What is wrong with our attacking players?

The sad fact is that Højlund, Garnacho, and Zirkzee are just not very good. They are below the standard needed for this league, and therefore consistently fail to make an impact. Because their movement, decision making and passing is not very good (to varying degrees), they also make each other look even worse. Højlund, Garnacho and Zirkzee have two PL assists between them - that's atrocious.

In Diallo we have someone who is raw, but has very good technique, decent decision making and a great eye for his teammates. We sorely need more players with those qualities.
 
We need better attacking players. No rocket science degree is required to work that out.
 
They're rubbish? I said before the season we wouldn't score enough goals, simply because there are not enough goalscoring players in the side. Its not rocket surgery.
 
They aren't very good compared to the rest of the league. Not much more to it.
 
Aside from the quality, which was know is a massive issue, it’s all so slow, monotonous and predictable. Seems very rare we put something decent together off the cuff.
 
It's just a quality issue nothing more complicated. Switch Garnacho and Höjlund for 2 half decent PL attacker and we win todays game quite comfortably.
 
They're all a bit thick.

You notice any team we play generally plays the most advantageous pass, or attempt at a pass, in a time and manner that makes most sense when attacking.

Watch our players and they're just constantly doing things as individuals, taking far too many touches, running into space occupied by players on their own team.

The time it takes for us to release the ball to a player on the wing is shocking.
 
Mike Smalling said:
The sad fact is that Højlund, Garnacho, and Zirkzee are just not very good. They are below the standard needed for this league, and therefore consistently fail to make an impact. Because their movement, decision making and passing is not very good (to varying degrees), they also make each other look even worse. Højlund, Garnacho and Zirkzee have two PL assists between them - that's atrocious.

In Diallo we have someone who is raw, but has very good technique, decent decision making and a great eye for his teammates. We sorely need more players with those qualities.
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Zirkzee has improved and will look better with a fit Cunha and proper ST around him. The other two have consistently dodgy decision-making though, and I'm not sure whether we can wait for them to improve mentally
 
Baxquux said:
Zirkzee has improved and will look better with a fit Cunha and proper ST around him. The other two have consistently dodgy decision-making though, and I'm not sure whether we can wait for them to improve mentally
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He has improved, yes, but I don't really think he is it. He is also an awkward fit into this line-up, but has gained some popularity simply by providing relief from Højlund. If we had the choice between Zirkzee or the £40m back (or whatever it was), I'd take the money every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
 
They are all weak on the ball and lack composure and decision making.
They are also inconsistent technically, they might do one thing well, like a good first touch, turn or hold up play but then they mess up the shot or pass after.
A new front three would be ideal but Cunha and Osimhen would do.
 
Baxquux said:
Zirkzee has improved and will look better with a fit Cunha and proper ST around him. The other two have consistently dodgy decision-making though, and I'm not sure whether we can wait for them to improve mentally
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It's not just mentally, physically it doesn't seem like either is up to it, particularly Garnacho. Hojlund in fairness has some of the tools (although not a great engine), so maybe he can learn to use them better.
 
The Irish Connection said:
They are all weak on the ball and lack composure and decision making.
They are also inconsistent technically, they might do one thing well, like a good first touch, turn or hold up play but then they mess up the shot or pass after.
A new front three would be ideal but Cunha and Osimhen would do.
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We aren't signing Osimhen it's OVER
 
On the day that Liverpool win the league, we try to get ourselves out of a losing position by bringing on a passive centre half WHO CALLS HIMSELF THE ICE MAN. We don't have attacking options, obviously.
 
@simonhch wrote a fantastic post here in the Ederson thread, and I'm going to shamelessly rip-off the main point they made there because I think it is equally applicable to the question of what is wrong with our forward line.

The crux of it is that a ridiculous share of the burden up front is being placed upon players who aren't in or in some cases even anywhere close to being in what is typically a footballer's prime years (around 24 to 30). To demonstrate this point, the table below shows all of our forwards alongside their current age in years and how many minutes they've played this season (numbers from FBREF). I've decided to include Bruno since he's played at least some time as an attacking midfielder under Amorim but that one's quite contentious - if you take him out of the picture it gets considerably worse than it already is.

NameAge (Years)Minutes Played
Bruno Fernandes302,668
Alejandro Garnacho201,996
Rasmus Hojlund221,654
Amad Diallo221,594
Joshua Zirkzee231,402
Marcus Rashford27978
Mason Mount26348
Antony25141
Chido Obi1749

In other words, 62% of the minutes played by forward players within our squad this season have been played by players aged 23 or under. And to reiterate, this number would jump up to 82% if you were to take out Bruno which you might justifiably do given that the way he plays is probably more akin to a midfield player than a forward.

Garnacho, Hojlund, Amad and Zirkzee should not be shouldering such a heavy burden. They are all players who are very much in the stages of their career where they should be developing, honing their skills alongside more experienced and accomplished forwards who you expect to produce the majority of your attacking output.

For comparison, I had a look at the percentage of the total minutes played by forward players under the age of 23 at each of the clubs within the top five. Here are the results:

Team% Minutes Played by Forwards Under 23
Liverpool2%
Arsenal45%
Newcastle United1%
Manchester City29%
Chelsea58%

In other words, none of these sides are as reliant on players who should still be developing for their attacking output as we are. Further, whilst both Arsenal's and Chelsea's attacks have scored a lot more than ours this season, they are the two lowest scoring teams of the top five this season. And let me remind you that the initial 62% number I calculated (which puts us very near Chelsea's number) is only as low as that because I included Bruno as a forward player.

Now, I'm not suggesting necessarily that we should clear the squad entirely of youth players. What I am saying is that we desperately need some peak age players to come in to shoulder some of the burden for our attacking output next season. It's why I'm so on board with the Cunha signing - I think he's exactly the sort of attacker we need to be looking at signing this summer.
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
@simonhch wrote a fantastic post here in the Ederson thread, and I'm going to shamelessly rip-off the main point they made there because I think it is equally applicable to the question of what is wrong with our forward line.

The crux of it is that a ridiculous share of the burden up front is being placed upon players who aren't in or in some cases even anywhere close to being in what is typically a footballer's prime years (around 24 to 30). To demonstrate this point, the table below shows all of our forwards alongside their current age in years and how many minutes they've played this season (numbers from FBREF). I've decided to include Bruno since he's played at least some time as an attacking midfielder under Amorim but that one's quite contentious - if you take him out of the picture it gets considerably worse than it already is.

NameAge (Years)Minutes Played
Bruno Fernandes302,668
Alejandro Garnacho201,996
Rasmus Hojlund221,654
Amad Diallo221,594
Joshua Zirkzee231,402
Marcus Rashford27978
Mason Mount26348
Antony25141
Chido Obi1749

In other words, 62% of the minutes played by forward players within our squad this season have been played by players aged 23 or under. And to reiterate, this number would jump up to 82% if you were to take out Bruno which you might justifiably do given that the way he plays is probably more akin to a midfield player than a forward.

Garnacho, Hojlund, Amad and Zirkzee should not be shouldering such a heavy burden. They are all players who are very much in the stages of their career where they should be developing, honing their skills alongside more experienced and accomplished forwards who you expect to produce the majority of your attacking output.

For comparison, I had a look at the percentage of the total minutes played by forward players under the age of 23 at each of the clubs within the top five. Here are the results:

Team% Minutes Played by Forwards Under 23
Liverpool2%
Arsenal45%
Newcastle United1%
Manchester City29%
Chelsea58%

In other words, none of these sides are as reliant on players who should still be developing for their attacking output as we are. Further, whilst both Arsenal's and Chelsea's attacks have scored a lot more than ours this season, they are the two lowest scoring teams of the top five this season. And let me remind you that the initial 62% number I calculated (which puts us very near Chelsea's number) is only as low as that because I included Bruno as a forward player.

Now, I'm not suggesting necessarily that we should clear the squad entirely of youth players. What I am saying is that we desperately need some peak age players to come in to shoulder some of the burden for our attacking output next season. It's why I'm so on board with the Cunha signing - I think he's exactly the sort of attacker we need to be looking at signing this summer.
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Exactly. Thank you highlighting the Ederson post I made touching on this issue. I made a similar one in one of the transfer threads a while back too. You’ve gone deeper with quantifiable data, which I appreciate. Thank you. Great post. It’s really a problem not just in our attack but through the spine of our team. At the start of the season, based on the performances from the year before, many thought our starting duo in midfield would be Mainoo and Ugarte, aged 19 and 23 respectively (at the time), with an 18 year old Leny Yoro being a starter in the back line.

I love youth, I’m all about integrating young players but it has to be a balance of them with players in their prime and a sprinkling of older experienced heads in the squad. Most of our prime players have been perma-crocked or just plain terrible. This all points to the desperate need to get some players in this summer in that 24-27 age profile. So we have players who can deliver now, and we give the young players a proper platform to develop. Rather than crushing them under the burden of expectation. The latter has led to many posters writing off players like Garnacho, Mainoo, and Hojlund, well before one ever should. It’s a mess, and while there is a ton of potential in the squad, there is no mystery in why we are struggling so much.
 
simonhch said:
Exactly. Thank you highlighting the Ederson post I made touching on this issue. I made a similar one in one of the transfer threads a while back too. You’ve gone deeper with quantifiable data, which I appreciate. Thank you. Great post. It’s really a problem not just in our attack but through the spine of our team. At the start of the season, based on the performances from the year before, many thought our starting duo in midfield would be Mainoo and Ugarte, aged 19 and 23 respectively (at the time), with an 18 year old Leny Yoro being a starter in the back line.

I love youth, I’m all about integrating young players but it has to be a balance of them with players in their prime and a sprinkling of older experienced heads in the squad. Most of our prime players have been perma-crocked or just plain terrible. This all points to the desperate need to get some players in this summer in that 24-27 age profile. So we have players who can deliver now, and we give the young players a proper platform to develop. Rather than crushing them under the burden of expectation. The latter has led to many posters writing off players like Garnacho, Mainoo, and Hojlund, well before one ever should. It’s a mess, and while there is a ton of potential in the squad, there is no mystery in why we are struggling so much.
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Completely agree mate. Dorgu is the latest victim of it. By and large, I would say the team has gotten better since Dorgu was added at left wing-back. With they said, he's made some poor errors and had some poor matches and some are using this to completely write him off. Bear in mind, this is a 20 year old who has played 11 matches for the club and joined from Lecce.

I should say I'm not perfect in this regard. I've been very harsh on Hojlund in particular this season when the reality is that he's sinking under the weight of expectations that are far, far too great given his age and career path thus far.
 
croadyman said:
So you are Amorim out then?
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No need to rush anything out of spite but there is no real chance he turns it around. If he is one of the best coaches in the world, like he needs to be, the players should look more than the sum of their parts, but they look much less. I would be really worried about spending a fortune in the summer on any player that will be specific to amorims system.

We don't have a reasonable option in place to be director of football either which is just as big a problem.
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
NameAge (Years)Minutes Played
Bruno Fernandes302,668
Alejandro Garnacho201,996
Rasmus Hojlund221,654
Amad Diallo221,594
Joshua Zirkzee231,402
Marcus Rashford27978
Mason Mount26348
Antony25141
Chido Obi1749
Click to expand...

Bit harsh, this. Mason Mount has played every minute that he’s been fit.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
No need to rush anything out of spite but there is no real chance he turns it around. If he is one of the best coaches in the world, like he needs to be, the players should look more than the sum of their parts, but they look much less. I would be really worried about spending a fortune in the summer on any player that will be specific to amorims system.

We don't have a reasonable option in place to be director of football either which is just as big a problem.
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Yeah I get the concern about buying players just for him, however wouldn't see Cunha/Delap like that. I also understand your point about not having a proper DOF, weren't we loosely linked with a move for Jorge Campos.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
No need to rush anything out of spite but there is no real chance he turns it around. If he is one of the best coaches in the world, like he needs to be, the players should look more than the sum of their parts, but they look much less. I would be really worried about spending a fortune in the summer on any player that will be specific to amorims system.

We don't have a reasonable option in place to be director of football either which is just as big a problem.
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This is really myopic. He has a squad shorn of about every prime age player supposed to be at his disposal. Running a thin squad full of inexperienced, lightly experienced, and developing players. What we need are two good summers of sensible recruitment, and a year of quality coaching in between. Players 23 and under are rightly considered primarily developing players and by nature are full of errors and an evolving understanding of the game. This has been proven so many times as to be beyond the point of debate. Of the players we have in their prime, Martinez (injured), Onana (error prone), Shaw (always injured), Mount (always injured), Rashford (out on loan), Sancho (loan), Antony (loan), only Mazraoui has been consistently available. Three other players Ugarte (just turned 24), De Ligt (25) and Zirkzee (23) are about to enter their prime and in their first years in English football. The rest of the squad is either under 23, or 30 and over. Bruno (30), is still carrying pretty much all performance expectations. While our biggest break out performer this year, Amad (22), has missed nearly half the season injured.

Are we seriously criticising this coach? In all my years supporting United, this is one of the mostly poorly constructed squads I’ve seen since the pre-Fergie days. It’s a catastrophe ten years in the making. To put anything on the current coach is to entirely miss the point, and buy into the same short term, knee jerk, lack of strategic thinking that has gotten us into this mess in the first place.

In the summer, we recruited relatively well. Ugarte is a good signing, who will need a little time to shine, but at just 24 he’s about to enter the peak years of his career. Likewise Zirkzee, who after a difficult year has enough about him and is that the right age to push on significantly in the very near future. Yoro, of course, is very young; but he is one of those potentially generational talents for his position and couldn’t be missed out on, even if he can’t be expected to be even close to the finished article at his tender age. Mazraoui and De Ligt are excellent signings at great prices, for players who have their best years ahead of them, rather than behind, and Dorgu is another big talent but he’s only 20. He’s several years away from his prime. Likewise Heaven.

This summer, and probably next, we need to focus on bringing in players who are on the cusp, or just entered their best years. Players who are at youngest 23/24 and at oldest 25/26, maybe 27. Any young signings made should be secondary to that objective, because in Yoro, Heaven, Dorgu, Mainoo, Amad, Garnacho, Hojlund, Collyer, Amass, Kone, and Chido, we already have a ton of very talented young players. And there are others I haven’t mentioned. What is needed now, is to improve the balance and bring in some prime level talent. Two or three young potential stars over the next 2 summers is plenty, considering we aren’t even giving a proper environment to flourish to the young stars of tomorrow that we already have.

The next two summers, with all these players a little older and wiser, plus hopefully peak age additions at GK, CB, CM, RWB, AM, and CF, then we can say this is a proper Premier League football team. Right now it’s a poorly cobbled together mishmash of ten years of negligent and incompetent executive decision making. The ins and outs of the last 12 months are clearly already working towards fixing this, but the scale of the recalibration is enormous and it will be painful. Yet if we don’t stick with it and have a point of continuity in a young, extremely highly rated coach, then we are likely going to fail again.

It’s head scratching that people can’t see that. I’d rather see us finish 15th this year but finally take the hard steps necessary to reset the squad and culture, than squeak to a 7th place finish and stretch out the same old failings. Amorim deserves at least until the end of next season, until this even becomes a topic.

As for the executive, our primary concern right now is to improve the quality of our recruitment, move on the unwanted players, and do so to a holistic vision of how the club will operate/play over the long term. Berrada is clearly the strategic vision guy, and in Vivell and Wilcox we have the team onboard to execute that strategy. If and when the right figure comes along to support that process, in the form of a DoF, great but after the misfire of Ashworth, it’s more important to get the right person than just fill the role. I would personally prioritise the development of an advanced data analytics capability over appointing a DoF. What hasn’t lacked in previous years is voices, what has lacked is good information. I’m all for going lean, streamlining the process and then carefully rebuilding it with quality not quantity. This club has needed root and branch reform for an age.
 
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simonhch said:
This is really myopic. He has a squad shorn of about every prime age player supposed to be at his disposal. Running a thin squad full of inexperienced, lightly experienced, and developing players. What we need are two good summers of sensible recruitment, and a year of quality coaching in between. Players 23 and under are rightly considered primarily developing players and by nature are full of errors and an evolving understanding of the game. This has been proven so many times as to be beyond the point of debate. Of the players we have in their prime, Martinez (injured), Onana (error prone), Shaw (always injured), Mount (always injured), Rashford (out on loan), Sancho (loan), Antony (loan), only Mazraoui has been consistently available. Three other players Ugarte (just turned 24), De Ligt (25) and Zirkzee (23) are about to enter their prime and in their first years in English football. The rest of the squad is either under 23, or 30 and over. Bruno (30), is still carrying pretty much all performance expectations. While our biggest break out performer this year, Amad (22), has missed nearly half the season injured.

Are we seriously criticising this coach? In all my years supporting United, this is one of the mostly poorly constructed squads I’ve seen since the pre-Fergie days. It’s a catastrophe ten years in the making. To put anything on the current coach is to entirely miss the point, and buy into the same short term, knee jerk, lack of strategic thinking that has gotten us into this mess in the first place.

In the summer, we recruited relatively well. Ugarte is a good signing, who will need a little time to shine, but at just 24 he’s about to enter the peak years of his career. Likewise Zirkzee, who after a difficult year has enough about him and is that the right age to push on significantly in the very near future. Yoro, of course, is very young; but he is one of those potentially generational talents for his position and couldn’t be missed out on, even if he can’t be expected to be even close to the finished article at his tender age. Mazraoui and De Ligt are excellent signings at great prices, for players who have their best years ahead of them, rather than behind, and Dorgu is another big talent but he’s only 20. He’s several years away from his prime. Likewise Heaven.

This summer, and probably next, we need to focus on bringing in players who are on the cusp, or just entered their best years. Players who are at youngest 23/24 and at oldest 25/26, maybe 27. Any young signings made should be secondary to that objective, because in Yoro, Heaven, Dorgu, Mainoo, Amad, Garnacho, Hojlund, Collyer, Amass, Kone, and Chido, we already have a ton of very talented young players. And there are others I haven’t mentioned. What is needed now, is to improve the balance and bring in some prime level talent. Two or three young potential stars over the next 2 summers is plenty, considering we aren’t even giving a proper environment to flourish to the young stars of tomorrow that we already have.

The next two summers, with all these players a little older and wiser, plus hopefully peak age additions at GK, CB, CM, RWB, AM, and CF, then we can say this is a proper Premier League football team. Right now it’s a poorly cobbled together mishmash of ten years of negligent and incompetent executive decision making. The ins and outs of the last 12 months are clearly already working towards fixing this, but the scale of the recalibration is enormous and it will be painful. Yet if we don’t stick with it and have a point of continuity in a young, extremely highly rated coach, then we are likely going to fail again.

It’s head scratching that people can’t see that. I’d rather see us finish 15th this year but finally take the hard steps necessary to reset the squad and culture, than squeak to a 7th place finish and stretch out the same old failings. Amorim deserves at least until the end of next season, until this even becomes a topic.

As for the executive, our primary concern right now is to improve the quality of our recruitment, move on the unwanted players, and do so to a holistic vision of how the club will operate/play over the long term. Berrada is clearly the strategic vision guy, and in Vivell and Wilcox we have the team onboard to execute that strategy. If and when the right figure comes along to support that process, in the form of a DoF, great but after the misfire of Ashworth, it’s more important to get the right person than just fill the role. I would personally prioritise the development of an advanced data analytics capability over appointing a DoF. What hasn’t lacked in previous years is voices, what has lacked is good information. I’m all for going lean, streamlining the process and then carefully rebuilding it with quality not quantity. This club has needed root and branch reform for an age.
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I've seen people post these exact posts for ten years, a million excuses and twists on perspective.

These days I just take the complexity out of it - if the manager in a decent amount of time makes the team looks much worse than the quality of player he has, then he probably isn't one of the best coaches in the world, and it will be less painful if we move on.

Of course we can pretend all these players are coincidentally the worst players in the league, but I think one thing is more likely than the other - was with previous managers and still is now.
 
simonhch said:
This is really myopic. He has a squad shorn of about every prime age player supposed to be at his disposal. Running a thin squad full of inexperienced, lightly experienced, and developing players. What we need are two good summers of sensible recruitment, and a year of quality coaching in between. Players 23 and under are rightly considered primarily developing players and by nature are full of errors and an evolving understanding of the game. This has been proven so many times as to be beyond the point of debate. Of the players we have in their prime, Martinez (injured), Onana (error prone), Shaw (always injured), Mount (always injured), Rashford (out on loan), Sancho (loan), Antony (loan), only Mazraoui has been consistently available. Three other players Ugarte (just turned 24), De Ligt (25) and Zirkzee (23) are about to enter their prime and in their first years in English football. The rest of the squad is either under 23, or 30 and over. Bruno (30), is still carrying pretty much all performance expectations. While our biggest break out performer this year, Amad (22), has missed nearly half the season injured.

Are we seriously criticising this coach? In all my years supporting United, this is one of the mostly poorly constructed squads I’ve seen since the pre-Fergie days. It’s a catastrophe ten years in the making. To put anything on the current coach is to entirely miss the point, and buy into the same short term, knee jerk, lack of strategic thinking that has gotten us into this mess in the first place.

In the summer, we recruited relatively well. Ugarte is a good signing, who will need a little time to shine, but at just 24 he’s about to enter the peak years of his career. Likewise Zirkzee, who after a difficult year has enough about him and is that the right age to push on significantly in the very near future. Yoro, of course, is very young; but he is one of those potentially generational talents for his position and couldn’t be missed out on, even if he can’t be expected to be even close to the finished article at his tender age. Mazraoui and De Ligt are excellent signings at great prices, for players who have their best years ahead of them, rather than behind, and Dorgu is another big talent but he’s only 20. He’s several years away from his prime. Likewise Heaven.

This summer, and probably next, we need to focus on bringing in players who are on the cusp, or just entered their best years. Players who are at youngest 23/24 and at oldest 25/26, maybe 27. Any young signings made should be secondary to that objective, because in Yoro, Heaven, Dorgu, Mainoo, Amad, Garnacho, Hojlund, Collyer, Amass, Kone, and Chido, we already have a ton of very talented young players. And there are others I haven’t mentioned. What is needed now, is to improve the balance and bring in some prime level talent. Two or three young potential stars over the next 2 summers is plenty, considering we aren’t even giving a proper environment to flourish to the young stars of tomorrow that we already have.

The next two summers, with all these players a little older and wiser, plus hopefully peak age additions at GK, CB, CM, RWB, AM, and CF, then we can say this is a proper Premier League football team. Right now it’s a poorly cobbled together mishmash of ten years of negligent and incompetent executive decision making. The ins and outs of the last 12 months are clearly already working towards fixing this, but the scale of the recalibration is enormous and it will be painful. Yet if we don’t stick with it and have a point of continuity in a young, extremely highly rated coach, then we are likely going to fail again.

It’s head scratching that people can’t see that. I’d rather see us finish 15th this year but finally take the hard steps necessary to reset the squad and culture, than squeak to a 7th place finish and stretch out the same old failings. Amorim deserves at least until the end of next season, until this even becomes a topic.

As for the executive, our primary concern right now is to improve the quality of our recruitment, move on the unwanted players, and do so to a holistic vision of how the club will operate/play over the long term. Berrada is clearly the strategic vision guy, and in Vivell and Wilcox we have the team onboard to execute that strategy. If and when the right figure comes along to support that process, in the form of a DoF, great but after the misfire of Ashworth, it’s more important to get the right person than just fill the role. I would personally prioritise the development of an advanced data analytics capability over appointing a DoF. What hasn’t lacked in previous years is voices, what has lacked is good information. I’m all for going lean, streamlining the process and then carefully rebuilding it with quality not quantity. This club has needed root and branch reform for an age.
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So how many of those six positions listed are we going to be addressing this summer do you think?
 
I'll further drive home the point about our squad, and in particular our attack, being so poorly put together with a bit of analysis that frankly left me a bit gob-smacked.

Opta's power rankings, alongside the opinions of most football fans, indicate that the top five leagues in Europe are the top leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. Furthermore, the gap between those five leagues and the next best one is pretty significant, which would indicate that performances for clubs in any of these five leagues might be considered a better indicator of how a player might perform if they were to transfer to another club within those five leagues than performances for clubs that are not in one of these five leagues.

We currently have three players within the squad who have got into double figures for goals in those leagues on more than one occasion throughout their careers. Those three are:
  • Bruno Fernandes, who is brilliant but is also not really a forward and has goal numbers that are massively inflated by penalties
  • Marcus Rashford, who is currently on loan having regressed massively
  • Jadon Sancho, who is currently on loan having regressed even more (And who last achieved more than ten league goals five years ago for Dortmund)
In other words, of the players currently available to Amorim right now, only Bruno Fernandes has achieved double figures for goals in one of those top five leagues on more than one occasion throughout his career. To put it a different way, if we were to sign Cunha and Delap this summer as has been expected, we'd be signing two players who have each scored more Premier League goals this season than any member of the squad that isn't currently on loan has ever managed to score in any single season of football in any of these top five leagues with the exception of Bruno Fernandes.

Now, none of this is to even necessarily slate the players themselves. Garnacho, Hojlund, Amad and Zirkzee have all had limited opportunities to post these numbers as of yet. What I am slating is that, in spending 85 million on Antony, 70 million on Hojlund, 60 million on Mount, and 40 million on Zirkzee in the past three years we splashed out a total of 255 million of the king's finest on four forward players who had scored a grand total of 51 goals in these top five leagues throughout their entire careers prior to joining United. That is, to put it mildly, absolutely fecking insane.
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
@simonhch wrote a fantastic post here in the Ederson thread, and I'm going to shamelessly rip-off the main point they made there because I think it is equally applicable to the question of what is wrong with our forward line.

The crux of it is that a ridiculous share of the burden up front is being placed upon players who aren't in or in some cases even anywhere close to being in what is typically a footballer's prime years (around 24 to 30). To demonstrate this point, the table below shows all of our forwards alongside their current age in years and how many minutes they've played this season (numbers from FBREF). I've decided to include Bruno since he's played at least some time as an attacking midfielder under Amorim but that one's quite contentious - if you take him out of the picture it gets considerably worse than it already is.

NameAge (Years)Minutes Played
Bruno Fernandes302,668
Alejandro Garnacho201,996
Rasmus Hojlund221,654
Amad Diallo221,594
Joshua Zirkzee231,402
Marcus Rashford27978
Mason Mount26348
Antony25141
Chido Obi1749

In other words, 62% of the minutes played by forward players within our squad this season have been played by players aged 23 or under. And to reiterate, this number would jump up to 82% if you were to take out Bruno which you might justifiably do given that the way he plays is probably more akin to a midfield player than a forward.

Garnacho, Hojlund, Amad and Zirkzee should not be shouldering such a heavy burden. They are all players who are very much in the stages of their career where they should be developing, honing their skills alongside more experienced and accomplished forwards who you expect to produce the majority of your attacking output.

For comparison, I had a look at the percentage of the total minutes played by forward players under the age of 23 at each of the clubs within the top five. Here are the results:

Team% Minutes Played by Forwards Under 23
Liverpool2%
Arsenal45%
Newcastle United1%
Manchester City29%
Chelsea58%

In other words, none of these sides are as reliant on players who should still be developing for their attacking output as we are. Further, whilst both Arsenal's and Chelsea's attacks have scored a lot more than ours this season, they are the two lowest scoring teams of the top five this season. And let me remind you that the initial 62% number I calculated (which puts us very near Chelsea's number) is only as low as that because I included Bruno as a forward player.

Now, I'm not suggesting necessarily that we should clear the squad entirely of youth players. What I am saying is that we desperately need some peak age players to come in to shoulder some of the burden for our attacking output next season. It's why I'm so on board with the Cunha signing - I think he's exactly the sort of attacker we need to be looking at signing this summer.
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Interesting. And we’re heavily linked with Delap….
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
I'll further drive home the point about our squad, and in particular our attack, being so poorly put together with a bit of analysis that frankly left me a bit gob-smacked.

Opta's power rankings, alongside the opinions of most football fans, indicate that the top five leagues in Europe are the top leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. Furthermore, the gap between those five leagues and the next best one is pretty significant, which would indicate that performances for clubs in any of these five leagues might be considered a better indicator of how a player might perform if they were to transfer to another club within those five leagues than performances for clubs that are not in one of these five leagues.

We currently have three players within the squad who have got into double figures for goals in those leagues on more than one occasion throughout their careers. Those three are:
  • Bruno Fernandes, who is brilliant but is also not really a forward and has goal numbers that are massively inflated by penalties
  • Marcus Rashford, who is currently on loan having regressed massively
  • Jadon Sancho, who is currently on loan having regressed even more (And who last achieved more than ten league goals five years ago for Dortmund)
In other words, of the players currently available to Amorim right now, only Bruno Fernandes has achieved double figures for goals in one of those top five leagues on more than one occasion throughout his career. To put it a different way, if we were to sign Cunha and Delap this summer as has been expected, we'd be signing two players who have each scored more Premier League goals this season than any member of the squad that isn't currently on loan has ever managed to score in any single season of football in any of these top five leagues with the exception of Bruno Fernandes.

Now, none of this is to even necessarily slate the players themselves. Garnacho, Hojlund, Amad and Zirkzee have all had limited opportunities to post these numbers as of yet. What I am slating is that, in spending 85 million on Antony, 70 million on Hojlund, 60 million on Mount, and 40 million on Zirkzee in the past three years we splashed out a total of 255 million of the king's finest on four forward players who had scored a grand total of 51 goals in these top five leagues throughout their entire careers prior to joining United. That is, to put it mildly, absolutely fecking insane.
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Yeah good post and well articulated. It's a lot simpler for fans to just skip over this reality and assume there's a coaching issue though so that's what some folk will do.

A club of our stature having the squad we do is just insanity, the inexperience isn't even unique to our attack. I cant recall any of the traditional top 6 putting themselves in a similar situation in the PL era but I may have to check.
 
simonhch said:
This is really myopic. He has a squad shorn of about every prime age player supposed to be at his disposal. Running a thin squad full of inexperienced, lightly experienced, and developing players.
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Is this true?
The squad is horribly unbalanced, underperforming, and above all has been constructed with no plan whatsoever. But there’s 26 players, with an average of 33 international caps each. There are guys throughout the team who have played in Europe’s biggest leagues, won the biggest competitions, etc. The only area that's (ostensibly) lacking proven talent is up front, where Antony and Rashford would have been filling those slots had they not been sent out on loan.
The issue is not that there’s too many inexperienced players throughout the team.

A reminder:
Goalkeepers
Onana, 29 years old, 48 international caps
Altay, 27, 10 international caps
Heaton, 39, 3 international caps

Defenders
Lindelhof, 30, 71 international caps
Mazraoui, 27, 33 international caps
De Ligt, 25, 50 international caps
Maguire, 32, 64 international caps
Martinez, 27, 26 international caps
Dorgu, 20, 6 international caps
Yoro, 19, 0 international caps
Dalot, 26, 29 international caps
Shaw, 29, 34 international caps
Heaven, 18, 0 international caps
Evans, 37, 107 international caps
Amass, 18, 0 international caps

Midfielders
Mount, 26, 36 international caps
Fernandes, 30, 78 international caps
Eriksen, 33, 142 international caps
Diallo, 22, 6 international caps
Casemiro, 33, 75 international caps
Ugarte, 24, 29 international caps
Mainoo, 20, 10 international caps
Collyer, 21, 0 international caps

Forwards
Hojlund, 22, 24 international caps
Zirkee, 23, 6 international caps
Garnacho, 20, 8 international caps
 
Smores said:
Yeah good post and well articulated. It's a lot simpler for fans to just skip over this reality and assume there's a coaching issue though so that's what some folk will do.

A club of our stature having the squad we do is just insanity, the inexperience isn't even unique to our attack. I cant recall any of the traditional top 6 putting themselves in a similar situation in the PL era but I may have to check.
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Yeah it's just dumb putting ourselves in this situation
 
croadyman said:
So how many of those six positions listed are we going to be addressing this summer do you think?
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Realistically, 4 to 5 I would say. A lot depends on outgoings.

I think we’ll sign a CM for sure. Probably someone like Ederson. I would say that is partly funded by the departures of Eriksen and Casemiro (possibly). Mostly in freed up wages.

I think we sign a 10 and a 9. Cunha and Delap seem likely for a combined spend of 90m. Funded by the sales/loans and freed up wages of Antony, Rashford and Sancho.

I think we sign a goalkeeper and one of Onana or Bayindir leaves. Maybe Joan Garcia for his 21m release clause.

That’s 4 right there and they would all be starting players. I then think with Lindelof leaving and possibly one of Shaw, Maguire or Martinez (although hard with his injury), we might bring in a ball playing defender.

That would be a lot already. But with the potentially outgoings, if you look at the transfers over a 4-5 year amortisation period, it’s all very sustainable.

I think Amorim is also going to want another wide player to play on the right. Whether that’s achievable this summer or not is hard to say. I think it might be a case of a younger developmental player or one of the hidden gem type signings.

So I’ll stick with 4-5, probably 5. And say this will be a very busy summer.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
I've seen people post these exact posts for ten years, a million excuses and twists on perspective.

These days I just take the complexity out of it - if the manager in a decent amount of time makes the team looks much worse than the quality of player he has, then he probably isn't one of the best coaches in the world, and it will be less painful if we move on.

Of course we can pretend all these players are coincidentally the worst players in the league, but I think one thing is more likely than the other - was with previous managers and still is now.
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Just one bad post on top of another.
 
simonhch said:
Realistically, 4 to 5 I would say. A lot depends on outgoings.

I think we’ll sign a CM for sure. Probably someone like Ederson. I would say that is partly funded by the departures of Eriksen and Casemiro (possibly). Mostly in freed up wages.

I think we sign a 10 and a 9. Cunha and Delap seem likely for a combined spend of 90m. Funded by the sales/loans and freed up wages of Antony, Rashford and Sancho.

I think we sign a goalkeeper and one of Onana or Bayindir leaves. Maybe Joan Garcia for his 21m release clause.

That’s 4 right there and they would all be starting players. I then think with Lindelof leaving and possibly one of Shaw, Maguire or Martinez (although hard with his injury), we might bring in a ball playing defender.

That would be a lot already. But with the potentially outgoings, if you look at the transfers over a 4-5 year amortisation period, it’s all very sustainable.

I think Amorim is also going to want another wide player to play on the right. Whether that’s achievable this summer or not is hard to say. I think it might be a case of a younger developmental player or one of the hidden gem type signings.

So I’ll stick with 4-5, probably 5. And say this will be a very busy summer.
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I would much prefer adding experienced striker to RWB, however understand this system needs balance but then feel that it needs goals more
 
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