Will this set of players under ETH struggle for goals WITHOUT Ronaldo?

[VP89]

I was watching a lot of youtube reactions and made the grievous mistake of hearing a Talk Sport (feat. Rory from The Kick Off, who's a Chelsea fan) and Goldbridge opinion piece. After having a shower to rub off the guilt to hear their trash, I wanted to see if I wasn't going crazy:

Their school of thought is Ronaldo = goals. Without his goals we'd be close to relegation. His goals alone got us 10 points in the CL group stages, etc.
This logic goes on to insinuate without him we'd be irrelevant. I don't buy this for a second because we dont have Ole or Rangnick under Woodward right now. We have Erik Ten Hag, and strengthened foundations with 3-4 signings on top.

Despite this I've seen various posts on the caf panicking about our goal threat without Ronaldo. That Rashford and Martial are not good enough, that VDB has shown nothing, Bruno is erratic and Sancho hasn't done enough yet.

I actually believe we will be fine for goal threat even if we don't have Ronaldo. It sounds crazy but I look to the 2017 Ajax side and it was so fun to watch, and I see the talent we have, a lot of players have it in them but just need to right system and coaching instilled. Imagine no Ronaldo, but Bruno/Sancho/Rashford/Eriksen + VDB/Martial featuring.

Do you really think we'd struggle for putting the ball in the back of the net? I find the youtube fan channels just going over the top and some posts being dramatic here.

 

[Infra-red]

Other than Fernandes, I wouldn't be confident of any other member of the United squad hitting double figures of goals across the season.

 

[thegregster]

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They certainly think they can do better without Ronaldo.

 

[Ish]

Others will/should stand up and contribute more. The responsibility will/should be shared by the rest. Ronaldo definitely comes with goals but he's also the focal point and the game plan is worked around him.

I'd think we're still extra light up top and will need a CF when he leaves.

 

[Lentwood]

It's a classic example of flawed logic to simply remove the goals Ronaldo scored and then suggest we'd be "x number of points worse-off". Are we planning to play with ten-men then? How do we know that a different player in his position wouldn't have scored 30 goals? Or scored fewer goals but got double the number of assists?

Slight tangent but it's also why I get annoyed when people use statistics to supposedly justify how good a player has been. Statistics will only ever tell half the story, tops, if not less. Without context, they mean nothing.

I have said this so many times in various threads but I have called for Ronaldo to leave since January/February now. I love Ronaldo and he's had a good season personally, but he's not the future and overall I feel he's a net-negative for the team right now

 

[CarbonStoolBites]

No reason we can’t score a lot more goals this season than last season, I’m certain we will with or without Ronaldo.
We scored more goals in 2009-2010 than 2006-2007/2007-2008/2008-2009.
That was a far superior version of Ronaldo we lost.

Yes, that was a different team with SAF at the helm, but I have a great feeling about ETH, and there’s plenty of players in the team that have goals in them.

If we play well as a team, the goals will come.

 

[Infra-red]

Others will/should stand up and contribute more. The responsibility will/should be shared by the rest. Ronaldo definitely comes with goals but he's also the focal point and the game plan is worked around him.

I'd think we're still extra light up top and will need a CF when he leaves.

I would agree on both counts. Others will score more and replace some of his goals (and the team as a whole may in fact be better without Ronaldo), but we will desperately need a reliable forward to make up a chunk of the shortfall.

In truth, United have needed a new striker for three years. When Lukaku was sold, Ighalo was brought in as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker. We never found a new striker, so Cavani was brought in as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker. We never found a new striker so Cavani's time at the club was extended (seemingly without much support from the player) as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker.

It really is time that the club bought a player (ideally in the 22-27 age range) who can actually be our primary striker for more than a season. The desperate scramble for a 30+ year old stopgap every August, needs to come to an end.

 

[Mickeza]

Let me spin it another way - Ronaldo got 18 PL goals last season. Rashford, Elanga, Martial and Sancho got 5 or less.

Would you take a poacher who doesn’t press, doesn’t run channels, is non-existent with his back to goal and rarely runs in behind but guarantees 18 goals OR an all round attacker who is good at linking play, great at pressing and is physically a threat in behind - but only scores 10 goals.

What benefits the team more - the extra 8 goals or the non-poacher? It’s a no-fecking-brainer even without the bullshit behind the scenes and the very real risk he’ll completely undermine ETH.

 

[Ish]

I would agree on both counts. Others will score more and replace some of his goals (and the team as a whole may in fact be better without Ronaldo), but we will desperately need a reliable forward to make up a chunk of the shortfall.

In truth, United have needed a new striker for three years. When Lukaku was sold, Ighalo was brought in as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker. We never found a new striker, so Cavani was brought in as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker. We never found a new striker so Cavani's time at the club was extended (seemingly without much support from the player) as a temporary stopgap until we could find a new striker.

It really is time that the club bought a player (ideally in the 22-27 age range) who can actually be our primary striker for more than a season. The desperate scramble for a 30+ year old stopgap every August, needs to come to an end.

Yeah, i would have liked us to go after Nkunku but he just renewed and his release clause only kicks in next season. Greenwood was/is the big blow for us though. Had someone who could step up as the CF in time, but that's gone to pot.

 

[Dante]

Any team that contains Ronaldo (be it Madrid, Juve or United) is built to make chances for Ronaldo and to sacrifice the output of the players around him.

Losing Ronaldo does mean you'll specificaly lose his goals. But it also means you'll regain all the goals his teammate would have been able to create for themselves.

Bruno is the easiest illustration of this to see. He was playing noticeably deeper than usual last season and getting into the box significantly less. Not to mention the penalties he could have taken or the extra pressure he faced on the penalties he missed.

Bruno went from seasons scoring 33 goals, 27 goals and 28 goals to all of a sudden only getting 10. Loss of form might explain some of it. But not all of it.

 

[Idxomer]

Any team that contains Ronaldo (be it Madrid, Juve or United) is built to make chances for Ronaldo and to sacrifice the output of the players around him.

Losing Ronaldo does mean you'll specificaly lose his goals. But it also means you'll regain all the goals his teammate would have been able to create for themselves.

Bruno is the easiest illustration of this to see. He was playing noticeably deeper than usual last season and getting into the box significantly less. Not to mention the penalties he could have taken or the extra pressure he faced on the penalties he missed.

Bruno went from seasons scoring 33 goals, 27 goals and 28 goals to all of a sudden only getting 10. Loss of form might explain some of it. But not all of it.

Not taking 13 or 14 penalties in a season explains the rest.

 

[R0nald0]

It's absolute BS to suggest we would be irrelevant. It's a concern clearly without Ronaldo's goals but I liken it very much to the RVN situation.

In 2005/6 RVN scored 21 premier league goals. He left at the end of the season
The following season, the top goal scorer only scored 17 goals (Ronaldo)

In 2005/6 we scored 72 goals total
In 2006/7 we scored 83 goals total

Whilst RVN was deadly, we were forced to play to his strengths and the team struggled as a result. The team scored less goals and were less successful when RVN was at the club. With him gone, we were able to play a better brand of football and the goals were better spread around.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Or we could end up like Brighton, amazing team performance overall, but no one would be scoring those goals to take them to higher league position.

 

[Red Shorts]

I think there would be more of a spread of goals amongst the group, but can't see any of the players stepping up to get 20+ goals on their own. At least, I'm basing off their forms last season, for all we know they can become a rejuvenated attacking force again quickly

 

[Real Madras]

Other than Fernandes, I wouldn't be confident of any other member of the United squad hitting double figures of goals across the season.

Yeah based on last season you can’t. But what about the season before that? Our front three was scoring 20+ goals each

 

[telstar96]

For me, the number of goals scored is more contingent on how effective your system is relative to the players you have. Any team can have a prolific goalscorer, whether they're a title contender or a relegation side, it doesn't mean anything if the opportunity cost is that other players are not scoring and the team is dysfunctional. Ronaldo cannot function in a high pressing side, so the opportunity cost was going to be huge with both Rangnick/ETH. And this isn't a knock on Ronaldo's ability, it's just that despite his prolific goalscoring, his playing style is incompatible with what are looking to implement. Ronaldo would be better off in a side that can carry him defensively and we'd be better off without him in my opinion.

 

[Hammondo]

No reason we can’t score a lot more goals this season than last season, I’m certain we will with or without Ronaldo.
We scored more goals in 2009-2010 than 2006-2007/2007-2008/2008-2009.
That was a far superior version of Ronaldo we lost.

Yes, that was a different team with SAF at the helm, but I have a great feeling about ETH, and there’s plenty of players in the team that have goals in them.

If we play well as a team, the goals will come.

Great post.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It's not about Ronaldo scoring goals or not though because no other striker would be allowed to play the role he is playing, they would have to be more involved and more mobile and is that makes us a better team, it's a no brainer.

 

[AndySmith1990]

We're going to be great with Ten Hag leading the team. Forget Ronaldo

 

[Reyoji-Utd]

Life will still be living and going no matter what happens (except the earth is exploded).

Goals will be scored by the players that will be here and with the right systems and style (ETH is brought in to work it out) then we will see more fluidity around our plays and goals will hopefully shared between players.

My opinions still stand that Ronaldo was a wrong signing and is the last straw to ax Ole if anything because our plays are focus too much on him and it hindrance the plays and chemistry of other players. The last years of his Juv and United has shown that his body cannot cope like before anymore (and he still wont accept or admit that).

Its better to part ways now than wait and i hope United be strong enough to do it even if we have no striker coming in for now.

 

[Ash_G]

I feel there's two different points:
1) Does Ronaldo playing the way he does lead to the sum of the "parts" being greater than or less than the individual parts
2) Do we think the other "parts" can step up

I don't doubt that incorporating Ronaldo narrows down the versatility of our play however what I doubt is who is positioned to step up. When I look at Rashford, Bruno, Sancho, Elanga I don't personally feel that they were adapting their games to accommodate Ronaldo. In many ways part of the problem was that it felt that everyone was doing what they wanted to do as opposed to working at a cohesive unit.

In comparison I think when Ronaldo was coming through and there was the tension with RVN it did feel that actually for as potent as RVN was, with Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs there could be a different way we could play and that Ronaldo was a talent who needed space and time and therefore the RVN for Saha swap worked well.

So for me outside of the context of our squad I think you could say that being a good goalscorer doesn't necessarily trump being someone who brings more out of the other players but in the context of our squad I would be worried about who is going to step up should he not be here.

 

[sullydnl]

A better way to frame it is to forget about the 18 league goals Ronaldo brought this season and ask whether we can regain the 34 league goals we lost somewhere between last season and this season, which left the team scoring a net 16 fewer league goals despite Ronaldo's 18.

Obviously Ronaldo accounts for a portion of those missing 36 goals, either due to the downsides of his presence in the team or simply because he's scoring some of them as part of his 18. So some of those will return to other players once he leaves. Then there is the penalty factor, with us having received many more the previous season. It's difficult to predict whether we can get any of those back, so some of those goals might be lost.

Beyond that, as far as I can see it's coming from the loss of Cavani & Greenwood and an apparent deterioration in the general standard of our play. If we replace those goals this season we might be okay.

In other words, we certainly need to sign attackers as our attack is currently weaker than it was before Ronaldo arrived. So yes, this set of players as is would struggle. But if ETH improves the general standard of our play then the attackers we bring in don't need to indivudally rack up high goal tallies as Ronaldo did.

 

[Infra-red]

Yeah based on last season you can’t. But what about the season before that? Our front three was scoring 20+ goals each

Our top four scorers that season (in the league) were Fernandes(18), Rashford(11), Cavani(10) and Greenwood(7).

Cavani and Greenwood will never play for United again and I'm not confident of Rashford scoring 10+ next season, so United are really just left with Fernandes as the only reliable goalscorer at the club, if Ronaldo leaves.

We need a new centre-forward.

 

[bosnian_red]

As a team I don't think we'd score that many more goals with Ronaldo than without him tbh. With Ronaldo, it all just gets siphoned through him, others who are fragile mentally don't play much and become useless as squad players, others change their game to adapt etc. Without him, I think Rashford and Martial both improve to hopefully what they were in 19/20, though it remains to be seen if that's enough or if they can stay fit enough to do that. Bruno back on pens to pump his numbers up. Set pieces improved because we aren't just giving it to Ronaldo to spam shots.

Of course, without Ronaldo, we are relying on hope that Rashford and Martial can get back to form 2 years ago. I think it's possible, but needs a huge change from their side. Depth wise as well we have an issue, because past them... We are on youth players. Sancho is a wide creator anyway and not a scorer, he'll pitch in but you still need more goalscorers in the team. I think Ten Hag can make a Pep type system where a striker less formation works, but it takes time, and we obviously aren't there yet

 

[NotoriousISSY]

This set of players will struggle for goals without a mobile centre forward who's willing to leave everything out on the pitch.

Ronaldo will always score goals, but doesn't make the team better. Martial and Rashford will never be close to winning a golden boot, and all it takes is one minor injury or being dropped for a week to completely reset them back into shit mode.

It's a massive problem, but it's not one Ronaldo fixes when considering the collective.

 

[glazed]

We need a new centre-forward.

There's a lot of pixels and dead trees been wasted the last 12 months to come to this very obvious conclusion.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

we just came 2nd under ole with no ronaldo with 74 pts. we scored 73 goals, second most in the league. we have a better manager now. shouldn't be relegated.

 

[Abraxas]

I think there's a question around goals with or without Ronaldo! The question just changes from one of "does Ronaldo hinder the teams overall goal scoring?" to "where are our form attackers?" We wouldn't be relegated without Ronaldo but I think that's rather besides the point.

We scored nowhere near enough goals last season. That is a pretty cold, hard statistic that we have to accept. So it's not really Ronaldo versus without Ronaldo. It's how are we going to improve our style of play to create more and does that require addressing?

I think it's patently obvious it needs addressing due to the abysmal form and questionable quality of Rashford, Martial and to some extent Sancho and therefore we would need to replace Ronaldo as a bare minimum, and in my eyes we always needed two forwards this summer to be content. I don't think it's good enough to just say to Ten Hag, "there you go, produce miracles with Rashford and Martial." We can all hope for that but it's not good to completely rely on.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Our top four scorers that season (in the league) were Fernandes(18), Rashford(11), Cavani(10) and Greenwood(7).

Cavani and Greenwood will never play for United again and I'm not confident of Rashford scoring 10+ next season, so United are really just left with Fernandes as the only reliable goalscorer at the club, if Ronaldo leaves.

We need a new centre-forward.

added sancho who has a good record for goals / assists, scoring 17 in 32 the year before haaland came. im sure we will add another goal scorer in ronaldo leaves. we will have the players, just need the team to play well now

 

[SadlerMUFC]

In Ronaldo's first run with us, we scored 68 goals in the league in his final season. And it wasn't just CR7 who left that year. Tevez did too. So many people were worried about where the goals would come from with Valencia being our only replacement coming in. Thankfully we changed our style of play and despite losing out on the title to Chelsea by 1 point, scoring goals wasn't our problem. In fact, we scored 86 goals that year (22 more than the year before). Now I am by no means saying that's what we will do this year. The biggest thing back then is that we had SAF. He was able to get the most out of the players we had and Rooney had his biggest scoring output that season. So here's to hoping that ETH can do the same and get the most out of the squad we have even if Ronaldo does indeed leave...

 

[Vapor trail]

The club needed a centre forward irrespective of Ronaldo being at United or not. I think a productive winger like Gnabry and a out and out forward would be ideal. Anthony has all the flair but not certain on his goal contributions from his statistics but he seems like a dynamic player.

I can understand the above post about the players having a weight lifted off.
Under Ole the players were not nurtured to have a winning mentality, because Solskjaer doesn't possess this as a manager. When one individual lifts the standards it is a uphill task because it has to come collectively as a team. There are also too many insignificant players in terms of quality in addition.

I thought Ronaldo would do well to stay and help integrate some of the younger players but this sort of transition might not be realistic if he still intends on being ambitious.

 

[Jeffthered]

'Will this set of players under ETH struggle for goals WITHOUT Ronaldo?'

er, yes.

 

[Remember the geese]

I think we will be absolutely fine without Ronaldo. The biggest impact on this team is by replacing Rangnick with ten Hag. We quite simply won't do any worse than last season. The only irritation is the timing of Ronaldo's potential departure. If it was next year as planned, we would have gone all out on a big splash replacement. Regardless, I have every faith that the loss of Ronaldo isn't as big as it may seem.

 

[VP89]

'Will this set of players under ETH struggle for goals WITHOUT Ronaldo?'

er, yes.

I doubt it. Think we'll find a lot more goalscorers pop up under ETH.

 

[Skills]

I doubt it. Think we'll find a lot more goalscorers pop up under ETH.

Bruno Fernandes would also go back to scoring 20+ goals. Him and Ronaldo can't co-exist in the same team.

 

[VP89]

Bruno Fernandes would also go back to scoring 20+ goals. Him and Ronaldo can't co-exist in the same team.

Right?
Park Ronaldo to one side:

Bruno - a 20 goal player
Rashford- capable of 15-20 goals in multiple seasons
Martial - also capable but lets tail him down to what, 10-15
Sancho - arguably more talented than the two above him, I think he is capable of chipping in double digits if not goals then definitely with big assists

We havent even considered Eriksen or VDB yet.

 

[Chairman Steve]

I remember everyone writing us off when we sold RVN, and relied on a young Ronaldo, a young Rooney and an injury-prone but excellent Saha to get the goals back in Summer 2006.

As many people on here have probably already said, it’ll probably be liberating for those players to not have such a presence around them, as well as ETH who will view it positively seeing that Ronaldo is a speed bump in his plans to create his own squad.

 

[Longshanks]

Did we struggle the season before we re-signed Ronaldo for goals?

Goals 20/21 121
Goals 21/22 70

Hmmm, interesting what was so different about our attack from one season to the next that caused a 51 goal difference?

 

[Jeffthered]

I think we will be absolutely fine without Ronaldo. The biggest impact on this team is by replacing Rangnick with ten Hag. We quite simply won't do any worse than last season. The only irritation is the timing of Ronaldo's potential departure. If it was next year as planned, we would have gone all out on a big splash replacement. Regardless, I have every faith that the loss of Ronaldo isn't as big as it may seem.

I think we will be fine, yes... but I think we will struggle to score goals. We couldn't last season, and there isn't much to make me feel that will change v much. Yes, Sancho, Bruno and Rashford could, could potentially all improve on their respective goal tally last season (and so they should...) but I'm not sure it will be easier. I can't see why it should be. Ronaldo didn't stifle Rashford, or Sancho for example.

 

[marktan]

It's a question on form.

Get two of Sancho, Rashford, Martial and Bruno back into form and scoring goals and youve already solved most of the problem.