Not to slate Ten Hag because I love the guy but Weghorst is a hangover from how we handled Ronaldo, he should have been out the door in the summer giving us time to find a credible replacement instead of bargain basement shopping in January for cheap loan options.
Ronaldo absolutely had to go but thinking Weghorst was anything more than back up, instead of starting every game, is bizarre. I can't see how Rashford up front as central striker with two of Antony, Sancho and Garnacho on either side is not a better option than playing what amounts to a hard working central defender up front.
Yeah sort of agree but I think EtH handled the Ronaldo saga as well as he could, given what he walked into. I think it was the hierarchy who wanted a transfer fee/was unwilling to let Ronaldo leave until it became too toxic etc. EtH also have Ronaldo his fair chances as he said he’d give most of the squad (a clean slate).
Agreed WW is nowhere near the required standard to start but he was always only supposed to be a backup until we could land someone in the summer - and unfortunately Martial can’t stay fit these days. There were clear financial constraints in January and the pool of loan options available wasn’t really much “better”, if at all (Aboubakar fella from Cameroon was linked as well). I think the only thing which was clear was that we had no money to spend.
With your last point, I sort of agree - rashford up top or even playing with a false 9 (Bruno) of sorts, on paper, all seem like a much better option currently but i guess the manager sees it differently as we’d lose both bruno (who’s been shifted wide in effectively and played false 9 before iirc) and Rashfords best attributes and EtH clearly wants a bigger, hard working striker who can bring others into play. But yeah, unfortunate for the manager that this is his only natural CF option at present. Nowhere near good enough, even as a squad player IMO.
