We don't have a match winning striker of old anymore.
Aguero,Salah,Kane- all turn bad performances into wins which in turn give the team a lift.
We need an RVP/RVN Style Signing
- Thread starter mariachi-19
- Start date
Aguero,Salah,Kane- all turn bad performances into wins which in turn give the team a lift.
First off there isn't a single player that would instantly improve us adequately.
Secondly, none of the teams above us rely on a single talisman and that's probably the best example to follow. Football has become more of a team sport where you rely on multiple players as your goal source.
Secondly, none of the teams above us rely on a single talisman and that's probably the best example to follow. Football has become more of a team sport where you rely on multiple players as your goal source.
Yet Spurs and Liverpool both coped fine during Kane's absence and Salah's barren run. And if you think City rely on Aguero, you haven't watched City.
Did I say that they rely on him? Try reading, it helps
I said that they can come up with world class performances when the side isn't playing well.
I see there's still people acting like signings aren't a big part of becoming better.
Yes, City and Liverpool have a system, but they also brought in much better players to play in it.
Yes, City and Liverpool have a system, but they also brought in much better players to play in it.
Kane won't win games on his own! He is unreliable in plenty of games and I'm sure he wouldn't be half the player without Eriksson. Just look at Kane at later stages of Euros, he went missing.
Not saying he isn't an incredible striker, but Lukaku wouldn't be a million miles off if we had proper wingers. Pre United they had very similar records for goals to games.
The only strikers you can say can do it themselves are those with skill and/ or huge power and speed. Ibrahimovic being an example of over powering everyone. He would probably still be smashing it in the Prem vs anything we have. He is incredible in America albeit a much easier league, but his goalscoring ability and way of scoring is incredible.
Aguero is another I'd call a self creator, very powerful, but also sufficient skill, speed and a lightning bolt of a shot. Again as unavailable as Ronaldo/ Messi.
Dybala has the potential to self generate goals, but doesn't have the power or consistency. He is basically a better version of Martial, which is still an option and he would be getable.
Griezmann is a fairly decent all rounder, but would need a midfield that isn't entirely wank.
I'm struggling to think of many others that are not more of a wide forward or attacking midfielder, e.g. Sancho, Fernandes, Felix. This is probably why there are £100m rumours of Rashford to Barca, purely because there are not many top drawer finishers with speed/ strength/ skill. Rashford's finishing is patchy, but as with all things a better midfield would give you the extra couple of seconds for a good chance to be a great chance.
Rashford is a strange one, he occasionally creates his own great chances and often scores those or he finishes great chances when he has limited time. I'm not sure is good with just a good chance, he is not lethal enough and with too much time on a great chance he will sometimes over think it.
RVN had the ability to surge into the area, yes still needed the right pass early on, but he could do a lot of it himself in a straight muscle and speed type manner.
United desperately needs an experienced reliable goal scoring forward to be the talisman in attack. Martial and Rashford are full of potential and Lingard is a good squad option but the team is currently struggling to score from open play and their 3 experienced forwards (2 who cost £115m and the other is the highest paid player in the squad) can't get in the team.
I completely agree with the OP. There are other requirements in the squad for sure but if you want to play a more attacking style, you probably need some players who can score.
I completely agree with the OP. There are other requirements in the squad for sure but if you want to play a more attacking style, you probably need some players who can score.
Current top scorers in the PL
- Aguero, Salah & Auba (19)
- Mane (18)
- Kane, Sterling (17)
- Hazard, Vardy (16)
- Richarlisson, Pogba, Lacazette and Sigurdsson (13)
- Firminho, Jiminez, Lukaku, Milivojevic, Son, Wilson (12)
It's terrible isn't it. I'd literally keep Dalot, Smalling, Lindelof, Pogba (If attitude is right behind scenes), Shaw, Mctom and Rashford. Most of those would be good squad / rotation players also. We do literally need a whole new team.Basically an entire new XI wouldn't hurt
So fecking sad that we're in this position. One can't help but laugh.
Yeah, it's mindboggling - especially the amount we've spent on transfers and our wage bill. Overpaying for absolute mediocrity.
Yeah would pretty much have to pay off Levy's flash new stadium to get Kane. But then I guess the same can be said of trying to get Mbappe. In fact any top level striker is going to be an eye watering amount in the current market.
Im not so sure, I dont feel Lukaku is on the same level as Kane now, in fact for quite some time. Lukaku seems to have plateaued and Kane took his game up another level. So you talk about Kane and Aguero, then the other strikers in the league.
And a top midfielder, a couple of decent centre backs, a right back and a goalkeeper whose more interested in playing for the team and not how much he's gonna get paid.
From Football365:
Ed Woodward should be embarrassed that the two matchday squads were separated by just over £80m in transfer fees. United’s starting XI (£249.6m) and bench (£215.8m) was in stark contrast to City’s (£354m and £182.5m respectively), yet the levels of investment were roughly similar. The only difference was that Guardiola’s side was the result of every facet of a club moving in the same direction to one well-defined goal, whereas Solskjaer’s was an example of what happens when a club without structure is dominated by self-serving individuals instead of those eager to work together as components in the wider machine.
We need better scouting and better transfers. After 5 years of transfers the only players that are still here and have been at least okay are
De Gea (great)
Pogba (very good)
Shaw (good)
Lukaku (okay)
Herrera (good)
Matic (good)
Martial (okay)
Did I leave any other okay or good transfers still here? If someone wants to list City's transfers the difference in quality is all there in black and white.
Ed Woodward should be embarrassed that the two matchday squads were separated by just over £80m in transfer fees. United’s starting XI (£249.6m) and bench (£215.8m) was in stark contrast to City’s (£354m and £182.5m respectively), yet the levels of investment were roughly similar. The only difference was that Guardiola’s side was the result of every facet of a club moving in the same direction to one well-defined goal, whereas Solskjaer’s was an example of what happens when a club without structure is dominated by self-serving individuals instead of those eager to work together as components in the wider machine.
We need better scouting and better transfers. After 5 years of transfers the only players that are still here and have been at least okay are
De Gea (great)
Pogba (very good)
Shaw (good)
Lukaku (okay)
Herrera (good)
Matic (good)
Martial (okay)
Did I leave any other okay or good transfers still here? If someone wants to list City's transfers the difference in quality is all there in black and white.
That's the last thing we need, we'll still have a crap defence.
Since Cristiano was an unrealistically good signing to repeat, we could use the following transfers Fergie made along with our current players who might be good enough:
-----------------------RVP-----------------------
Rashford/Martial---------------------------Nani
-------------Pogba--------Keane-----------------
--------------------Carrick-----------------------
Shaw-----Vidic-----------Lindelof---------Parker
--------------------De Gea------------------------
only the one RB really available, right-sided Evra is the real need.
-----------------------RVP-----------------------
Rashford/Martial---------------------------Nani
-------------Pogba--------Keane-----------------
--------------------Carrick-----------------------
Shaw-----Vidic-----------Lindelof---------Parker
--------------------De Gea------------------------
only the one RB really available, right-sided Evra is the real need.
Can we compete for Hazard with Real? He could be brilliant for us. Sadly he plays on the same side as Martial though.
You think we can repeat a Keane or Vidic?
Imagine if we had both of these lads in their prime playing for us,would have been some partnership 
Not to worry, Martial will do that trick he usually does that makes him invisible.
RVP got a boost in a decent team. RVP to our team now would just be like Tevez to West Ham the year before we had him. We all saw he was a decent player, but surrounded by mediocre and lack of tactics, they won't thrive. We got Pogba in our midfield, and I'm not sure Everton would swap any of their starting midfielders for him. (Of course they would, because Pogba is world class at his best, but for us he's been looking pretty mediocre the last 8-10 games).
Timo Werner would be a brilliant signing. Interchangeable front three is the way forward.
There's no one player that could instantly fix us. RVP was the last piece of the jigsaw added to 89 point team. We need a cohesive style of play and develop a system where different players can come in and out without affecting the team performance.
Sure. We have a ton of money and are at worst the 10th most desirable club or so in the world (say we're 4th in England on average for most players these days, both Madrids, Juve, PSG, Barca and Bayern ahead of us and we're still 10th).
We could have bought Kante from Leicester and Van Dijk from Southampton , our rivals literally did and they weren't unknown players or anything, and if they aren't Keane and Vidic they're damn close (and Van Dijk is probably a bit better at this moment, though we'll see how many years he performs like this).
Signing Cristiano, who in a normal non-Messi period would be the clear best player in the world for over a decade, that's asking a bit much. We had Best, I guess, but you're basically talking about signing a top 10 ever player, that's probably not going to happen again anytime soon.
Bumping this thread after seeing the way balls across the six yard box went begging at the weekend.
If we had a striker with instincts in the penalty area like this we'd be sitting on at least nine points:
If we had a striker with instincts in the penalty area like this we'd be sitting on at least nine points:
I watched Gary Neville's soccerbox with Scholes a while ago, and Scholes said he always loved seeing Ruud ferociously smack the ball into the net. Fantastic striker.
Mourinho is right, ole needs a plan B to beat the 'low block'
For Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Manchester United supporters, the premonition came from an unwelcome source. Sat in the Sky Sports studio on the first weekend of the season, Solskjaer’s predecessor Jose Mourinho forecast where the problems may come for United, despite a 4-0 victory over Chelsea.
Mourinho’s warning centred around what he and tacticians describe as “the low block”.
The Portuguese said: “Chelsea were not compact defensively, too much space to play, not enough aggression on the ball — the defensive line, the midfield, the attack — they were not compact. I think United will find it much more difficult to play against teams with low compact blocks. If the blocks are low blocks, it will be really difficult for them without a pure striker.”
On the south coast this weekend, United’s young side came unstuck for the third consecutive game and once again, the symptoms were as Mourinho diagnosed. For the layman, there is no wild science behind “the low block”.
One former Premier League coach told The Athletic: “It basically means you sit deep, create two compact lines of defence, do not press high and ask whether a team can break you down.”
In United’s case, the answer has been a resounding “no” over the past three games against Wolves, Crystal Palace and Southampton. Afterwards, Solskjaer was insistent his team “deserved” to win all three and he is, probably, correct. For the manager, there is little he can do when his team misses consecutive penalties, his world-class goalkeeper fumbles a ball into his goal, and Victor Lindelof is inexplicably beaten to two crucial headers inside seven days. Yet the bigger picture is becoming concerning.
Solskjaer is without a win away from home since taking the job on a full-time basis. United have one clean sheet in 19 games. United have won only three times in 16 games. United have scored more than once in a game only three times in that sequence, and won by more than a one-goal margin on only one occasion since March 6. United may be undergoing a transition but it is, to be blunt, not far off relegation form.
Solskjaer insists the tide will turn: “We have a clear plan. We believe in the players and the way we do things. You can say that it’s a long-term one, but we deserved to win the last three games as well. The one thing you cannot control in football is results and outcomes. You can keep control of the effort, the attitude, what we’re doing in training. We’re on the right track, we’re working. And, as I said to the boys, we have to learn to win these games. I know we are a young team but that’s not an excuse.”
How quickly United learn will ultimately define Solskjaer’s reign. The problems are exactly as Mourinho described. Solskjaer’s high-pressing counter-attacking system is encountering trouble when a team does not provide the space to play. On Saturday, United’s sole source of inspiration came from the increasingly outstanding Daniel James. He scored with a scorching effort, to add to last weekend’s more deft curling strike, and he was a constant source of direct running and powerful shooting. Yet as the confidence seeped from players such as Juan Mata, Andreas Pereira and Marcus Rashford, United became ever more dependent on James. The Opta graphic below shows that 45.5% of United’s direction of travel came down James’ left side.
(Not at PC to link said graphic)
To break down the “low block”, there are several routes. In Manchester City’s case, it means full-backs that overlap and underlap, while gifted players such as Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva find spaces between opposition centre-backs and full-backs. United do not have the personnel to do this frequently.
On Saturday, the breakthrough came when Mata, handed a first start of the season, made an intelligent dart on the overlap to create space for James to shoot. Yet Mata’s gifts are increasingly rare these days and he fizzled out, while his replacement Jesse Lingard is without a goal or assist for eight months. United, at this moment, are not producing the wit or invention we should expect from a No 10 position, and those who do play in that role are easily shackled.
A solution may be to push Paul Pogba into a more advanced position. The Frenchman is playing in a deeper two alongside Scott McTominay. On his good days, this allows Pogba to dictate play in a quarterback role but on his more exasperating afternoons, it renders him a liability. On Saturday, he conceded possession midway inside his own half three times in 40 seconds at one point, giving Southampton encouragement and a route back into the game. Restoring Fred or Nemanja Matic into midfield and allowing Pogba freedom further forward may add a greater dimension to United’s play.
For Solskjaer, there are other ways to solve the problem. He is growing increasingly irritated by the failures of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial to score “scruffy” goals, the kind he used to relish himself as a player. Rashford has scored in only one of his past 12 games for United and he toiled as a central striker on Saturday.
In training, Solskjaer is insisting his young forwards rehearse near-post darts and recreate game scenarios that allow him and Martial to score more poachers’ goals. As United pressed late on against 10 men, several crosses, mostly from James, flew across the six-yard box but United’s attacking players were caught on their heels.
The statistics do not flatter Rashford and Martial, players who one former Premier League manager privately called “scorers of great goals but not great goalscorers” on Saturday night. Since August 2016, Rashford has scored only six goals inside the six-yard box in the Premier League, while Martial has three. Sergio Aguero has 14 in the same period and this underlines the difference.
Meanwhile, the aesthetic decision to sell Romelu Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini mean high crosses feel increasingly pointless for United. Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Lukaku has 11 headed goals while Rashford and Martial have a combined three. As such, there is no fall-back for Solskjaer. The question now is whether he is a coach capable of training his players to perfect his Plan A.
Mourinho’s warning centred around what he and tacticians describe as “the low block”.
The Portuguese said: “Chelsea were not compact defensively, too much space to play, not enough aggression on the ball — the defensive line, the midfield, the attack — they were not compact. I think United will find it much more difficult to play against teams with low compact blocks. If the blocks are low blocks, it will be really difficult for them without a pure striker.”
On the south coast this weekend, United’s young side came unstuck for the third consecutive game and once again, the symptoms were as Mourinho diagnosed. For the layman, there is no wild science behind “the low block”.
One former Premier League coach told The Athletic: “It basically means you sit deep, create two compact lines of defence, do not press high and ask whether a team can break you down.”
In United’s case, the answer has been a resounding “no” over the past three games against Wolves, Crystal Palace and Southampton. Afterwards, Solskjaer was insistent his team “deserved” to win all three and he is, probably, correct. For the manager, there is little he can do when his team misses consecutive penalties, his world-class goalkeeper fumbles a ball into his goal, and Victor Lindelof is inexplicably beaten to two crucial headers inside seven days. Yet the bigger picture is becoming concerning.
Solskjaer is without a win away from home since taking the job on a full-time basis. United have one clean sheet in 19 games. United have won only three times in 16 games. United have scored more than once in a game only three times in that sequence, and won by more than a one-goal margin on only one occasion since March 6. United may be undergoing a transition but it is, to be blunt, not far off relegation form.
Solskjaer insists the tide will turn: “We have a clear plan. We believe in the players and the way we do things. You can say that it’s a long-term one, but we deserved to win the last three games as well. The one thing you cannot control in football is results and outcomes. You can keep control of the effort, the attitude, what we’re doing in training. We’re on the right track, we’re working. And, as I said to the boys, we have to learn to win these games. I know we are a young team but that’s not an excuse.”
How quickly United learn will ultimately define Solskjaer’s reign. The problems are exactly as Mourinho described. Solskjaer’s high-pressing counter-attacking system is encountering trouble when a team does not provide the space to play. On Saturday, United’s sole source of inspiration came from the increasingly outstanding Daniel James. He scored with a scorching effort, to add to last weekend’s more deft curling strike, and he was a constant source of direct running and powerful shooting. Yet as the confidence seeped from players such as Juan Mata, Andreas Pereira and Marcus Rashford, United became ever more dependent on James. The Opta graphic below shows that 45.5% of United’s direction of travel came down James’ left side.
(Not at PC to link said graphic)
To break down the “low block”, there are several routes. In Manchester City’s case, it means full-backs that overlap and underlap, while gifted players such as Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva find spaces between opposition centre-backs and full-backs. United do not have the personnel to do this frequently.
On Saturday, the breakthrough came when Mata, handed a first start of the season, made an intelligent dart on the overlap to create space for James to shoot. Yet Mata’s gifts are increasingly rare these days and he fizzled out, while his replacement Jesse Lingard is without a goal or assist for eight months. United, at this moment, are not producing the wit or invention we should expect from a No 10 position, and those who do play in that role are easily shackled.
A solution may be to push Paul Pogba into a more advanced position. The Frenchman is playing in a deeper two alongside Scott McTominay. On his good days, this allows Pogba to dictate play in a quarterback role but on his more exasperating afternoons, it renders him a liability. On Saturday, he conceded possession midway inside his own half three times in 40 seconds at one point, giving Southampton encouragement and a route back into the game. Restoring Fred or Nemanja Matic into midfield and allowing Pogba freedom further forward may add a greater dimension to United’s play.
For Solskjaer, there are other ways to solve the problem. He is growing increasingly irritated by the failures of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial to score “scruffy” goals, the kind he used to relish himself as a player. Rashford has scored in only one of his past 12 games for United and he toiled as a central striker on Saturday.
In training, Solskjaer is insisting his young forwards rehearse near-post darts and recreate game scenarios that allow him and Martial to score more poachers’ goals. As United pressed late on against 10 men, several crosses, mostly from James, flew across the six-yard box but United’s attacking players were caught on their heels.
The statistics do not flatter Rashford and Martial, players who one former Premier League manager privately called “scorers of great goals but not great goalscorers” on Saturday night. Since August 2016, Rashford has scored only six goals inside the six-yard box in the Premier League, while Martial has three. Sergio Aguero has 14 in the same period and this underlines the difference.
Meanwhile, the aesthetic decision to sell Romelu Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini mean high crosses feel increasingly pointless for United. Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Lukaku has 11 headed goals while Rashford and Martial have a combined three. As such, there is no fall-back for Solskjaer. The question now is whether he is a coach capable of training his players to perfect his Plan A.
Currently there aren't many Strikers like that around and none of them is for sale.
I like Werner, he has a low release clause apparently.
I would have loved Jovic here.
Also Icardi for his striking skills, but I understand why the club didn't make a move.
that sort of signing is the cherry on top. United are not there yet. Pogba wants to go for ex