The annoying thing is we have the players to do this against almost all teams. Just need more patience in build up when nothing is on (i.e. don’t just go long) and work the ball into positions where deliveries are actually dangerous. Greenwood left as he’s both footed and Sancho right seems such a no brainer to me to immediately give some balance and with weaker teams just start Matic alone as DM. I don’t mind that we’ll be countered a bit more, we should be able to deal with a few breakaway attacks, it’s not like McFred stop that anyway. Keep the ball more, play to our players’ strengths and we have an epic team.
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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Ronaldo is such a hard worker, over the course of a season, we'll benefit from his constant workrate. What do I mean by this? Every second it seems he's making little 4 yard runs testing to see if a ball can be played into him. Always looking to be dangerous. Always looking to stay on side but making dangerous runs. Exactly what a striker should be doing. Putting constant pressure on the defense somehow so they've gotta chose how to deal with him and then players like Cavani, Jessie and Rashford can learn to run off him as he pulls defenses out of shape. It's imperative that we welcome and feed his constant movement with additional complimentary movement of those players around him as well. He is crucial for us when playing teams that pack 11 in the box as he'll still help create space as opposed to passing around the perimeter. Notice when he drops to get a touch or 2 how he accelerates the pace of play. He takes quick pacy dribbles, plays the ball off an makes a hard diagonal run almost to show.... THIS is how it's done against a park the bus strategy. I love having a star that is also the hardest working player on the pitch. Cavani seems like he's in this mold too as he's always on the shoulder of the last defender ready to make a run.
IMO in top games is where I think Ronaldo will be found out. You can't have a passenger in those kinds of games. How many goal-scoring opportunities will we get at Etihad? Not many and those we will get are probably on the counter, is Cristiano ideal there? Not sure. It will be interesting to see because Ole needs to find a solution to get the best out of Ronaldo, otherwise, all this will be pointless.
Ronaldo is a passenger, Lingard is saviour, Fred is DM and Ole is football manager. What a time to live.
Feel bad for ronaldo that his last 3 managers have been ole, pirlo and sarri
Didnt he get let go by Zidane and Allegri aswell?
That was more down to the clubs than managers, Perez tried to play hardball over his contract extension and Juventus couldn't afford to keep him
This is exactly why we need Ronaldo. We don't nearly get enough goalscoring chances and Ronaldo is if nothing else, absolutely clinical. I'd understand if we were City and we create buckets of chances but there is nobody to score them, but we're not. Almost every match anything created by this team is from pure individual brilliance alone. No actual team play.
There is an interesting quote from Khabib in the BBC today
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/mixed-martial-arts/58782342
"I was talking to Ronaldo a couple of weeks before he re-signed and he said it was a secret; now it is not. I was in Manchester on Friday night with Paul Pogba and Ronaldo before the match and then in the stadium for the game."
Seems to indicate that it was only ever United he was talking to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/mixed-martial-arts/58782342
"I was talking to Ronaldo a couple of weeks before he re-signed and he said it was a secret; now it is not. I was in Manchester on Friday night with Paul Pogba and Ronaldo before the match and then in the stadium for the game."
Seems to indicate that it was only ever United he was talking to.
That's quite an old quote to be fair and came out just after he signed, surprised it didn't get that much traction to be honest.
Yeah, I must admit I hadn't seen it referenced anywhere, the narrative still seems to be that United swooped him from City late, which seems like it is innacurate.
And by some margin. Damning. I don't really think its fair enough given we are paying top dollar and not retirement salaries.
Yes, he is scoring, but is it enough to overcome the lack of work rate. Not sure I am keen for some extra goals at the expense of the overall balance of the team.
Add greenwood low in the list, Bruno who cant make simple passes, a poor double pivot and its just too much that is not right.
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This was always going to happen though. Certainly can't come as a surprise. He was never going to do it, and he IS never going to do it. This is why some people had major reservations about bringing him here, and why some of the less than complimentary articles written about him before he joined had some truth to them.
He's a tremendous goalscorer, and if you can provide him with good service he's, generally speaking, going to stick the ball in the back of the net. But when he's in the team, the issue of balance rears its ugly head. Without players around him willing to put in a shift, it's not really going to work out in the long term.
Maybe the rest of the team could grow some marbles and press for him instead? It's not like they're going to be sitting in the box gulping up chances like a frosty chocolate milkshake.
Pretty much ANY other report including Ferdinand's interview after the transfer says otherwise. I see why you'd like to give more credit to the pro-United version but it's hardly the most credible one.
We just bought world class, world cup winner, champions league Varane, and our defence is no better than before. You'd think that would give people a hint as to the actual problem.
Regarding Ronaldo, I suspect his main discontent is Ole's abysmal man managing of him. At this stage of his career back at one of his boyhood clubs which has been struggling, I'm sure that he wouldn't expect to win the league or CL immediately. He'd want to, but he wouldn't be pissed if it didn't happen.
What would piss Ronaldo off is anything denying him his chance at competing for the golden boot in the PL. Even at Juve where he under-performed relative to expectations (aka didn't win the CL), he was still top scorer in the league, and that was still important to him.
Things like being needlessly rotated for games, or being denied penalty and freekick duties that he's enjoyed his entire career, will no doubt come as a shock and demotivator. He's got to be asking himself, if I'm obviously not going to win anything here, and the manager seems hell bent on preventing me from being the main man or in the running for the golden boot, then what the hell am I doing here?
Regarding Ronaldo, I suspect his main discontent is Ole's abysmal man managing of him. At this stage of his career back at one of his boyhood clubs which has been struggling, I'm sure that he wouldn't expect to win the league or CL immediately. He'd want to, but he wouldn't be pissed if it didn't happen.
What would piss Ronaldo off is anything denying him his chance at competing for the golden boot in the PL. Even at Juve where he under-performed relative to expectations (aka didn't win the CL), he was still top scorer in the league, and that was still important to him.
Things like being needlessly rotated for games, or being denied penalty and freekick duties that he's enjoyed his entire career, will no doubt come as a shock and demotivator. He's got to be asking himself, if I'm obviously not going to win anything here, and the manager seems hell bent on preventing me from being the main man or in the running for the golden boot, then what the hell am I doing here?
He shouldn't expect to barge into a new team and take over penalty duties for someone who scored 23 out of 24 penalties before Bruno missed the last one. And his free-kick record is poor these days. His average conversion rate is a good bit lower than average.
Also Bruno Fernandes has scored and assisted more in the past 12 months than Ronaldo, and actually works hard for the team. If United are to be successful, Ronaldo needs to keep his ego in check and accept he's 36 and not the only star of this team. "Needlessly rotated" is nonsense, he just didn't play one game, first CL or PL game, he didn't start since he arrived, and United were worse when he came on, which suggests it was a good decision.
You would hope that we were competent enough to cover these issues (e.g. rotation or penalty duties) during the negotiations phase so that it doesn’t lead to conflicts later down the line knowing Ronaldo’s character. He’s turning 37 in a few months, it’s unreasonable to expect his role to remain the same as if he was in his prime.
If we bought Ronaldo to play as second fiddle to our main man, we shouldn't have bought him at all.
But since we've made the decision, mostly forcefully with the help from our greatest manager ever, Fergie, we should just play him as our main man. I don't see any negative side of it. Afterall he is top scorer in Italy last season, and top scorer in Euro this summer, won 5 trophies in past 3 seasons too. He is also our top scorer so far this season, and our player of month last month. He is just a leading man everywhere.
He dealt with Bruno taking (and missing) the penalty maturely. The thing is, it's not one singular instance. It's the compounding of all these small instances of poor management that will grate.
In the end, that's Ole's problem to solve. For some reason he's famed for his man-management. Well, now's the time to see it in action with a lot of big stars and egos. In fact, forget man management and penalties, if our team actually played good football and created enough chances to where Ronaldo not taking penalties isn't a problem, that would be the end of the discussion. But we don't.
And you've got to remember, this isn't just any ordinary player. This is Ronaldo. He arguably has as much pressure on his shoulders as Ole himself. Case in point, we're only a few games in, with him having scored 5 in 6 from open play, and people are already talking about him hampering the team. By contrast if Bruno scored 5 in 6, it wouldn't really matter how he played, because he doesn't have the same amount of pressure. No one does, except maybe Messi.
A player of his huge profile, who always attracts massive scrutiny, will no doubt know that the only way to stem the constant criticism is by scoring goals and being in the golden boot discussion. If Ole at the moment seems to be doing everything he can to prevent that, no way Ronaldo would be satisfied with that sort of situation.
Greenwood hasn't scored a single goal since Ronaldo is in the centre.
Bruno has only scored one.
Nothing from Cavani.
Maybe we can't blame Sancho for his slow start either.
Martial only scored one and that's with Cavani on the pitch.
Pogba's assists went down to non existence.
Hopefully Rashford works well with Ronaldo.
We really need it because nothing is really happening from the other players and the fingers are being pointed at Ole.
Bruno has only scored one.
Nothing from Cavani.
Maybe we can't blame Sancho for his slow start either.
Martial only scored one and that's with Cavani on the pitch.
Pogba's assists went down to non existence.
Hopefully Rashford works well with Ronaldo.
We really need it because nothing is really happening from the other players and the fingers are being pointed at Ole.
Honestly, I am not overly concerned, I just think it is a bit odd that his mate has made an unsolicited statement, also quoted in the BBC, yet the other narrative is that he was off to City.
So far I think for those who fanboy Ronaldo, they tend to work well with him too, ie Bruno, Lingard etc
Since Rashford is his biggest fanboy, I think they should work out fine together.
Also, its known Greenwood always prefers Messi so maybe that's the reason they are not working too well together. Pogba is another one who always prefers Messi, I don't think he has been playing well since Ronaldo joined us.
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I don’t think our players are playing bad because they’re ‘team messi’ in Ronaldo v messi
Is this serious or is it some kind of meta commentary on the Messi vs Ronaldo fanboy nonsense
I think it has less to do with preferences but playstyles. Ronaldo's most productive partnerships were with players who like to set up others. Özil, Benzema, Marcelo, Di Maria, Kroos, etc. That description generally fits Pogba, Fernandes and Sancho, too, although they obviously interpret that role differently. Players that like to finish themselves or occupy the same spaces in the box suffered a bit from playing alongside him (Dybala for instance, but Benzema's goal scoring also took a hit), though, so I don't think Rashford will be a particularly good fit.
Thing is, in your current form you'll probably won't create enough for him regardless of the personnel. If you ask me, you need to be more patient in the build up. Vertical football is working very well right now for teams like Liverpool but they also press like crazy and win the ball high up the pitch, creating a bucket load of chances and minimizing the risk of possession losses, and that's difficult with Cristiano in the team, especially if other stars around him don't work particularly hard defensively, either.
Yeah that’s next level
Bruno won 4 PL Player of the Month awards and 2 United Player of the Year awards. He's at his peak, Ronaldo isn't. Ronaldo at his peak was a far superior player but not now. As I said Bruno has scored and assisted more than Ronaldo in the past 12 months, and that's all Ronaldo has. He's a purely numbers player and his numbers were still worse than Bruno's.
I feel like Ronaldo has also won the occasional award.
Yer I agree Ronaldo may not be at his peak but he is still the best player at our club now bruno and others have embraced it our fans need to it doesn't matter how old he is
As players get older they either hang up there boots or adjust and hide the weaknesses age brings.
People forgot that the likes of Scholes, Pirlo etc where most attacking minded in there primes but when they declined physically they had the ability to drop deeper and start dictating.
Ronaldo has just become a goalscorer, Messi more of a playmaker.
We need to create more for Ronaldo as he will always score. The problem with our team is CM in games we dominate it really holds us back
People forgot that the likes of Scholes, Pirlo etc where most attacking minded in there primes but when they declined physically they had the ability to drop deeper and start dictating.
Ronaldo has just become a goalscorer, Messi more of a playmaker.
We need to create more for Ronaldo as he will always score. The problem with our team is CM in games we dominate it really holds us back
No he's not. He's the best goal scorer but not the best player.
Why doesn't he grow some marbles and take responsibility and press like the rest of the team?
Is this a serious thread?
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I had the same thoughts when I read it. There isn't any correlation between liking someone and having a connection with that person on the pitch.
Plenty of players who had great chemistry on the pitch disliked each other. There have been a plethora of examples of the opposite also being true: great friends don't necessarily make a duo with great chemistry on the pitch/court.
Bruno is our best player.
Not necessarily true:
Ronaldo:
21/22: 5 goals in 6 games
20/21: 36 goals 5 assists in 44 games
International 2021: 9 goals in 10 games
Total: 50 goals 5 assists in 60 games (55 g+a)
(avg 0.92 g+a per game)
Bruno:
21/22: 4 goals 1 assists in 10 games
20/21: 28 goals 17 assists in 58 games
International 2021: 3 goals in 11 games
Total: 35 goals 18 assists in 79 games (53 g+a)
(avg 0.67 g+a per game)
Both are very good, but Ronaldo still has better overall stats, and he does it in much lesser games than Bruno over past 12 months or so. You can see his average stats is just so far better than Bruno too.
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International is the problem that highlights our current problem.
Bruno turns in to a creative player solely for Ronaldo. Bruno doesn't get to do his Support striker thing because it stops creativity for Ronaldo.
That's true but comparing them as footballers, Bruno has spent that time a tougher league for a less dominant team and isn't a poacher/as much about the final third as Bruno. He's not quite a midfielder and often operated as a SS but he also does drop deep and press like mad.
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