Do we have enough goals in the squad?

Dudu said:
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And what's worse, three of those goals were against Southampton! Take away that game (and let's face it, Southampton is basically Championship level quality) and it's 2 goals in the other 6 PL games. Ghastly. Some of it has to be bad luck with guys like Bruno; can't shoot that badly all season. But we also don't really create many great opportunities offensively.

I do disagree with a common belief here in that, to me, Rashford has been clearly the best for our wingers. He's overpaid no doubt, and not a superstar, but he's made better passes and looked better in the box than either Garnacho or Amad. I think those thinking the latter two are better are overlooking him due to the salary/age difference. Rashford has been solid this year; it's the rest of the attack that's been pretty miserable other than a couple nice moments.
 
Rashford is not the same player anymore, while the rest of our attackers are raw and never been proven to be top goal scorer or they’re just not good enough.

Prime Martial was an actual goalscorer, Greenwood was clinical and proven talented goalscorer since he was at youth academy, and Cavani was a top goal scorer. Lukaku and Zlatan were proven goalscorer.

In comparison to what we got in the past post SAF, I think this is our worst squad in attacking department.
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
Who knew we'd be missing McTominay's goals so early into the season?
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I had a feeling. He was far from a great midfielder, but selling a player that scored a good few goals for us last season, and also does so regularly for a poor national team didn't seem like the greatest idea given our situation.
 
I don't think we was ever going to score a satisfactory amount of goals this season.
Rashford decision making and game intelligence is not of the required standard.
Garnacho similarly has poor decision making but he combines that with appalling execution. Sometimes plays like a dog with a bone.
Amad is raw but appears to be the most intelligent of the 3.
Antony is Antony.
Hojlund is basically a ghost and doesnt impose himself nearly enough as he should.

All in all, if we can get 50 goals from that 5 this season it will be a miracle!
 
JE-365 said:
Rashford is not the same player anymore, while the rest of our attackers are raw and never been proven to be top goal scorer or they’re just not good enough.

Prime Martial was an actual goalscorer, Greenwood was clinical and proven talented goalscorer since he was at youth academy, and Cavani was a top goal scorer. Lukaku and Zlatan were proven goalscorer.

In comparison to what we got in the past post SAF, I think this is our worst squad in attacking department.
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I agree with 95% of your post although Rashford with the right coach can score 15-20 goals a season, he has 4 already and he’s has taken no penalties, let’s face it he just hates playing for ETH like quite a lot of the squad, Bruno should be called out, he has 54PL goals in 166 games and fans forget 19 of those goals are penalties, Rashford has 74 PL goals in the same period from about 170pl matches and 4 penalty goals, if he had been the penalty taker and scored 90% of the 19 Bruno scored he would have 90 goals from 170 PL matches in last 5 years.

He really isn’t as bad as a lot of fans make out, yes he’s terrible tracking back in a low block compact team that looks to suck the joy out of your game and play depressing ETH ball but he’s by far our best finisher in the EPL, look at his record against the top 6 compared to the rest of the squad?

Last year he wasn’t great but he has started better this year only to be benched and dropped which is what should have happened last year!
 
What is actually the solution with the players we have? I think we’ve all established it’s a pretty average bunch of attackers but what’s the best course of action in getting our goals up?

Rashford, Hoijlund and Garnacho are probably our best source of goals.

Maybe a 442 with Rashford and Hojlund up front with Garnacho on the right? Rashford wouldn’t be a pure striker he would still be inside on the left but a lot closer to Hojlund than hugging the touchline and leaving him isolated.

We’d still have 3 midfielders with two of Casemiro/Mainoo/Eriksen/Ugarte in their normal CM positions and Bruno or Mount operating as a LCM.

Off the ball we would defend in the 442 we have been this season but with Bruno or Mount covering instead of Rashford who is dreadful at it. On the ball we could have overloads on the left side and by having players closer to Hojlund we have a better chance of scoring.

Our wide players aren’t good dribblers so we need them to use their movement to get into the box and finish.
 
Woziak said:
I agree with 95% of your post although Rashford with the right coach can score 15-20 goals a season, he has 4 already and he’s has taken no penalties, let’s face it he just hates playing for ETH like quite a lot of the squad, Bruno should be called out, he has 54PL goals in 166 games and fans forget 19 of those goals are penalties, Rashford has 74 PL goals in the same period from about 170pl matches and 4 penalty goals, if he had been the penalty taker and scored 90% of the 19 Bruno scored he would have 90 goals from 170 PL matches in last 5 years.

He really isn’t as bad as a lot of fans make out, yes he’s terrible tracking back in a low block compact team that looks to suck the joy out of your game and play depressing ETH ball but he’s by far our best finisher in the EPL, look at his record against the top 6 compared to the rest of the squad?

Last year he wasn’t great but he has started better this year only to be benched and dropped which is what should have happened last year!
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Ten hag managed to get the best out of Rashford in his first season, which means he knows how to make Rashford scoring goals. I think the issue about Rashford is himself not the coach, which I believe he’s not the same player and I think he could be on declined right now.
 
We actually don't have enough goals in the team really, I'm putting my hope on Hojlund and Garna catching form and scoring some goals
 
I hate that XG stuff, but apparently we're 5th for it, and I think it was 20th for difference between goals scored and XG.

I hate this sort of stuff as you could walk away thinking, oh, if we just finished the chances we should we'd be well up the league, 5th!

When you could equally say, if we defended better, if we created better, etc.
 
I and others have been a broken clock for years now I feel. We should always have a veteran striker on the bench or even starting. I know some may feel if upsets the balance of a team, including the manager but in some ways you can't pay enough money to mercenaries like a Giroud. Look at how Ibra papered over some of the cracks. Yes that can be problematic if you don't fix the cracks in the interim, but that's on the manager and club. If you don't score you never win. Simple as.
 
JE-365 said:
Ten hag managed to get the best out of Rashford in his first season, which means he knows how to make Rashford scoring goals. I think the issue about Rashford is himself not the coach, which I believe he’s not the same player and I think he could be on declined right now.
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You may well be right but he’s been set up as a counter attacking striker all his career and when an elite LB and a competent Midfield like Shaw, Matic, Fred, Herrera, Casemiro first season he is the one striker allowed to sit on the half line as his pace was the out, he’s clearly able to work harder but at 26, turning 27 he should have filled out and like Danny Wellbeck who also started wide left learn the transition of being an Elite number 9.
 
Yes, we do. I'm tired of this "not enough goals" "we need a proven goalscorer" etc. talk.

The system is awful. The players up front suffer a lot from it.

If we're talking all competitions

Rashford is a 30 G/A winger
Bruno is a 30 G/A number 10
Hojlund is easily a 20 G/A striker already

If you can't even make any of these three produce just half of these numbers as their manager, that's a huge red flag

Zirkzee, Garnacho, and Amad can fill in with 10-15 each in a better tactical system too.

De Ligt/Maguire can probably score at least 5 between them

And then the occasional goal from midfield or the fullbacks

We don't have every profile that we need on the wings IMO, but this squad should not be close to 0 GD after 38 games. We'll see what happens. Right now, the system is holding them back.

All this talk about "Rashford declined, he's not the same player anymore" "Hojlund is awful" "Bruno is a problem", these are made up things between fans that have 0 real basis.
 
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Reading all the comments in this thread and in several others, I still can’t see where the goals are coming from.
1 goal at home in 3 league fixtures.
Take away the 3 goals away at Southampton and we’ve only scored 1 goal in the 3 other away matches.

The result at Southampton was excellent, but until they missed their penalty and we scored our first, they were battering us.
In hindsight, that result looks more and more of a fluke, the longer this dismal fiasco goes on.

If nothing changes, our terrible scoring form would put us on less than 30 league goals for the entire season !!!


.
 
Rojofiam said:
Yes, we do. I'm tired of this "not enough goals" "we need a proven goalscorer" etc. talk.

The system is awful. The players up front suffer a lot from it.

If we're talking all competitions

Rashford is a 30 G/A winger
Bruno is a 30 G/A number 10
Hojlund is easily a 20 G/A striker already

If you can't even make any of these three produce just half of these numbers as their manager, that's a huge red flag

Zirkzee, Garnacho, and Amad can fill in with 10-15 each in a better tactical system too.

De Ligt/Maguire can probably score at least 5 between them

And then the occasional goal from midfield or the fullbacks

We don't have every profile that we need on the wings IMO, but this squad should not be close to 0 GD after 38 games. We'll see what happens. Right now, the system is holding them back.

All this talk about "Rashford declined, he's not the same player anymore" "Hojlund is awful" "Bruno is a problem", these are made up things between fans that have 0 real basis.
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I think you're vastly overrating our attackers there. Crystal Palace are in the relegation zone and I would put Mateta and Eze straight into our side. I think we'll be lucky to get a positive goal difference with our attack.
 
Rojofiam said:
Yes, we do. I'm tired of this "not enough goals" "we need a proven goalscorer" etc. talk.

The system is awful. The players up front suffer a lot from it.

If we're talking all competitions

Rashford is a 30 G/A winger
Bruno is a 30 G/A number 10
Hojlund is easily a 20 G/A striker already

If you can't even make any of these three produce just half of these numbers as their manager, that's a huge red flag

Zirkzee, Garnacho, and Amad can fill in with 10-15 each in a better tactical system too.

De Ligt/Maguire can probably score at least 5 between them

And then the occasional goal from midfield or the fullbacks

We don't have every profile that we need on the wings IMO, but this squad should not be close to 0 GD after 38 games. We'll see what happens. Right now, the system is holding them back.

All this talk about "Rashford declined, he's not the same player anymore" "Hojlund is awful" "Bruno is a problem", these are made up things between fans that have 0 real basis.
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Do you ever get tired of bad takes?
 
This team has achieved plenty of goals. Goals like getting paid a lot of money to wander around a football pitch looking like 11 lost sheep in search of a shepherd.
 
In the January window they have to buy a goal scoring striker. The two we have are not good enough, they may develop in years to come but right now its a disgrace we don’t have a class striker.
 
RedIan said:
In the January window they have to buy a goal scoring striker. The two we have are not good enough, they may develop in years to come but right now its a disgrace we don’t have a class striker.
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I don't see it, doubt very much we buy a striker but hopefully I'm wrong. I already don't like what I see from Zirkzee but I guess time will tell there as well. Be surprised if we do much in Jan unless we clear out a few more. CM maybe as cover for Mainoo and replace Erikson possibly.
 
Banana Republic said:
Reading all the comments in this thread and in several others, I still can’t see where the goals are coming from.
1 goal at home in 3 league fixtures.
Take away the 3 goals away at Southampton and we’ve only scored 1 goal in the 3 other away matches.

The result at Southampton was excellent, but until they missed their penalty and we scored our first, they were battering us.
In hindsight, that result looks more and more of a fluke, the longer this dismal fiasco goes on.

If nothing changes, our terrible scoring form would put us on less than 30 league goals for the entire season !!!


.
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Kills me to watch Hojlund, he genuinely has the attributes ie height, strength pace to be a real goalscorer but as you say I just don't see him doing it, whether that's system, supply, confidence. I do see a small glimmer that he "could" if coached well do something for us. Zirkzee doesn't fit PL,.I don't get that signing at all.
 
P0GBA said:
I think you're vastly overrating our attackers there. Crystal Palace are in the relegation zone and I would put Mateta and Eze straight into our side. I think we'll be lucky to get a positive goal difference with our attack.
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No, I think people have a tendency to vastly underrate our players, attackers included. Neither of those two make our strongest eleven.
 
Ten Hag coming out and saying we need to score more goals. I think we've all known that for some time but it's been 3 seasons where we haven't scored 60 goals in a campaign. He's had plenty of opportunity to add some goal scorers to the squad over the course of that time, but we seem to never address this area of the squad.
 
ManUnitedCanuck said:
Ten Hag coming out and saying we need to score more goals. I think we've all known that for some time but it's been 3 seasons where we haven't scored 60 goals in a campaign. He's had plenty of opportunity to add some goal scorers to the squad over the course of that time, but we seem to never address this area of the squad.
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We have only scored over 70 goals once in over 10 years. A few times in the 60's. Maybe 3 times? And we are supposed to be known for our free flowing attacking football while City, Liverpool, Arsenal are rocking 90's goals. We are a fkn joke goalscoring/attacking wise and yet our fans and managers and staff think it will we will solve it by buying Hojlund and Zirkzee and tweaking the formation a bit. Yeah good luck with that. If and this is big if we get all our attackers in top form we might hit 70's again. But that's still 20 plus off the top boys.
 
Todd said:
Who, though?
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We don’t need one striker we need a starting experienced PL right winger and an experienced CFW.

Plus we don’t have much money, add that to the fact that we need a left back as our number 1 winter transfer priority and probably another CM, but that could wait til the summer. We simply need to be brave in the January window and we must operate very smartly.

Who though?


Players In
RW/CF - Brian Mbeumo - £45-50m
CFW - Danny Wellbeck - £10m
A Fernandez/Antony Robinson - £17-25m
Total- £75-85m

Players out
Antony - £25m
V Lindelof - 10m
Total - £35m

We need experience but we must get a left back that can hit the ground running, Antonee Robinson at 27 is hugely experienced, PL Proven, will provide more assists down that side, however Danny Wellbeck coming home on an 18 month contract as a senior pro and a 25 Year old Brian Mbeumo to dovetail with Amad, Garnaucho and Rashford improves our goal scoring potential massively, both those Players I have mentioned already have 10PL goals between them.

All of a sudden we have a starting front 3 of Garnaucho Wellbeck Amad or Rashford Hojlund Mbeumo who will scare opposition defenders.

Joshua Zirkzee has time to adapt and if he can’t we’ll trade him in at the end of the season for a more traditional 9 like Benjamin Sesco. Brian Mbeumo like Zirkzee can also play as a number 10, the guys on about £40k per week, it’s about time United started picking off the best players that the other 14 teams in the PL have we should have signed Elise, we didn’t this is a low risk transfer.
 
No way. On the individual level, Bruno, Garnacho and Hojlund could score 10+ goals a season, but none the rest. Zirkzee couldn't hit the ocean from a boat (an absolutely ridiculous signing, a guy who scored 14 goals in 58 matches in Italy...), Rashford is a spoiled brat, a mental wreck who theoretically COULD score even 20 but i don't see it coming this season and he is absolutely unrelieable, as much as I like Amad, a player at his level should play for teams like Ipswich or Southampton anyway. And on top of that we have a manager who apparently hasn't got the faintest clue how to create some tactics where the wingers can score constantly or/and feed the strikers with key passes, assists. Almost all our goals (that few...) are based on individual skills, movements.
 
It's been painfully predictable how bad this was going to go goalscoring wise. Our attack is too young, too inexperienced, and some of it frankly might never be good enough. It's a horribly constructed group.

To think what we had a few years ago to this is disgraceful really, and to have spent shit loads for it? Crazy.
 
Judas said:
It's been painfully predictable how bad this was going to go goalscoring wise. Our attack is too young, too inexperienced, and some of it frankly might never be good enough. It's a horribly constructed group.

To think what we had a few years ago to this is disgraceful really, and to have spent shit loads for it? Crazy.
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We really need to be in for Gyökeres.
 
Judas said:
It's been painfully predictable how bad this was going to go goalscoring wise. Our attack is too young, too inexperienced, and some of it frankly might never be good enough. It's a horribly constructed group.
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Debatable. Rashord is an experienced, 26 years old player. Zirkzee is 23, you cannot call a 23 years old inexperienced, he's got already about 150 first tier matches under his belt not to mention international competitions and the Oranje. (Bayern, Anderlecht, Bologna, United). Hojlund, despite his young age has about 120. Garnacho at the age of 20 played 99 matches for United. They might be young and will develop hopefully but to call them inexperienced... Well, as i said, debatable. Some of it might be never good enough... True. Antony is a joke, Zirkzee is a flop, that guy couldn't hit the ocean from a boat, Amad should play for a team like Ipswich or Bournemouth, Rashford is a spoiled brat, a mental wreck, totally unpredictable but mostly bad so the quality isn't there for sure but that applies to the whole squad. On paper this squad has a worth of 860 million euros, in real about 60 percent of it i guess.
 
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Zirkzee was such a pointless signing. There's 'potential' for Hojlund, Rashford, Bruno + Garnacho to all score 15+ in all competitions, but it's just a fools hope; the only one I would back to do it is Hojlund. Whereas you just know that way more of Liverpool & Arsenal's forwards will hit that mark, whilst City have Haaland and a ton of players who will score 10+.
 
Frank Grimes said:
The quality of our attackers is so poor. Never seen anything like this in over 35 years watching United. Bang average players bought for a lot of money, a disgrace.
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Let’s look at this compared to our rivals;
We have our first choice Front 3 ; Garnaucho, Hojlund, Rashford backed up with Antony, Amad and Zirkzee.

Collectively they have played 461 PL games between all 6 of them, they’ve scored 115 Goals with 66 assists, they score or assists between all 6 of them 1 In 2.54 matches

Liverpool front 6 options 582 PL matches 278 goals and 123 assists is 1 in 1.45

Arsenal from 6 options 1288 PL matches 355 Goals 202 Assists 1 in 2.22 games

Chelsea from 8 forward options 417 PL matches 91 Goals and 60 assists 1 in 2.76 games

Man City from 6 options 726 PL Matches 226 goals 192 assists 1 in 1.74 games

On the surface it doesn’t look so bad we have 6 strikers that score or assist every 2.5 games, the issue is we don’t score goals from anywhere else in the team, so you stop United’s forwards you stop United and then can impose yourself on them
Quote easily. All our competitors score goals all throughout the team, yesterday we relied on Garnaucho and Rashford who both at times are incredible wasteful and then we add Joshua Zirkzee who has 1 goal and 1 assist in 12 that’s 1 in 6 GI, nowhere near good enough to play for Palace let alone United at number 9?

For the record, United fans don’t rate Jadon Sancho in the PL but his record is 63 appearances 9 goals and 9 assists so 18 in 63 which is 1 GI in 3.5 matches played, Anthony 56 matches 5 goals , 3 assists 1 GI in 7, Garnaucho 65 appearances 12 goals 9 assists 21 in 65 is 1 GI in 3.09
Rasmus 34/11/2 so 13 in 34 or 1 in 2.61 and Marcus 280/84/40 or 124 in 280 or 1 in 2.25

Our front 3 should all be better than 1 in 2 goal involvements per game the fact that we score very few from other areas of the team just creates huge pressure on the attack?
 
Woziak said:
Let’s look at this compared to our rivals;
We have our first choice Front 3 ; Garnaucho, Hojlund, Rashford backed up with Antony, Amad and Zirkzee.

Collectively they have played 461 PL games between all 6 of them, they’ve scored 115 Goals with 66 assists, they score or assists between all 6 of them 1 In 2.54 matches

Liverpool front 6 options 582 PL matches 278 goals and 123 assists is 1 in 1.45

Arsenal from 6 options 1288 PL matches 355 Goals 202 Assists 1 in 2.22 games

Chelsea from 8 forward options 417 PL matches 91 Goals and 60 assists 1 in 2.76 games

Man City from 6 options 726 PL Matches 226 goals 192 assists 1 in 1.74 games

On the surface it doesn’t look so bad we have 6 strikers that score or assist every 2.5 games, the issue is we don’t score goals from anywhere else in the team, so you stop United’s forwards you stop United and then can impose yourself on them
Quote easily. All our competitors score goals all throughout the team, yesterday we relied on Garnaucho and Rashford who both at times are incredible wasteful and then we add Joshua Zirkzee who has 1 goal and 1 assist in 12 that’s 1 in 6 GI, nowhere near good enough to play for Palace let alone United at number 9?

For the record, United fans don’t rate Jadon Sancho in the PL but his record is 63 appearances 9 goals and 9 assists so 18 in 63 which is 1 GI in 3.5 matches played, Anthony 56 matches 5 goals , 3 assists 1 GI in 7, Garnaucho 65 appearances 12 goals 9 assists 21 in 65 is 1 GI in 3.09
Rasmus 34/11/2 so 13 in 34 or 1 in 2.61 and Marcus 280/84/40 or 124 in 280 or 1 in 2.25

Our front 3 should all be better than 1 in 2 goal involvements per game the fact that we score very few from other areas of the team just creates huge pressure on the attack?
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Your post looks like someone vomited a few random football players names on an excel spreadsheet. So painfully difficult to read.

You don’t need random stats with decimals and acronyms all over the gaff to make your point. It doesn’t validate your post any more.
 
Frank Grimes said:
The quality of our attackers is so poor. Never seen anything like this in over 35 years watching United. Bang average players bought for a lot of money, a disgrace.
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Agreed. Last night and Vs Twente they looked like they were playing at their level, that is to say Vs journeymen footballers.

It's a disgrace how much of our money has been wasted on these footballers and I can see the majority of them winding their massive contracts down now until they end up in Turkey after 3-4 years with the rest of them.

Knew they'd not have the mental strength to keep a clean sheet. Had no faith there'd be the right decisions made at the other end. Knew that every dead ball would be wasted, and it's just so tiresome.

I've played with 5-7 a side footballers who used to shoot on sight and it was miserable to play with brain dead footballers at that level. Why are we accepting Garnacho and Rashfords insane selfishness now?
 
Leethal said:
Your post looks like someone vomited a few random football players names on an excel spreadsheet. So painfully difficult to read.

You don’t need random stats with decimals and acronyms all over the gaff to make your point. It doesn’t validate your post any more.
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The validation is simple without a firing Midfield, we simply don’t score enough goals throughout the team, in ETH first season Casemiro, Eriksen and Bruno all contributed significantly with goals and assists.

Our best Front three is Garanaucho, Rasmus and Marcus, the three current back ups look weak in terms of experience, But more importantly goal threat, Amad may be the exception but United desperately need a True CF and an experienced PL right winger that gets you goals.

I’ve said this already short term fix is to Go get Danny Wellbeck on an 18month contract and try and upgrade Antony for Brian Mbeumo, then in the summer we need to buy a goal scoring midfielder and maybe get rid of Mason Mount who simply can’t be relied on.

ETH team does not need validation, it’s clear to 99% of the fans that it’s sh…and he’s a delusional coach that was never really good enough to manage a truly Elite Club.
 
Yes, we do still potentially have enough goals in the squad, what we lack is effective decision-making in and around the box. Arriving late in the box was McT's party piece, especially when brought on as a sub, sadly that has gone.
Zirkzee may turn out to be a good front link-up player, but his instincts as a striker seem very poor, he could however make goal assists for Rasmus. It would be great to see us try a front two alongside a conventional 'to the bye line' winger, that can go down either side and put in decent crosses; as an option to the continual reliance on the two inverted wingers formation.
 
2 Dutch managers and both have produced goal shy football. We should have enough but just like lvg, ten hag has rebuilt the squad poorly
 
Woziak said:
Let’s look at this compared to our rivals;
We have our first choice Front 3 ; Garnaucho, Hojlund, Rashford backed up with Antony, Amad and Zirkzee.

Collectively they have played 461 PL games between all 6 of them, they’ve scored 115 Goals with 66 assists, they score or assists between all 6 of them 1 In 2.54 matches

Liverpool front 6 options 582 PL matches 278 goals and 123 assists is 1 in 1.45

Arsenal from 6 options 1288 PL matches 355 Goals 202 Assists 1 in 2.22 games

Chelsea from 8 forward options 417 PL matches 91 Goals and 60 assists 1 in 2.76 games

Man City from 6 options 726 PL Matches 226 goals 192 assists 1 in 1.74 games

On the surface it doesn’t look so bad we have 6 strikers that score or assist every 2.5 games, the issue is we don’t score goals from anywhere else in the team, so you stop United’s forwards you stop United and then can impose yourself on them
Quote easily. All our competitors score goals all throughout the team, yesterday we relied on Garnaucho and Rashford who both at times are incredible wasteful and then we add Joshua Zirkzee who has 1 goal and 1 assist in 12 that’s 1 in 6 GI, nowhere near good enough to play for Palace let alone United at number 9?

For the record, United fans don’t rate Jadon Sancho in the PL but his record is 63 appearances 9 goals and 9 assists so 18 in 63 which is 1 GI in 3.5 matches played, Anthony 56 matches 5 goals , 3 assists 1 GI in 7, Garnaucho 65 appearances 12 goals 9 assists 21 in 65 is 1 GI in 3.09
Rasmus 34/11/2 so 13 in 34 or 1 in 2.61 and Marcus 280/84/40 or 124 in 280 or 1 in 2.25

Our front 3 should all be better than 1 in 2 goal involvements per game the fact that we score very few from other areas of the team just creates huge pressure on the attack?
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Tricky one to compare using those numbers I think but I enjoy getting all geeky looking at figures, appreciate the post!

Is matches the best way? I'd have thought minutes would be the way to go. All 6 of a team's front 6 could easily play the same match. 3 starting, 2 on after 70 minutes, 1 on for 5 minutes at the end. Like for like replacements with no change in formation. They all get one apperance each. One of the others plays their starting front 3 for the whole game and only 3 of them are said to have played a match. Would think it would somewhat even out over the long run, with all the teams doing each of those roughly equally but that's no guarantee. Could skew everything, might actually look at that myself in a bit.

A big thing- where are they now? Havertz and his much improved goalscoring form since joining Arsenal compared to what he did at Chelsea. If looking at him when he joined Arsenal (can't be bothered with minutes right this second myself either), he was 19 in 91 for Chelsea, 1 goal every 4.79 matches. For Arsenal he's on 17 in 45, 1 goal every 2.65. Even at Arsenal he switched position and it was then that he started scoring to a much greater degree. Have a look at that here, the way he explodes after moving to CF. Had he not joined Arsenal, or had he not switched position we wouldn't have necessarily thought he was capable of that or 'having enough goals in him'.

Contrast to Rashord who has scored goals in the past for us, it's been quite a long time since he has. You've got got to wonder at some point if he has that in him any more. Some players just go into a terminal decline and it somewhat looks like he might be one of them. He's 8 in 41 for the same time Havertz has been at Arsenal, 1 goal in every 5.13 vs. Havertz's 1 every 2.65. Comparing it to Havertz since Havertz played up front would be a much bigger difference again. Would hope Rashford could or can get back to being better than he currently is but we don't know, his past stats padding out his current ones in a way.

Guess it would also be important to look at who is getting the minutes. Is Jesus part of Arsenal's front 6? He's hardly played at all for them this season in the league. Who is Arsenal's front 6 anyway? Saka, Havertz, Martinelli, Trossard, Sterling, Jesus and Odegaard is 7.

Agree that looking at what the rest of the team brings to you is important and we don't offer much right now. When it comes to assists, and therefore influincing overall goal involvements that the rest of the team provide it depends on how you want your team to function to an extent though. Alexander-Arnold and Robertson have provided a lot over the years, other teams nowhere near as much from that area. Given that, maybe just maybe you can get away with different approaches, even including your forwards doing everything from a goalscoring/assist persepctive but it's not intuitively desirable. Think R9 scored a ridiculous proportion of Inter's goals once and they had a good season finishing 2nd but it's not the norm. Shearer and Sutton at Blackburn perhaps another rare one.
 
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Chipper said:
Tricky one to compare using those numbers I think but I enjoy getting all geeky looking at figures, appreciate the post!

Is matches the best way? I'd have thought minutes would be the way to go. All 6 of a team's front 6 could easily play the same match. 3 starting, 2 on after 70 minutes, 1 on for 5 minutes at the end. Like for like replacements with no change in formation. They all get one apperance each. One of the others plays their starting front 3 for the whole game and only 3 of them are said to have played a match. Would think it would somewhat even out over the long run, with all the teams doing each of those roughly equally but that's no guarantee. Could skew everything, might actually look at that myself in a bit.

A big thing- where are they now? Havertz and his much improved goalscoring form since joining Arsenal compared to what he did at Chelsea. If looking at him when he joined Arsenal (can't be bothered with minutes right this second myself either), he was 19 in 91 for Chelsea, 1 goal every 4.79 matches. For Arsenal he's on 17 in 45, 1 goal every 2.65. Even at Arsenal he switched position and it was then that he started scoring to a much greater degree. Have a look at that here, the way he explodes after moving to CF. Had he not joined Arsenal, or had he not switched position we wouldn't have necessarily thought he was capable of that or 'having enough goals in him'.

Contrast to Rashord who has scored goals in the past for us, it's been quite a long time since he has. You've got got to wonder at some point if he has that in him any more. Some players just go into a terminal decline and it somewhat looks like he might be one of them. He's 8 in 41 for the same time Havertz has been at Arsenal, 1 goal in every 5.13 vs. Havertz's 1 every 2.65. Comparing it to Havertz since Havertz played up front would be a much bigger difference again. Would hope Rashford could or can get back to being better than he currently is but we don't know, his past stats padding out his current ones in a way.

Guess it would also be important to look at who is getting the minutes. Is Jesus part of Arsenal's front 6? He's hardly played at all for them this season in the league. Who is Arsenal's front 6 anyway? Saka, Havertz, Martinelli, Trossard, Sterling, Jesus and Odegaard is 7.

Agree that looking at what the rest of the team brings to you is important and we don't offer much right now. When it comes to assists, and therefore influincing overall goal involvements that the rest of the team provide it depends on how you want your team to function to an extent though. Alexander-Arnold and Robertson have provided a lot over the years, other teams nowhere near as much from that area. Given that, maybe just maybe you can get away with different approaches, even including your forwards doing everything from a goalscoring/assist persepctive but it's not intuitively desirable. Think R9 scored a ridiculous proportion of Inter's goals once and they had a good season finishing 2nd but it's not the norm. Shearer and Sutton at Blackburn perhaps another rare one.
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You need to look at penalties too Rashford, having watched him live this season has been much better than last year and I can see him getting 12-15 PL goals this season, the problem is Garnaucho and Hojlund might get similar numbers but our midfield, especially Bruno is not putting up the numbers he should without goals from midfield and defence we’ll never get to 2 PL goals per game.

Selling McTominay and not replacing him has not helped the situation either?
 
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