He should have received the ball from Mason. He was completely free. Players are so selfish at times.
7
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 38
- Goals
- 24
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 9
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
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He is doing his best, that’s what we want see from everyone. He defended and cleared many crosses and led that key pass to our winning goal and he needs some unselfish players to release him. But we still awful at creating chances.
We need to avoid judging contributions by only moments around the goal. It wasn't just one isolated play he deserved credit for. That was one of his many forays into deeper positions that springboarded several attacks. He won't get the goal but he'll facilitate it. Was important it paid off so it's not like he played a selfless role and didn't get rewarded.
Also imo why people continue to underrate Rooney till this day while all his strike partners got the glory of his all round play.
EVen xG is a somehwat flawed stat. All I'm saying is I've watched all our games and I really don't see us creating any great chances for him. Apart from maybe the West Ham game away. No other game this season would I say we've served him chances on a platter and he's messed up.
There was only one key pass in the winner. That was Cavani's. The preassist from Martial that released him wasn't a key pass either.
It's the most accurate stat there is to describe goalscoring chances and it flies in the face of what you just said.
I've watched all our matches, and I see plenty of chances. His finishing has been subpar. That's on him. Not anyone else's fault.
I thought he played pretty well today. Much more involved. Worked very hard too. He’s got a lot of flack for his performances this season but doesn’t deserve any tonight.
Did the ball levitate itself onto Cavani's foot?
This has been the story of strikers at united for years. Our wingers are strikers so they go for goal rather than looking to feed the striker and the only creative outlet in the centre is Bruno. This is why for me our team works better with a creative CF (like in form Martial) rather than a more traditional striker. Ronaldo will face the same issues that cavani faced last season and lukaku before him. They will score a decent number of goals due to their quality but will always be limited by the fact greenwood and rashford are more likely to shoot than pass/cross.
I'll admit its speculation on my behalf.
However in general play the Greenwood of this season is clearly well above anything we've seen so far but his finishing has faltered, but we also haven't created any real chances for him consistently.
I honestly believe that the current Greenwood, in a functional team, can do all they can and still score a lot of goals. We have brought a young lad, who has been a scoring revelation in the youth teams, to expect him to somehow be a selfless winger. It makes no sense, especially when, lets be honest, he is the best finisher at the club. WE have misused him.
On Sancho, I mean yes he's been shit but do you honestly believe this is his level and we were wrong? Is one of the best players in the Bundesliga actually a Sunday League player? Again it makes no sense for him to be this bad. Less effective than he was? Yes. But to apparently lose all his ability?
So now we have established the quality of the 2 players I believe that Ronaldo's presence hampers them, especially Mason. In the mean time Ronaldo's presence has simply not been worth as much as a top level Sancho and Greenwood would be.
Regardless of how he moved on getting rid of Ruud allowed us to become more fluid as a team and thus reach the levels we did. Tevez would eventually prove that, even though nowhere near the goalscorer, his type of striker was more ideal for that team than Ruuud.
See in my ideal (and I admit it is ideal) you would end up with Mason as the centre forward, where he has always shone, and we wouldn't have stunted his growth. FFS we are expecting him to play like Foden even though City would never ask Foden to play like Greenwood.
Tell me how you think the ball got to Cavani. Next, tell me where in that play the "key pass" was. I'm waiting.
You seriously need time out from this thread, we won important game and he play his part on winner.
So enjoy, not right game to criticizing him.
Even the chance Martial has near the end, once again like last game, Ronaldo opens that space because he drags the CB along with him and Martial is alone and Bruno puts the pass in. As some people say, when he drops back someone should attack the space (like someone else said here very, very very well, Madrid did that a lot).
Cavani is the only one that fully understands these dynamics just because he's a striker with that instinct. Other players in the team don't always do that but I understand that it's fair that maybe they play a position where that sort of killer instinct isn't crossing their mind all the time because it's also not their main role to just be scoring and scoring all the time.
But I really liked the goal today, Rashford really attacked the open space since Ronaldo and Cavani were on the left, and these things can be worked out and improved upon with time and will to improve.
Martial passed to Cavani.
Did you get his XG stats yet?
Pointing out that Martial and not Ronaldo didn't play the pass that released Cavani isn't criticism
As far as your point goes, take your own advice. Feel free to contribute, or go elsewhere and celebrate.
xG for a single player over half a season is likely to be quite noisy. Talk about 'underperformance' from such a number has very little worth.
In fact, I just went and checked. Ronaldo has 6 non-penalty goals and an NPxG of 8.75. That would be an 'underperformance' of 2.75.
However, I can calculate the difference between NPxG and NPG for the top 10 goalscorers in the league. And if I get the standard deviation of that difference, it is... 2.76. The same number.
You cannot make any kind of narrative around this. It is unsound.
"rest" him until the CL tie so he can bag his usual hattrick vs Atletico
his finishing has been a bit underwhelming but this kind of thing is why these stats aren't as advanced as people describe. Let's look at Ronaldo's contributions that gets overlooked (i) pressured West ham defender to play a rushed diagonal to a man that was heavily marked, (ii) receives the ball and releases it to Cavani but not before drawing 2 West ham defenders giving Martial and Cavani the numbers advantage at the edge of the box (you didn't think it was luck coincidence we just had 2 open players in that position).
But stats give Cavani more credit for playing a low cross square pass. Sorry if all they do is describe the final moments before the goal then it just tells us not to give them the final say.
I saw Bruno* pass to Ronaldo who passed to Martial who passed to Cavani who passed to Rashford who scored. Cavani gets the assist. They're all key passes in that goal happening.
Did that take too long?
*still can't swear that was Bruno
Yeah of course Rashford gets the goal and Cavani gets the assist but the two of them plus Ronaldo and Martial all did well for the goal. It was a nice team goal.
They're not all key passes
Now, why did you ask whether the ball "levitated" to Cavani's foot when Martial played the pass?Yes, what we need to see more of.
I didn't taking about who goal score or who got assist, it was general point after reading so many your posts after game we won.Pointing out that Martial and not Ronaldo didn't play the pass that released Cavani isn't criticism
As far as your point goes, take your own advice. Feel free to contribute, or go elsewhere and celebrate.
It's look like you have some serious hate toward him.
Which ones can be omitted and have the play still succeed in a goal?They're not all key passes
That's why they're all "key".
Everyone did very well on the goal. We just need to do more of this stuff, and players need to have confidence to believe that they have quality to play like this.
You seem too invested in what a poster has to say. Make your own point, if you have one. Otherwise, take your own advice, because this isn't useful and has nothing to do with Ronaldo's performances, which is what this thread is about.
It would be so much nicer if he contributes to the overall build up play all through the game instead of rushing the box and throwing his arms out when teammates don’t gift him gilt edged scoring opportunities.
As soon as he comes deeper, links up play and sets runners through in the second half, our attack clicks into gear:
As soon as he comes deeper, links up play and sets runners through in the second half, our attack clicks into gear:
That isn't the definition of a key pass.
Literally he get a life mate. Seriously I've never seen a poster so hell bent on a crusade.
Two players swarmed on Ronaldo and tried to make sliding challenges just before he passed it to Martial, them committing to Ronaldo opened up space for Cavani/Martial so perhaps just his reputation helped.
That's why analysis of anything requires more than reading numbers on a stat sheet. Watching the play today would show that there wasn't one key pass, but several. It was a great team goal, not one player's "key pass".
Not saying that Cavani's part wasn't critical. I don't think it would have happened if he wasn't there.
Lashing out doesn't constitute a discussion of Ronaldo's performances. If you have anything to contribute regarding his performances, do that. No need to get emotional.
Great post. I'm totally on board with Greenwood being developed in that role. It's his time to shine and we're still dreaming about signing Raiola clients while having our current attacking set up centered around a 37 year old on the way out
I already made my point in first post.
1) He did good work on goal,
2) You need to cool down.
Its you making fight to everyone who is not agreeing to you.
This is my last post in this topic, so carry on with your arguments.
Again, they are not key passes. They're important passes. There's a distinction.
I don't disagree that focusing on statistics might not be the best way to analyze a football match because the impact of some players is ignored. But just wanted to clarify that there was technically only one key pass there.
From Luckhurst and The Athletic's post match reports:
Nope. There were 4 key passes (Bruno to Ronaldo, Ronaldo to Martial, Martial to Cavani, and Cavani to Rashford). Perhaps you mean there is only one "Key Pass" as defined by someone somewhere in their statistical analysis.
But glad you agree that that's not the way to analyze a football match. Wish people would remember that.
Well we are obviously going by the actual definition of a key pass rather than your personal definition.
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