative scenario if Pochettino is our next manager

Attacking full backs
Rice(£30m) - Herrera
Eriksen(free) - Pogba - Martial/Sanchez
Rashford/Lukaku/Greenwood
 
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This place is a joke at times. Sanchez and Martial create more on average per game than Pogba yet you have posters(who are clearly clueless) claiming that Pogba is our only source of creativity.

We get a bad result this game nit due to a lack of creativity as shown by numerous chances created, heck we scored 2 goals against a packed and resilient defense yet you have threads like these lamenting our lack of creativity.

Caf and kneejerks, name a worse duo.

Even Rashford is a creator. Despite having a terrible game yesterday, I saw atleast 2 instances of him dropping behind Lukaku in the #10 position and laying a pass onto the latter.

Chance creation wasn't the problem yesterday. Neither were Burnley, their defending wasn't good enough to prevent us. It was a combination of bad selection + lack of talent (Pereira) + drop in form (Rashford, Lukaku).
 
I think that because Lingard and Herrera are not great against set defences, we need a RW and a creative midfielder, unless Fred can be that guy. Imagine if Pogba missed even 3 weeks, we'd basically have to move to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 because you can't really play a 4-3-3 without a CM who can dribble or pass forward consistently.

Basically, if we start games like this:

Martial--Rashford----RW
-----Pogba----Herrera---
-----------Matic----------

and then when we need to attack more (or from the start for home games against weaker teams) we could bring on the CM we sign and let Herrera take Matic's role, and Lukaku will be our big striker off the bench.

We should really sign Ziyech from Ajax. He's desperate to leave, his end product improves every year, he's 25 and he'd fit the team perfectly positionally:

Martial/Rashford----Rashford/Lukaku--------
------------------------------------Ziyech----
-------------Pogba--------Herrera------------
Shaw-------------Matic--------------------RB/Dalot
------------CB-----------Lindelof--------------

would be a really solid all-around team and we could always play a right-winger or all 3 of our forwards and drop a midfielder when we need more firepower out there, and if Pogba has to miss a game we'd still have a creative central midfield option. I'm not saying he's the best player out there, but it seems like a really pragmatic signing we could make along with Alderweild and we'd definitely have a stronger starting XI for like 70-80M.