RedRocket9908
Full Member
The striker needs time - not sure we could bought anyone better for that price.
the other two were sadly a waste of money.
Marcus Thuram was available on a free
The striker needs time - not sure we could bought anyone better for that price.
the other two were sadly a waste of money.
It's no surprise the season has gone like it has done.We've barely done enough to stand still, let alone improve on last season.
The idea that it wasn’t possible to sign a striker who could manage a single goal or assist as we approach the halfway mark of the season for £70m is pretty hard to get my head around.Then you just do not sign anybody and wait for a year. Or get every cheap player (or loan) someone for a year.
It is ok to wait for a year. Much better than spending 70m pounds in a player that is not good enough.
The same should have been done last year for Antony. Between him and Hojlund we spent 150m pounds, and we need to upgrade them immediately.
Even when there are no good options available*, the club is not obligated to spend the entire money they have (including from the next year) just so they get someone. It is a recipe of disaster doing so. It is a recipe of being Man United.
* Which is not necessarily the case. The money for Hojlund and Mount could have brought Osimhen for example. Onana's money could have brought Kim (and keep De Gea for another season in reduced wages). We would have been much better.
But at least we signed them early and for pre-season right? Because apparently if you don't sign the managers targets in time for pre-season you're screwing them over.
But it could happen, which is the point, with as small a sample as that the variance is huge with just a few minor changes. Bruno has 3 goals with 40 shots, 14 of them on target, he could’ve easily missed a couple as the xG for those were pretty low, or he could’ve had double that amount since a few of them hit the woodwork or were off by inches, that’s how fine margins are and it changes the picture by a lot.
Let’s take another example, Gabriel Jesus. He has 20 shots and 2 goals, but still register 2.71 shots per match ( vs Højlund’s 1.81). He’s actually in a pretty similar boat as well since Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard and Nketiah all registered more shots than him (although not as extreme as our other forwards vs Højlund). That seems to give a pretty clear and logical picture that you can have only so many attempts at goal, no matter how well you play in attack, and individual number will suffer if the collective number is spread out, or vice versa.
Do I think Højlund’s league form has been good enough? No. Do I think he’s even ready to lead our line? No. But statistics and the naked eye both confirm that we have a bunch of highly individualistic forwards whose first instinct is to have a crack at goal, and playing as a target man with such a supporting cast is a very thankless task, and imo he should be given some leeway because of that, instead of being written off, when you probably need the pedigree of Kane, Haaland or Mbappe to be effective in that environment. Other highly prized forward options in the summer like Osimhen, Kolo Miami and Goncalos Ramos are all struggling, in easier leagues/environments, should we write them off as well? Or do you think if we get Watkins or DCL in the summer, they would have double digit in goals by now in our set up?
If you want to look at the league only sure, he does have 5 CL goals however but the usual suspects are already wanting to bury the kid and cherry picking stats to prove why he is a failure. The Glazers have done incredible damage to this club but the more toxic fans and their knee jerk opinions don't half give tham a run for their money.
It’s a fans forum where we talk about players and the club. If we can’t mention that we are nearly half way through the season, and our shiny new CF has less league goals than Dalot, Lindelof and Varane, what are we doing here?
Should we close the player performance thread when a player has a bad game so the “toxic” fans don’t hurt their feelings?
Nobody is slamming Højlund or saying anything out of order or writing him off. But we can’t ignore those 0 league goals.
Hopefully he will come good. He doesn’t need to “prove anyone wrong” because he’s not been written off.
"Did we waste...." is original. This is cheap replica.Is this the new 'did we waste 200m in the summer' thread
Not suggesting closing player performance threads or suggesting they should be protected from opinions and criticism. You personally may not be writing him off but there are already many comments stating that he is a flop, not good enough for the PL and so on.
When a club is in a spiral as we have been for a good few years now, there is a certain type of unpleasant fandom that seems to revel in the misery and cannot wait to pile on the next target. We have seen this repeatedly with our players and managers in recent years and whilst a lot of the negativity comes from the ABU media and rival fans it is seeded by some of the over the top negativity that the minority of fans love to fuel.
For Rasmus, I think we can all see there are some good raw tools there and his CL and International goals show the potential. It is indisputable that he should not have been signed to be the savior of our forward line as a barely experienced 20 year old and he is suffering from the weight of far too much expectation coupled with the abysmal play of the team around him. A well run club would have signed a veteran, a Giroud like figure maybe, who could split time with him and act as a mentor. We are not a well run club and instead dithered over signing a forward, backed ourselves into a corner and then overpaid for a player who is not ready and then threw him to the wolves. I would just hope that supporters can see that he is in dire need of developing and better support from coaches and teammates alike and we resist the urge to dog pile on every bad performance.
Not really in a way, we signed strikers of who you mentioned rather than trying to sign a one for the future. Just that this time we went the other end of the spectrum, putting all the pressure on a young player when it should be a mix of both.Not sure if this was ironic, but isn’t this what everyone has been criticising recently? The Ibra / Cavani / Ronaldo has-been type signings?
Not sure if this was ironic, but isn’t this what everyone has been criticising recently? The Ibra / Cavani / Ronaldo has-been type signings?
I keep seeing comparisons with Arteta, but he actually stopped the Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang short-term signings and focused on building over a number of years.
Because of how bad murtough and ten hag recruitment has been i still think we took a punt on hojlund based on some lazy comparisons with haaland.
Their name should families, both blonde, both from Scandinavian countries, both young fox in the box strikers
Hojlund gets a break from me, he clearly has the frame, the pace and strength to be our no 9 and when given the ball can score and that's the major issue he doesn't get the ball in scoring situations.
It was just a random name. A veteran player should have been signed alongside Hoijlund. Not advocating for that player to be signed for an astronomical fee or given a long contract but clearly he needed a mentor and we needed an option for rotation and lets be frank, Martial is not it.
I'm really perplexed by fans assuming hojlund is one for the future and that all we need to do is wait a few years and then we will have a world class striker on our hands, I just don't see the specialness in him to reach that level, even rashford and martial looked like more promising players than him at an even younger age, same with lukaka and Greenwood, nothing screams out about hojlund that he is going to be on the level of a van persie, Ibrahimovic or nistlerooy.
It's concerning that when people big him up it's more for work ethic qualities like he runs a lot and is scrappy than his qualities with the ball.
Which is exactly why I called out the ‘We have to buy any striker’ narrative last year. Once Spurs were obviously not playing ball over Kane we should have changed tact.The striker needs time - not sure we could bought anyone better for that price.
the other two were sadly a waste of money.
He's a striker. His job is to score goals.I don't think ETH expected Hojlund to score many goals. He is just a foil to help the wide players. Same as Weghorst was. His job is to hold up the ball, occupy the CBs and cause disruption and ideally link with the wider players. But the wider players are the main goalscoring threat. Or the 8's. If we want the striker to score then we would set up that way and get wider players that cab actually cross. When Ronaldo was here we barely crossed to him and he is one of the best headers of the ball in the world
Antony is no goalscoring threat whatsoever.I don't think ETH expected Hojlund to score many goals. He is just a foil to help the wide players. Same as Weghorst was. His job is to hold up the ball, occupy the CBs and cause disruption and ideally link with the wider players. But the wider players are the main goalscoring threat. Or the 8's. If we want the striker to score then we would set up that way and get wider players that cab actually cross. When Ronaldo was here we barely crossed to him and he is one of the best headers of the ball in the world