Where are the goals coming from next season?

NewGlory said:
This is incomplete analysis

Even more important than who scored is: who created the scoring opportunities, i.e. need to look at the list of the top assisters... and you will immediately see the HUGE issue we have:

1. Bruno Fernandes — 21 (club leader by a mile)
2. Patrick Dorgu — 4
3. Diogo Dalot — 3
4. Amad Diallo — 3
5. Bryan Mbeumo — 3
6. Matheus Cunha — 2

Not only we are over-relying on Bruno to create goals, which means as long as opposition blocks him, we are f..ed, but more importantly, it is obvious as a day that we dont create nearly enough goals from the wings, our attacks are narrow.

This is systemic and damning flaw. We need our wingers to create more and we 100% need full backs that provide much more in the attack, something that we also know from eye test but data reconfirms
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I don’t think this is fair since it’s not a bad thing to have creation from multiple sources. Ideally it’s what you want. Only 11 of Bruno’s assists were from open play and he took nearly all corners and free kicks. This directly impacts on opportunities for others to add to their numbers.

23 goals last season didn’t have an assister. That’s a third of the goals scored. That could be a smaller figure adding more to individual totals.

Last season was an absolute anomaly for Bruno. He’s never got close to that before. Typically he registers between 6-8 assists per season. There’s plenty enough talent in Cunha, Amad, Mainoo, Mbuemo, Sesko and now Telemann and Santos to continue creating goals throughout the team.

There seems to be this whole ‘we only have one good player’ brigade that want to paint things that way. I don’t buy it. We’ve got multiple. If Bruno’s numbers fall back to the norm this season I still reckon we score more goals than last season.
 
We’d have scored more if we’d not persisted with that cnut Amorim which meant Bruno played half a season sat in front of the back four and played the most insane goal hating system known in PL history so with a settled back four, Bruno as a 10 and a confident attack I’d be very surprised if everyone doesn’t improve on their numbers.
 
From memory we didnt play many games !
werent we the 3rd highest scorers in the premier league and that was with a few months of Amourin ball. Ive no concerns on scoring goals.
Stopping goal was more the issue.
 
Revan said:
Sesko and Cunha should improve. You cannot have a starting No. 9 who scores 12 goals per season.
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gajender said:
Thats a damning figure but lacks context , Sesko participated in 31 games for Man Utd last season and started 18 of them . His return while not great is still ok considering it was his first season in PL and he isn't on penalty duty either.
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Sesko already had the 2nd best non-penalty minutes per goal in the league, behind Haaland.

I think people forget how few minutes he played last season. He played the equivalent of about 18 full 90 minute games in the league. Amorim had him on the bench to start the season, he then got injured at Spurs for a few games, then Carrick him playing supersub for weeks, he got injured against Liverpool and missed the last couple of games.

Partly his fault for not hitting the ground running and establishing himself as undeniable first choice earlier. But still, his goalscoring record is not a concern as when he plays more minutes this season the numbers will speak for themselves. Other strikers in the league are padding with pens and playing every game.

Sesko missing pre-season games already is frustrating though as I really want to see him start the season sharp and in form, if he can get going early then he should score bucketloads.
 
Our defensive record was worse than our goalscoring last season, so I'm more concerned about that.

Areas that can improve our goalscoring is Sesko playing more minutes, Amad can't possibly be as bad this season as he was last, and hopefully we sign a striker who is actually a threat to replace Zirkzee.
 
I think they will come from players putting the ball in the big white rectangular thing with the net on it.
 
I am hoping we will concede less if we address our turnstile midfield which has been partly done with the departure of Casemiro.
 
gajender said:
Thats a damning figure but lacks context , Sesko participated in 31 games for Man Utd last season and started 18 of them . His return while not great is still ok considering it was his first season in PL and he isn't on penalty duty either.
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His return per 90 is good of course. His amount of minutes was not good, so the point stands I think. We need key players who are available, we don't want every signing we get to be a squad player. Mbeumo for me is a squad player. The only way we as a team step up and be a steady CL club given the competition in the league will be if Sesko steps up his play and his availability and becomes a key player. Same goes for defence. Martinez is a quality player when fit. He misses 50% of every season it feels like so to me he's like a waste of space.
 
It wasn't good last year, but if you split it to First 19 games 1.7 goals/game and the last 17 games 2.1 goals/game. Goals against also improved 1.5 goals/game for the first 19 and 1.2 goals/game for the last 17 games.

Maybe if we do what we did over the last 17 games our goal difference may continue to improve on the first half of last season? We do need to add more but taking last season as a whole without looking at the reason for change is crazy.
 
Dominos said:
Our defensive record was worse than our goalscoring last season, so I'm more concerned about that.

Areas that can improve our goalscoring is Sesko playing more minutes, Amad can't possibly be as bad this season as he was last, and hopefully we sign a striker who is actually a threat to replace Zirkzee.
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Agreed. I think we need to get our goals against down below 1/game. Hopefully our new midfield will help with that.

We do need to stabilise our back 4 though. We shouldn't be playing Yoro and Heaven together. We should be playing Heaven with Maguire/De Ligt, or Yoro with Martinez. It allows the two young talents to improve their game with experience beside them.
 
quadrant said:
Firstly, only 2 teams scored more than us last season. Arsenal scored 2 more goals, City scored 8 more. So lets not make out we're awful.

But to the main point - goals scored by individuals is a function of the overall performance of the team. If the team plays consistently throughout the season, each of those top 10 players will score 1 or 2 goals more each, which is how you get your goalscoring from "good" to "title challenging". So it's not about trying to shoehorn in some 20 goal striker, its about getting the team to play well overall.
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Yep, this is the answer

Not sure why the OP framed the whole thing as if we had some goal shortage last season. We didn’t.

Although tbf we have been very short of goals in prior years. But Sesko, Mbeumo, and Cunha did what they were brought in to do

Tielemans should make up for some of Casemiro’s absence in terms of total G+A, albeit with less G’s and more A’s

Beyond that, agree Sesko should improve and Amad has lots of upside vs last season. If we replace Zirkzee maybe we also get a few more from a forward off the bench

Certainly a path to scoring enough for the title. When it comes to us challenging, I’m personally more worried about our back line
 
Just to add to that point, over the last 4 seasons (Casemiro’s full contract)

- Tielemans G+A per 90 = .27
- Casemiro G+A per 90 = .21

Yes Casemiro outperformed last season but Tielemans has generally outperformed and been the fulcrum of a slightly better overall attacking unit over the 4 years

I think the bet is that he lifts everyone
 
Based on the players we have now, I think we will get multiple players with 10 plus goals. I see Sesko scoring 20 plus this season (all comps). Mbeumo, Bruno, Cunah should be aiming for around 15. Dorgu and amad around 10. As for the midfield, we need more from Kobi, i dont see Tielimans and Santos as regular goalscorers but the should chip in with 2 or 3. I really want to see more goals from our defence, especially Maguire.

With Carrick at the wheel, im hoping he has us playing direct fast flowing football, as he has shared that he wants to play like that. He showed glimpses of this during his time. I really enjoyed the Brighton game at the end of season, if we play like that, we could get goals from everywhere.
 
CasaStreets said:
Just to add to that point, over the last 4 seasons (Casemiro’s full contract)

- Tielemans G+A per 90 = .27
- Casemiro G+A per 90 = .21

Yes Casemiro outperformed last season but Tielemans has generally outperformed and been the fulcrum of a slightly better overall attacking unit over the 4 years

I think the bet is that he lifts everyone
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I think having better progressive passers in midfield (both Tielemans and Santos) will have a very positive effect on all our attackers. Having passers who can find those runners will open things up for everyone.
 
Going to be Mr obvious here but sometimes getting to the next level (challenging) is as simple as adding 15-20 goals and cutting your goals conceded by 10-15.
 
Mainoonited said:
This is a table of all our goal scorers last season.
RankPlayerGoals
1=Benjamin Šeško12
1=Bryan Mbeumo12
3Matheus Cunha10
4=Bruno Fernandes9
4=Casemiro9
6Patrick Dorgu4
7Mason Mount3
8=Harry Maguire2
8=Joshua Zirkzee2
8=Amad Diallo2
11=Luke Shaw1
11=Diogo Dalot1
11=Kobbie Mainoo1
11=Matthijs de Ligt1

1. It's not that many goals.
2. Casemiro is leaving, he also scored some quite important goals.

Where we do we expect the rest of the goals to come from? Diallo may contribute a bit more, I don't see anything from Zirkzee.

After our immediate front 4 - we've got no goals in the team. I think it's something we haven't really addressed.
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Its not that many goals because we didn't play that many games. We were 3rd top scorers in the league behind only City and Arsenal, and only 2 goals behind Arsenal who won the league. We were actually the top scorers from when Carrick took over to the end of the season.

I'd expect Sesko, Cunha and Mbeumo to all be scoring more with CL games added on and possible cup runs. Bruno as well if he's still taking penalties. Diallo should be scoring far more than 2 goals in a season, but then he wont be spending half of this one playing as a wing back. Zirkzee will definitely be scoring more than 2 if we don't immediately go out of every cup. Mainoo I'd also expect more from. Dorgu is a bit of a wild card. Maybe he'll chip in with more.

We will definitely miss Casemiro as a set piece threat and defensively though and we need someone or a combination of the other midfielders to fill that void really. I'm actually more worried how many more we'd concede as there was a definite pattern last season of Casemiro goes off or doesn't play and it becomes easier to score against us.

I don't think its desperate though. We could do with another reliable goal scorer or a stand out 30 goal a season man (don't think Sesko is quite that but he might have the potential to get there), but I don't think its a major problem in comparison to relying on Mason Mount as a CM (who could potentially chip in with goals himself if he's a forward option rather than a make shift CM), or just hoping Luke Shaw can stay fit and not get tired for 55+ games.
 
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Mainoonited said:
This is a table of all our goal scorers last season.
RankPlayerGoals
1=Benjamin Šeško12
1=Bryan Mbeumo12
3Matheus Cunha10
4=Bruno Fernandes9
4=Casemiro9
6Patrick Dorgu4
7Mason Mount3
8=Harry Maguire2
8=Joshua Zirkzee2
8=Amad Diallo2
11=Luke Shaw1
11=Diogo Dalot1
11=Kobbie Mainoo1
11=Matthijs de Ligt1

1. It's not that many goals.
2. Casemiro is leaving, he also scored some quite important goals.

Where we do we expect the rest of the goals to come from? Diallo may contribute a bit more, I don't see anything from Zirkzee.

After our immediate front 4 - we've got no goals in the team. I think it's something we haven't really addressed.
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I expect more from Sesko, Cunha, Amad and Dorgu. About the same for Mbeumo and Bruno. Tielemans and Mainoo hopefully chip in a bit too.
 
Bruno really needs to increase his goal tally. Last season was cute with all the assists but with Tielemans and Cunha now being settled in the team there should be less need for us to be so dependent on his creativity. I’m hoping he tries to take on more goal scoring responsibility because some of his finishing was really poor last season and sometimes he just refused to look at goal.

He only got 5 non-penalty goals and I think he should be getting 10 a season at least.

I think if we are able to control games more then we can get varied scoring across the board.
 
Just about one of these guys kicking on. Low double digits goals in the league is the minimum for a CL chase in the PL from the front 3/4. That alone hasn't happened in while - I can't be bothered to check - but I assume it was maybe Rashford, Martial, Voldemort.

Often the total goal isn't even helpful to look at, like a striker could fill their boots in games against weaker teams when the points are already won, I'd say it's more about cutting out the stupid dropped points - Everton with 10 men, drawing with Leeds and Burnley. If we can control games and score a similar amount of goals, we'll be in the fight. Arsenal only scored 2 more goals than us last season.
 
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