Why don't our players score hat-tricks anymore?

Samid

He's no Bilal Ilyas Jhandir
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
49,487
Location
Oslo, Norway
178 league games and counting since the last league hat-trick!

Kane on his own has managed 8(!) in 138 games.
 

Canagel

Full Member
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
13,888
We don't score enough goals. That's why. Look at our goal tallies in these last 5 years compared to SAF seasons. You could look at many things but the reality is we have employed 3 defensive minded coaches since the retirement of SAF. The team would rather protect a 1-0 lead rather than go for the jugular and add a 2nd, 3rd, 4th goal. It's not easy in these circumstances to score hatricks so this has to be taken into consideration. We've only scored more than 4 goals twice in the last 5 years. A 5-0 win at Leverkusen in 2013 and 5-1 vs Midtjylland in 2016. Hatricks arrive when the team is geared towards scoring as many goals as possible. This hasn't been the case for 5 years now so no surprises really.
 
Last edited:

Theonas

Full Member
Scout
Joined
Aug 2, 2013
Messages
4,771
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
We did not have an outstanding that can rise above the quality of his team. We also had managers who did not help. Moyes is a non starter. LvG's team building was stuck in midfield and never developed to the final third. Mourinho tends to treat every game as a test to get the job done meaning we very rarely keep playing our football once we take the lead which has ironically been a huge improvement this year.
 

Peebie

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
83
Location
Sitting behind Jose trying to work out his notes
We are not an attacking team anymore, we are a counter attacking team with pacey strikers. There are no real wingers good at crossing and beating a player and there is no real playmaker in the middle of the park; Pogba maybe but I believe he is better suited further forward.

3-5-2 is the way forwards or even revert to 4-4-2 or better still have the required players to play both systems and more. United under Fergie played a lot of 4-4-2.

Currently I don't believe we have the right players to play lots of formations and tactics, we are one dimensional and sadly predictable.
We have too many players with similar skill sets and positions which limits the managers choice somewhat on the field. Players are played out of position too often.

Buy the right tool for the job in hand, currently we have more hammers than nails.
 

Unitedssss

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Messages
81
Does it really matter if we score five goals a game like Manchester City are doing currently, at the end of the day we still both get the three points. Also, it will ruin our structure and make us vulnerable to counter-attacks and just in defence in general.

Games will end up being 3-3, 2-1 and 4-4, entertaining for the crowd but no end result.
 

The Brown Bull

It's Coming Home.
Joined
Jan 24, 2014
Messages
4,301
Location
Dublin.
For a player to score 3 the team must score at least 3.We just don’t attack enough or well enough.
 

zing

Zingle balls
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
13,808
Does it really matter if we score five goals a game like Manchester City are doing currently, at the end of the day we still both get the three points. Also, it will ruin our structure and make us vulnerable to counter-attacks and just in defence in general.

Games will end up being 3-3, 2-1 and 4-4, entertaining for the crowd but no end result.
Manchester City have won the league, Liverpool one leg in the CL final, and in the recent past some of the best attacking teams we've seen in the last 2 decades have been very successful - Real Madrid, Barcelona.

Somehow United fans have convinced themselves that winning and nice football are mutually exclusive. They're not.
 

AndyJ1985

New Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2016
Messages
8,954
Because we don't create anywhere near enough chances for hat tricks to be made, and we take our foot off the gas when we score a goal. Basically we're not ruthless nor efficient enough to score a shit load of goals, so the chance of one player scoring a shit load of goals is very low.
 

whatwha

Sniffs Erricksson’s diarrhea
Joined
Oct 18, 2007
Messages
7,612
Location
Norway
Does it really matter if we score five goals a game like Manchester City are doing currently, at the end of the day we still both get the three points. Also, it will ruin our structure and make us vulnerable to counter-attacks and just in defence in general.

Games will end up being 3-3, 2-1 and 4-4, entertaining for the crowd but no end result.
Of course it matters. If we're better at attacking we will more often get three points. Creating more chances does not necessarily mean conceding more goals, either. And it would be a lot more entertaining if we scored more goals. Football is supposed to be entertainment, after all.
 

James Peril

New Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
3,576
It’s strange that we don’t have any, since it often comes from nowhere in players like Pogba, Martial and so forth - not necessarily the striker. Ramsey scored one recently, just shows you have to be on fire in one game. Lukaku never scores two, never mind three of them. He isn’t hungry enough.
 

Cassidy

No longer at risk of being mistaken for a Scouser
Joined
Oct 2, 2013
Messages
31,407
It’s strange that we don’t have any, since it often comes from nowhere in players like Pogba, Martial and so forth - not necessarily the striker. Ramsey scored one recently, just shows you have to be on fire in one game. Lukaku never scores two, never mind three of them. He isn’t hungry enough.
Of course he is hungry. The team don’t create alot of chances.
 

Tyrion

Full Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
Messages
5,197
Location
Ireland
None of our strikers or wingers have been prolific goal scorers in that time. Rooney, Lukaku and Zlatan never were that effective for us in that period and most of our wingers have been average. Plus our managers haven't encouraged an attacking game plan either.
 

RedB4ndiT

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Dec 26, 2017
Messages
225
Because in Mou's system, you clamp down defensively once you go up 1-0.
 

matherto

ask me about our 50% off sale!
Joined
Nov 3, 2009
Messages
17,543
Location
St. Helens
Because we don’t score many goals full stop. We don’t batter teams anymore so it’s harder for hat tricks to happen.
 

Chipper

Adulterer.
Joined
Oct 25, 2017
Messages
5,613
Does it really matter if we score five goals a game like Manchester City are doing currently, at the end of the day we still both get the three points. Also, it will ruin our structure and make us vulnerable to counter-attacks and just in defence in general.

Games will end up being 3-3, 2-1 and 4-4, entertaining for the crowd but no end result.
Of course teams do need to find the right balance. A good team with a potent attack and a weaker defence can lead to the kind of scores you were talking about. Think Liverpool the season Gerrard slipped up. I'm looking at their results now - three 2-2 draws and two 3-3 during the season, scored 101 and let in 50.

The same applies the other way too. A top notch defensive record while not quite scoring enough can leave a teams vulnerable to 0-0, 1-1 and 0-1 scorellines. Matches like the Southampton 0-0 and the 1-0 defeats against Newcastle and WBA that we had this season.

You want the best of the both worlds ideally, and City have produced that this season. They have a better but very similar defensive record compared to us but have outscored us by a long way. That's the difference really.

Now I think you do need to score a certain amount of goals to give yourself a good chance of winning the league and we've become better in that regard compared to past champions this season. No champion has scored less than 68 in the past 20 years and it looks like we probably will get there for the first time since Fergie left. The median average of the champions is 79 and the mean 79.75 (call it 80). I don't think we'll score that many so there's still room for improvement there for sure.

Now this season scoring that 79 or 80 likely wouldn't have been enough either because of City going goal crazy and they may well set a new record for a 38 game season. It remains to be seen whether this an anomaly or not. The last 2 times a team won the league scoring 100+ (assuming City do that this time) the champions scored nowhere near that the following year. On the other hand, this could be the level for the next few years if we want to beat them. Whether it's 80 or 100 we need to aim for we could do with some improvement when it comes to finding the back of the net.

I am encouraged that we've moved the right way in that regard this season as 64, 62, 49 and 54 were never going to cut it. 65 with 4 to play is a bit more like it but we really should be shooting for 80. If City are going to keep doing what they're doing for the forseeable then we may need more than that while still keeping it tight at the back.
 
Last edited:

MJJ

New Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2009
Messages
28,954
Location
sunderland(1)-Derby(1)
Manchester City have won the league, Liverpool one leg in the CL final, and in the recent past some of the best attacking teams we've seen in the last 2 decades have been very successful - Real Madrid, Barcelona.

Somehow United fans have convinced themselves that winning and nice football are mutually exclusive. They're not.

No No No, if we attack we will become like Arsenal. Its not possible to score more than a goal without conceding one.
 

thejtrain

Full Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2013
Messages
1,894
Location
Cary, NC
Lukaku is due one... against a bunch of nobodies. Seriously, though, it's very difficult these days to score a hat-trick in the league. Even braces are somewhat hard to come by these days.
 

FujiVice

Full Member
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
7,279
Zlatan scored a hat-trick in the Europa league last year and the reaction was like "well, it was a pretty shite one."

It would be great if we scored one every now and again, though.
 

Toad

Full Member
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
3,664
Location
England
-Buy Kane, Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and Aguero.
-Bring Henry and Shearer out of retirement.
-Then bring back prime Rooney.
-Sign De Bruyne to assist everyone.
-Bring Vidic out of retirement to block every shot.
-Keep De Gea in goal to save every shot that deflects off Vidic.

Simple.

Only problem being that Kane will claim every hat trick.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
53,111
Never mind a hatrick, it has to be pretty rare to have a main striker, who has only scored more than one for us, just the once - the opening game!
 

Smores

Full Member
Joined
May 18, 2011
Messages
25,525
Because in Mou's system, you clamp down defensively once you go up 1-0.
You say that but we're not his old Chelsea who were 1-0 experts. We've scored 2 or more in 23 league games so far, for comparison the very attacking Liverpool have on 25 occasions.
 

ChaddyP

Full Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2011
Messages
13,852
Location
Jamaica
It’s strange that we don’t have any, since it often comes from nowhere in players like Pogba, Martial and so forth - not necessarily the striker. Ramsey scored one recently, just shows you have to be on fire in one game. Lukaku never scores two, never mind three of them. He isn’t hungry enough.
Are you taking the piss?
 

Snow

Somewhere down the lane, a licky boom boom down
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
33,369
Location
Lousy Smarch weather
Hat-tricks are really hard to score.

We've been really poor in attack.

That's about it.
 

Rasfene

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jul 15, 2017
Messages
565
Lukaku have scored hatrick of hatricks in the Pl and he has scored against every Pl clubs he played for.
 

meamth

New Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2017
Messages
5,946
Location
Malaysia
10/11 | 4 | 3xBerbatov, Rooney

Berbatov was always a flat track bully. With him we never had trouble scoring with lesser teams that season.
 

Varun

Moderator
Staff
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Messages
46,780
Location
Mumbai
We rarely concede enough to need 4 odd goals to win and we rarely go for the jugular if we've scored 2 and have the game in the bag.