Don't get me wrong,.I'm a fan, generally, but he had checked out, was shite for ages and that's why he wasn't played.
He'd probably have had to play up top this season if Ronaldo wasn't bought.
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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'd probably have had to play up top this season if Ronaldo wasn't bought.
here's someone blaming Ronaldo for our results and league position.We finished 2nd last season, what are you talking aboutwe are clearly worst with Ronaldo, hence our results and position
Let’s agree to disagree mate. I don’t equate last minute goals with dragging us through. If Maguire scores those last minute goals we don’t praise him for “dragging” us through...we say his goals got us through but maybe we wouldn’t have needed his goals if we had of had a centre half that could actually cut our danger! Similarly, I don’t equate Ronaldo’s goals with dragging us anywhere. It’s very reasonable to say we could have beaten Villarreal by a single goal without him or managed a draw with Atalanta without him - they are shite! And the fact that we are talking about his goals dragging us through a piss poor CL group says it all really...he has not improved us in the slightest. So why we would credit him with “dragging us single handedly” anywhere seems completely bizarre to me.
but I do get your points about people blaming him for all our woes...don’t agree with that at all.
Yeah there's no question Martial has been as good as gone for a while, him being shipped out was the logical thing to do, I also think the continued picking of Rashford and the likes of Fred probably played a part in demoralising players like Martial and DVB - who were being sidelined for not contributing - while others consistently played just as bad but were guaranteed starters week in, week out.
You can add Maguire to that list now.
Total nonsense. First of all, Juventus squad have ageing problems when Ronaldo joined, and no teams can keep up that long (10 years) without any rebuild, with so many key players need to be replaced (Barca or Man Utd). And most apparently, did Juventus improve this season after Ronaldo gone? Absolutely not. Which means, their recent squad had many issues, with or without Ronaldo.
And then, using your same logic, did Neymar/Mbappe made PSG a worse team too? Since they loss the league last season.
That myth was put to bed last summer. A golden opportunity to prove he’s the main man and he was absolutely shite.
Listen. Do you think really think Juve wouldn't be in a better spot now if they didn't be totally ruin their wage structure and spend 250M over 3 years on this 33-36 year old and invested more wisely? Of course they got worse with an ageing team with all their money spent on another oldie.
I've posted enough posts in this thread where I have explained in detail how he's made us worse as a team, despite scoring some nice and important goals, so I'm not going there now.
Neymar and Mbappe can both do more than poach goals. Good players doesn't make teams worse. Good players that demands too much focus and works too little for the team does.
PS!
Look at Porto's freekick goal against them last year again and tell me he didn't singlehandedly knock Juve out of the tournament....
Well truth is, we have spend over 850m over past few years, but we are not getting any better are we? 250m is really nothing in comparison, and you are just making assumptions on your own here. For example, Maguire cost us total around 120m over 3 years and is shite, Sancho would cost around the same and only score 4 goals 0 assist for us so far, that's total 250m investment already for these 2 offering us nothing. Pogba cost us over 170m too, well and he didn't do much here. You can't just assume every penny spend would be well spend. At least Ronaldo score 101 goals and won 5 trophies for them, winning best player and top scorer awards too, and broke some records over there. (most goals in a season for Juventus, fastest players to score 100 goals etc). Same could not be said about Maguire, Sancho, Pogba (together would cost 420m) etc
Everyone knows Juventus has an ageing squad, and they have made many other bad recruitments too, this has nothing to do with Ronaldo at all. Point is, rebuilds takes time. Also, Ronaldo does more than just poaching for Juventus, I assume you rarely seen him play over there.
Mbappe and Neymar alone cost PSG over 700m, they lost the farmer league last season, and failed to win any single CL trophy too during the whole period. And some even suggest they are in abit disjointed shape now. Try use your own same logic to explain that.
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Toni Kroos on his podcast:
"I'm not a fan of reducing everything to one player, but with Cristiano there was a feeling that he would do everything if the team played cohesively. He dragged us by willpower and level. He decided the outcome of the matches."
"I'm not a fan of reducing everything to one player, but with Cristiano there was a feeling that he would do everything if the team played cohesively. He dragged us by willpower and level. He decided the outcome of the matches."
Pfff! Everything is not so black and white. There is obviously not Ronaldo's fault alone, but Juve buying him did of course cause a huge speed bump in their re-build. Since they baught him in 2018 they have had to sell players to buy players, and has between summer 2018 and summer 2021 had a net spend of 90M (transfers alone) not counting with Ronaldo (who cost them 250M net over 3 years). They could have been a lot more aggressive in the market without Ronaldo.
Selling your 30+ a season goalscorer without replacing him will obviously leave a big hole in your squad. His replacement was braught in 2 weeks ago.
They changed their football philosophy to feed him with goals, and it made them perform worse and it is easy to read from their results and stats.
From 2013-2018 Juve had a goal difference between +48 and +60 goals, with their best season being the last season before Ronaldo joined. They neved conceded more than 27 goals in a season in the same period and averaged at 93 points, with them getting 95 points the last season before Ronaldo joined. They had on average 5 players every season to score 5 or more goals in a season in their squad, and on average 57 goals (52-64) every season were scored from other players than their topscorer.
From 2018-2021 Juve had a goal difference between +39 and +44 goals. They never conceded under 30 goals in a season and averaged 83 points. They had on average 3,66 players every season to score 5 or more goals in a season in their squad, and on average 47 goals (46-49) every season were scored from other players than their topscorer.
They played 2 out of the 4 last CL finals before he arrived and they never got past the first KO stage with him.
Like I've said a few times, his goals didn't make them better. 72 non penalty goals in 135 matches (0,56 goals/90) for them isn't as impressive as you make it out to be, and taking 35 penalties in 3 seasons helps your stats padding a lot.
Everything just worked like a charm within Madrid. The team cohesion, mentality, everything there hit a sweet spot for 3-5 years, every player seemed like a right fit for each other, and I'm not surprised with what Kroos says there. But there's a difference between what Kroos says and what Bonucci said. In Juve everyone just expected Ronaldo to make it happen, in Madrid players knew if they did their job well, there was no better player up top to make sure their hard work payed off. Big difference there.
As for one of the posters above, reducing Juve's exit to Porto being down to what he did in that freekick is either:
1. Senseless
2. Not senseless and from there I can just counter with saying who showed up against Atletico in his 1st year in Juve? Who showed up in the next leg against Ajax? Who showed up next year against Lyon? Ronaldo did. Who was failing who in those 2 years? In any way, I'd be just as senseless if I just shouted here "Ronaldo carried the whole team alone in those 2 years", casually forgetting the role every player had in getting the ball to Ronaldo before he scored.
PS: re-reading Kroos' words, supper happy about it, that's a big big compliment to Ronnie from someone who isn't exactly just an ordinary player
Whilst a fair bit of the criticism is deserved, we'd have been screwed without the Ronaldo signing.
It's not like we were planning on bringing in a top striker so we'd have been left with Martial and a part time Cavani.
It's not like we were planning on bringing in a top striker so we'd have been left with Martial and a part time Cavani.
Thats a bit of a strange argument given that last season we were far better than we are this season and Ronaldo is borderline the only real change. Sancho barely got a look in at the start and Varane has been good when hes played. The main and massive change has been Ronaldo.
Feels a bit like the argument that when a striker scores a goal, if you removed them from the team then another player wouldn't have scored that goal that won you the game. Another player might have scored or set up 3 goals at different points in the match and you wouldn't have needed that last minute goal. All complete what-ifs.
After his goal the other night one of the commentators said "Thats why you have to play him, one chance, one goal". Completely ignoring the fact he had missed 5+ chances you would expect him to score over the past few months. Players are not the sum of their stats. They impact on the rest of the team and removing them doesn't mean removing their contributions.
I think his point is Cavani is available roughly 50% of the time, Martial can’t find the back of the net anymore and Greenwood is a potential criminal. If we didn’t have Ronaldo we would probably be playing Rashford up top more often than not.
I have to disagree completely. We were looking at a more fluid frontline of Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood and a fit Martial with Cavani as a plan B...possibly with Elanga. It would have been a lot less rigid tactically...not just look for Ronaldo. Most importantly, I think we would be closer to a way of playing that actually suited the players we had.
Greenwood was about playing closer to goal, Sancho was bought for the Right hand side leaving Rashford to play from his favoured left side. Martial covering as a striker, swapping with Rashford and Greenwood at 9. It looked fuking exciting on paper. Coming into this season...without knowing what I know now...Martial might have stayed fit and gotten more game time...Greenwood had a long rest and looked like he would kick on...and everyone thought Rashfords poor form would be rectified by surgery. I was hopeful. I would absolutely not sign Ronaldo if given the chance.
I still think we need a miracle window this summer and am preparing myself for disappointment as always
Aaah yes without Ronaldo I’m sure Greenwood would be flying, whatever happened to him….?
Many forgot our biggest signing this summer was in fact Sancho, who cost us 75m, and with a return of 4 goals 0 assists in 27 games, which is far far below our minimum expectation by the way.
Ronaldo maybe the signing which caught most of the attention, but he is not the only real change. Our problems lies much deeper/wider than that. For example, don't you think its really naive to blame the shite form of Maguire and other players all on Ronaldo? Rashford has been shite since a year ago, long before Ronaldo join us. Shaw has been poor this season too, AWB has been a wank on RB position, and of course we have the worst midfield pairs in the league, McFred. Maybe you could blame some of Greenwood poor form on Ronaldo this season? But Greenwood has been shite for long period last season too, he was never consistent goalscorer, and his season/career is probably over now because of himself. You just can't blame everything on Ronaldo.
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Don’t be facetious. You know what I mean. No one knew that Greenwood stuff was going on. So on paper, I would not have signed Ronaldo as I thought it would take game time from Greenwood and move him further away from goal. I genuinely thought he could be the main man this season and he started well enough. I also thought Rashford would be back from injury and Sancho would be the player we are starting to see now...does that front 3 not excite you? So why would we buy a waning 36 year old poacher who has to play every game?
it didn’t make sense to me then...I feel somewhat vindicated now.
Not being facetious, the post you quoted said we would have been screwed without Ronaldo (and also said he deserved criticism) and they’re right.
It is irrelevant who knew what. He’s talking about right now with the benefit of hindsight and without him we would more than likely be playing Rashford up front as Cavani can’t stay fit,, Greenwood is Greenwood, Martial can’t score to save his life. I’m not talking hypotheticals like you’re.
BTW I completely agree back in august Sancho Greenwood and Rashford trio really excited me too! But 1/3 of that won’t work out now so Ronaldo was kinda needed (probably by luck and not design).
As you've already said, not everything is black and white,.
Chelsea won the PL in 2015, but with same squad same manager, they dropped near to relegation zone at one point the season after before Mourinho get the sacked. How to explain that?
Liverpool was unstoppable in 2020 with 99 pts in the league, but drop to 69 points the season after, with basically same squad same manager too. 30 points drop there for no good reason, wow.
And then Leicester won the PL in 2016, but the season after they only finish 12th place. 12 place drop in just one season!
See the pattern?
Of course there are many reasons to that. Past success does not guarantee the future success, I think you are old enough to realise that. There are far too many variables in football, then to blame it all on one single player as cause of everything. Messi just won the Ballon Dor and was one of all time elite goalscorer who had scored as many goals as Pele, but couldn't even score more than 2 goals in farmers league this season. Kane was PL top scorer/top assist last season, but this season he only managed a poor 5 goals in 21 games. Martial has an impressive 23 goals in 2020, but only managed poor 7 goals in 2021. Stranger things had happened.
Only problem here is, you seems to assume Ronaldo being the only change here, while everything else must held absolutely constant, and this just isn't close to any reality at all.
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I hope we are able to rest him this week for Athletico. Whatever he has left in him we'll see none of it if we overlay him
How do you feel vindicated now? It anything we're lucky we've signed otherwise we'd have nobody to play up front for half the games this season.
So true, he is one of the GOATs. He did carry us and Madrid to all those champion leagues.
Shame that we were too cheap to bring him back when he still had something to give. We have just a shadow of that player
Just be happy what he did for Utd. It was the most successful period in the clubs history 2006-2009.So true, he is one of the GOATs. He did carry us and Madrid to all those champion leagues.
Shame that we were too cheap to bring him back when he still had something to give. We have just a shadow of that player
I see that Ronaldo and this Ronaldo as two different players altogether. In 20 years time when people ask about Ronaldo, no one will even mention this Ronaldo at Utd.
Yeah that’s the same way I view him, I’m so happy he’s come home though. I have no disappointment with him as I didn’t have any crazy expectations. My only gripe is with the board/manager as they prioritised him over signing a midfielder and he is overused playing every minute.
At 9 goals already and we have another 13 matches to go. We will see a more consistent team selection and tactics ,until end of the season. I expect him to score 20 goals in PL by end of season.
At 37, that's a great season.
At 37, that's a great season.
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So true, he is one of the GOATs. He did carry us and Madrid to all those champion leagues.
Shame that we were too cheap to bring him back when he still had something to give. We have just a shadow of that player
He was almost inhuman at RM, and top top class at United for the last few seasons in his first stint.
The fact that he isn't what he once was does't take away from his legacy at United though, he was briliant back then, a mediocre season or two now doesn¨t change that imo.
For him, yes.
I don't care about him, though. I care about Manchester United.
A collective can make detrimental sacrifices to make an individual score 20 goals in 38 games.
As I've said before, if an individual scores fifty - there are no questions asked: he's obviously a monster who is worth whatever sacrifices you have to make.
If you have a twenty goal man - this could be anything from a golden asset to a player who is posting those numbers because he's the default focal point of every attack in a team that ultimately aren't good enough.
United aren't a vehicle for Ronaldo to post decent numbers as a 37 year old player. We shouldn't give a feck about that.
Great for him but the team has got worse. He has the effect of reducing the number of goals others in the team score and his all round play is poor. We were right to buy striker in the summer but we shouldn't have bought him
We shouldn't. But right now, he is by far our best striker and has scored more goals than the others combined (Rashford, Cavani, Martial, and he who shall not be named). Dunno if that looks bad on them or what, but we would have been fecked without him and would have been outside of UCL already.
If we can upgrade him, so be it, though. No reason to remain nostalgic for a guy whom as the Ballon D'Or holder left us for another team.
This.
Agenda posters gonna agenda post. Same faces complaining in this thread week after week. Same silly opinions being espoused regardless of his performance.
"But we finished second last year"....Christ. give over.
You expect him to score 11 goals in the next 13 games, after scoring only 9 in 21? Based on what exactly? Maybe attribute the great season to him after he scores the 11 goals that you're expecting, not before it.
9 in 21 isn't as such a bad return. Expecting to score a goal a game from now on is perhaps a bit too much, I agree.
Yeah, it should mean he is on course to score 16 for the season, as his main job for the team, playing the most minutes of any forward. It’s alright, although for the money and hype, no more than that.
Simply admiring the way Kane drops deep to orchestrate forward transitions. It's a thing of beauty while our strikers just camp on the last defender for 90 minutes like a pass is always going to be on. The one game Ronaldo dropped into pockets he was brilliant then went back. If he's going to continue with this style then he has to deliver goals consistently. I don't think most managers nowadays even like poacher types in lone striker systems. That and workrate might be why Ralf was hesitant to drop the 4222 when he first joined.
To this day I still wonder if in that game it was Ronaldo that decided to spend all game in between lines or if Ralf was actually the one strategizing it. But I also liked what I saw from him that game.
People gave Kane a lot of shit at the euros, but I thought he played smart as a false 9 when he was playing with a uncreative midfield and greedy wingers.
Bloody hell, Cavani and Ronaldo are "very limited" now are they
Would hate to hear what you think about most other premier league team's strikers.
Bloody hell, Cavani and Ronaldo are "very limited" now are they
Would hate to hear what you think about most other premier league team's strikers.
Ronaldo is definitely limited and an actual hindrance in most games when he's not doing anything productive. Cavani is just on holiday here these days it seems, but he does put work in when he plays
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