Do we have enough goals in the squad?

BAMSOLA said:
We don't struggle for goalscorers we struggle for cohesion and a spine to the team in terms of ball winning, the first problem gets solved on the training field (and with some better recruitment which I think we been trying to do this window) the second is purely recruitment but not necessarily of goalscorers.

We have players in the squad who have it within them to put up farbetter numbers in the right setup.
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I agree to some extent but there have been ample times during matches where we do create a great opportunity yet our plays don't finish. That's where a goalscorer can put a game to bed for you. Seems like last few seasons we'd be on top of a match, not take chances and then it'd allow teams to get back into matches. Hoping that changes this season.

Yes, we do need to improve overall and create more, just think we don't have that individual that is more clinical and takes opportunities regularly.
 
If Rashford turns up then possibly. But if his form continues the same way as last season then not a chance. We don't have enough creativity in the side either. It's all on Bruno.
 
ManUnitedCanuck said:
I agree to some extent but there have been ample times during matches where we do create a great opportunity yet our plays don't finish. That's where a goalscorer can put a game to bed for you. Seems like last few seasons we'd be on top of a match, not take chances and then it'd allow teams to get back into matches. Hoping that changes this season.

Yes, we do need to improve overall and create more, just think we don't have that individual that is more clinical and takes opportunities regularly.
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On individual level that was a problem for Rashford and particularly Garnacho last season. Rashford overperformed last season so that's how the "luck" elemen works - both ways.
Overall City, Arsenal and Liverpool had players who missed way more opportunities than our forwards, I wouldn't call this THE problem.
Generating chances is #1 issue for us.
 
ManUnitedCanuck said:
I agree to some extent but there have been ample times during matches where we do create a great opportunity yet our plays don't finish. That's where a goalscorer can put a game to bed for you. Seems like last few seasons we'd be on top of a match, not take chances and then it'd allow teams to get back into matches. Hoping that changes this season.

Yes, we do need to improve overall and create more, just think we don't have that individual that is more clinical and takes opportunities regularly.
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I know what you mean but for me that again (lack of clinical finishing) has to be a training ground issue. Yes you can buy a Harry Kane(or other) but firstly that costs a lot of money that we don't have because we spent it elsewhere (in Hojlunds case presumably on a player we believe can one day hit those numbers) . Secondly I've lost count of the occasions where we don't finish because a player hasn't taken the easy option to pass or look for a cutback/squared ball (the easiest type of finish which most good possesion side take advantage of).

You have to remember that Arsenal comfortably outscored us with Kai Havertz upfront for most of the season. That is down to the power of having a good system, good coaching (having your head up and looking for the simplest pass) and the goals in a team be shared around equally so that the burden isn't all on one player (which is the way of most modern football sides). Basically we shouldn't be relying on one recognised goalscorer to get us out of a hole, or just have all the goal scoring burdens, we need more team cohesion and better decision making especially with the final pass.
 
Think we look better than we have in a long time in forward areas. We have played with one striker for two years with Martial using us as holiday home.
 
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Highly dependent on the form of Rashford and Antony

which is concerning
 
Never liked the term of "having enough goals" as if it's just a simple addition problem.

We simply haven't created enough consistently in recent years, Hojlund himself was elite in terms of chance conversion but if you just have Rashford cutting inside and blasting it into defenders when we progress the ball then your striker will struggle to bag goals.

Do people think Arsenal has some elite goalscorers? Not really, Saka is a good finisher but in reality they score because they are constantly putting the pressure on their opposition probing and creating through good teamplay to where it adds up in the end.
 
No, unfortunately we don't have enough goals in the squad. Who will score our goals?

Rashford isn't an out-and-out goalscorer, he doesn't even like playing No 9. Maybe he will have a stand-out season, but it's a hope. Look at last season, when he actually received a new contract.

Bruno (if still motivated and not too shattered from the non-stop football) will get a few. The rest, we can hope.
 
didz said:
Do we have enough assists in the team?

In all competitions, we scored 88 goals last term (excluding OGs), but only 56 saw a player credited with an assist.

That means that 36.4% of our goals were unassisted, and I seem to remember a large proportion of Hojlund's goals contributing to that 'unassisted' stat.

36.4% sounds proportionally pretty high. By comparison, of City's 137 goals, 104 were assisted, means that only 24.1% of their goals went unassisted.

Aston Villa had 72 assists across their squad and 96 goals, meaning 25% were unassisted.

Even Chelsea, who had an abnormally large number of goals from the penalty spot (and were therefore unassisted) have a lower proportion of unassisted goals than us, coming out at 32.7%.

This seems to support the idea that we aren't doing anywhere near enough to create chances, and that adding goals to the side is unlikely to be done by just piling on more goalscorers. The ones we have apparently have to work harder than players in other teams do if they want to get on the score sheet.
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Bingo.

The way some in here are talking you'd think we have 3 Nunez's up front just missing chance after chance. The fact of the matter is we are horrid in how we fashion chances consistently. Rashford and Garnacho are purely inefficient shoot first wingers (Garnacho not as much on the right though), Antony is the extreme of that (and also terrible in general), while Hojlund is a pure box striker. Add into that the fact that we struggled to put consistent pressure on teams and instead would just get into end to end/transitional games.

Amad and Zirkzee will certainly help creatively as both are much more team oriented players that make good decisions in the final third. But the other part of it will be whether or not our out of possession structure/pressing shape is better this season in order to win the ball back efficiently instead of getting into basketball games where each forward is dead tired by the 70th minute
 
There are goals all over this team - we just had to play a certain way last year due to injuries.

Yes, Rashford and Garnacho were wasteful and made some poor decisions last year.

The whole set up will change this year. More control in midfield - more attacking threat.

Garnacho will continue to improve. Hojlund will get better. Amad has goals in him - Fernandes is a great creator. Mount will surely play more.

The whole frontline looks better with competition. Anthony will have to kick on, for now Sancho is about. Hojlund has a back up - Rashford isn't a nailed on starter. Competition breeds improvement.

Having a solid spine will help us so much - another CB and a Ugarte type and we really do look in good shape
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Bingo.

The way some in here are talking you'd think we have 3 Nunez's up front just missing chance after chance. The fact of the matter is we are horrid in how we fashion chances consistently. Rashford and Garnacho are purely inefficient shoot first wingers (Garnacho not as much on the right though), Antony is the extreme of that (and also terrible in general), while Hojlund is a pure box striker. Add into that the fact that we struggled to put consistent pressure on teams and instead would just get into end to end/transitional games.

Amad and Zirkzee will certainly help creatively as both are much more team oriented players that make good decisions in the final third. But the other part of it will be whether or not our out of possession structure/pressing shape is better this season in order to win the ball back efficiently instead of getting into basketball games where each forward is dead tired by the 70th minute
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It has been proven many times it's not about finishing chances, but about getting at the end of them consistently. The latter is the worry for us, not "conversion rate". Rashford indeed had a bad goals to expected goals ratio, but last season he was on the positive end so it all evens out long term. The fact he didn't have a lot of expected goals (xG) is the problem.
BTW in context of our team (which is filled with players who look for a shot instead of a pass), Hojlund transfer was a really weird one. He's a rather unique kind of striker who "makes two touches a game, one of them will be a goal". So, we either build a team around him to create as many chances as possible for him, or we need to play Zirkzee with wide forwards (Rashford/Garnacho). I think Zirkzee transfer makes a lot of sense in that regard. And I am still not convinced by Rasmus.

Jeffthered said:
No, unfortunately we don't have enough goals in the squad. Who will score our goals?

Rashford isn't an out-and-out goalscorer, he doesn't even like playing No 9. Maybe he will have a stand-out season, but it's a hope. Look at last season, when he actually received a new contract.

Bruno (if still motivated and not too shattered from the non-stop football) will get a few. The rest, we can hope.
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Weird thing to say with so many forwards/wide forwards/attacking mids looking for a shot at every occasion.
 
Borys said:
On individual level, yes. We actually have a strong attack now with a good number of "10 goals a season" players, plus a few ones that can chip in with some decent goal contributions as well.

Our next investment should rather be a coach that will teach those players how to move the ball instead of running with it too much, because THAT is by far our biggest struggle.
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You got that bang on! I see smaller teams do it effortlessly sometimes. They might not have the ball a lot but when they do, it's often forming a pattern and finally reaches the players that make impact. We seriously lack in that area. I think coaches who arrive at United generally thought we were good but needed tweaks but everyone who came here right from the likes of LvG, Jose, RR and EtH have been not so pleasantly surprised by the lack of synergy between the players in our club. I omitted Ole from the list because he knows and did good in his term regardless of how it ended. He didn't get the players he wanted. He got rid of FELLAINI, Lukaku and the likes of a few useless players from our club and we scored a lot in a few games during his term but ultimately he couldn't keep it up and I thoroughly blame the Glazers for that. RR would've been a genius and survived a lot longer if things were better at United but I should take my hat off to him. He's our real savior. He went and spoke publicly about the Glazers and their inability to run this club. Now that we've had an open-heart surgery so to speak, we can advance in our game on the pitch.
 
Glorio said:
Amad scored a few for Sunderland, didn't he?
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I'll repeat this again. If the kid is trusted, he'll score a good few as long as he stays fit. Apart from Roberts, that Sunderland side was quite poor, and yet, once he hit his stride, he started scoring again and again.
 
Hojlund-15 goals
Rashford-13 goals
Zirkzee-10 goals
Garnacho-9 goals
Bruno-8 goals
Amad-7 goals
Mount-5 goals
Mainoo-4 goals
Antony-3 goals
Casemiro_3 goals
Eriksen_1 goal
Defenders total_8 goals.

Sum Total=86 goals.
This I think is doable, we need to focus on being the type of team that impose it's style on the game and creating patterns and link ups between our players. If we do we can hit this numbers.
 
When was the last time we had a player score 20 in the league? Was it RVP a decade ago?

If so that's very depressing.

And it won't change this season either.
 
Trex said:
Hojlund-15 goals
Rashford-13 goals
Zirkzee-10 goals
Garnacho-9 goals
Bruno-8 goals
Amad-7 goals
Mount-5 goals
Mainoo-4 goals
Antony-3 goals
Casemiro_3 goals
Eriksen_1 goal
Defenders total_8 goals.

Sum Total=86 goals.
This I think is doable, we need to focus on being the type of team that impose it's style on the game and creating patterns and link ups between our players. If we do we can hit this numbers.
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Is that league only, or totals for all comps?
 
Trex said:
League only
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That’s like last year’s Arsenal / Liverpool level and 10 short of City’s level. I highly doubt we can get anywhere near that next season (even though I’d be over the moon to be proven wrong). I just hope we get about 76 goals (average 2 goals / game), which is already a huge improvement over the 57-58 league goal tally of the past 3 seasons. I’m not here to bash ETH, but I have serious doubt about him turning us into goal-scoring machine. Scoring hasn’t at all improved over the 2 seasons he’s been here, and that can’t be blamed on injuries.
 
We'll see what kind of magic RVN can conjure up with this squad in the scoring department.
 
We have a decent number of goalscorers now, this isn't a problem as long as they can find themselves at the end of chances what is by a distance a bigger problem.

We don't have enough midfield in the team. That's the main thing we should be worried about.
 
We have this discussion every year and every year people always think we have enough. First of all define enough. Should we be in the 70's and match the 5th, 6th place clubs? Our goal should be to match Villa? Would that help define the United way of attacking football? Once in the last 10 years we have gotten over 70 goals so I guess that would be an achievement but its still miles off the elite goalscoring teams. 3rd place is usually in the 80's i.e. Liverpool last year. I cant remember when last we ever got 80 plus goals. Newcastle got 80 plus last year in 7th. 80 plus goals is 30 goals off our miserable 50's total and we have added Zirkzee. So are we going to catch that?

The real goal should be 90's goals like Man City, Arsenal and sometimes Liverpool do. For that we need another 40 plus goals. Thats the standard. Then ask yourself do we have enough and the answer should be no fking way. We are miles off. Even 70 this year would be a miracle and a failure. Just like getting 4th would be a miracle and a failure when we consider what the standard we should actually be at. 70 goals and 4th/5th is Tottenham/Villa. Thats what standard we are hoping to achieve this year? Just get to their level? Is it enough? No
 
We’ll bring in an experienced striker towards the end of the window
 
Borys said:
We have a decent number of goalscorers now, this isn't a problem as long as they can find themselves at the end of chances what is by a distance a bigger problem.

We don't have enough midfield in the team. That's the main thing we should be worried about.
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This completely ignores our goalscoring record for the past 10 years.
 
UpWithRivers said:
We have this discussion every year and every year people always think we have enough. First of all define enough. Should we be in the 70's and match the 5th, 6th place clubs? Our goal should be to match Villa? Would that help define the United way of attacking football? Once in the last 10 years we have gotten over 70 goals so I guess that would be an achievement but its still miles off the elite goalscoring teams. 3rd place is usually in the 80's i.e. Liverpool last year. I cant remember when last we ever got 80 plus goals. Newcastle got 80 plus last year in 7th. 80 plus goals is 30 goals off our miserable 50's total and we have added Zirkzee. So are we going to catch that?

The real goal should be 90's goals like Man City, Arsenal and sometimes Liverpool do. For that we need another 40 plus goals. Thats the standard. Then ask yourself do we have enough and the answer should be no fking way. We are miles off. Even 70 this year would be a miracle and a failure. Just like getting 4th would be a miracle and a failure when we consider what the standard we should actually be at. 70 goals and 4th/5th is Tottenham/Villa. Thats what standard we are hoping to achieve this year? Just get to their level? Is it enough? No
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This post should be pinned, as it completely nails it.
 
ifightdragons said:
This completely ignores our goalscoring record for the past 10 years.
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No. This goes to the root cause of the issue we currently have.
Hojlund has overperformed last season in terms of expected goals metric. Haaland has underperformed (and by quite some margin), and yet scored 17 more goals than Hojlund. Part of that might be because Rasmus isn't as good in finding chances, but I'm pretty sure City just create gazillion chances, while our striker goes a couple of games without a shot.
So what's the real issue here?
 
friendlytramp said:
We’ll bring in an experienced striker towards the end of the window
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And we will still struggle like we have been since Sir Alex's retirement for goals unless the root cause of our lack of goals is resolved .
 
Creativity is more of a problem as Bruno is our only playmaker.
 
No. The squad needed major surgery this summer. So far that hasn’t happened and I just don’t see us creating or scoring enough goals this coming season.

Factor in ETH’s suicidal tactics and we really could be in big trouble.

Time will tell but I’m massively concerned.
 
What has changed that has some optimistic we’ll suddenly score lots of goals in the league. In 22/23 we scored 58 league goals and 23/24 we scored 57.

We will continue to struggle to score goals with the team we have unless we make some serious moves.
 
Borys said:
No. This goes to the root cause of the issue we currently have.
Hojlund has overperformed last season in terms of expected goals metric. Haaland has underperformed (and by quite some margin), and yet scored 17 more goals than Hojlund. Part of that might be because Rasmus isn't as good in finding chances, but I'm pretty sure City just create gazillion chances, while our striker goes a couple of games without a shot.
So what's the real issue here?
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Well, yes.

There's absolutely nothing to suggest that we will suddenly start to either:

a) Create tons of chances all of the sudden
b) Start scoring 40 more goals per season than we usually do.

Whether our problem is creating enough chances, or converting them, we are many miles off from scoring 80-90 league goals, which is what's required to actually challenge for the title.

While I do agree that we don't create enough chances... How can we? We usually average around 50-55% possession. The teams that score the most average around 60-65%. Spread out over a 38 game season, that's a hell of a lot of more minutes they have the ball, which is the very fundamental requirement of creating chances and scoring. Not to mention that it's just as fundamental to preventing goals conceded.If our opposition has less of the ball, they simply can't threaten us as much.

So our definitive root problem is we're not even tactically set up for creating enough chances to score 80-90 goals. It also doesn't help that many of our key offensive players are possession wasters.
 
ifightdragons said:
Whether our problem is creating enough chances, or converting them, we are many miles off from scoring 80-90 league goals, which is what's required to actually challenge for the title.
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True. But there's currently (rightly) absolutely zero expectation that we challenge for the title.

The new owners have openly said it will be two or three years before we're in a position to challenge. That's how long we have to bridge that gap in attack, assuming everything goes to plan.

If people are interpreting "enough goals" to mean hitting that standard immediately then they're just setting them up for a season of pointless whining.

The question for this season is whether we have enough goals to return to the CL. Which, based on the average amount of goals scored by 3rd/4th placed teams over the last four seasons, is around 70 goals. So do we have enough in the team to bridge that 13+ goals gap on last season? That's much more doable.
 
UpWithRivers said:
We have this discussion every year and every year people always think we have enough. First of all define enough. Should we be in the 70's and match the 5th, 6th place clubs? Our goal should be to match Villa? Would that help define the United way of attacking football? Once in the last 10 years we have gotten over 70 goals so I guess that would be an achievement but its still miles off the elite goalscoring teams. 3rd place is usually in the 80's i.e. Liverpool last year. I cant remember when last we ever got 80 plus goals. Newcastle got 80 plus last year in 7th. 80 plus goals is 30 goals off our miserable 50's total and we have added Zirkzee. So are we going to catch that?

The real goal should be 90's goals like Man City, Arsenal and sometimes Liverpool do. For that we need another 40 plus goals. Thats the standard. Then ask yourself do we have enough and the answer should be no fking way. We are miles off. Even 70 this year would be a miracle and a failure. Just like getting 4th would be a miracle and a failure when we consider what the standard we should actually be at. 70 goals and 4th/5th is Tottenham/Villa. Thats what standard we are hoping to achieve this year? Just get to their level? Is it enough? No
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Sad but true.

- All 7 teams above us scored more goals than we've managed in the last 10 years.
-West Ham in 10th score more than we have in the last 3 years (60)
- Relegated Luton scored 52, just 6 less than our best of the last 3 years.

And we're going into the season with basically the same set of forwards..
 
sullydnl said:
True. But there's currently (rightly) absolutely zero expectation that we challenge for the title.

The new owners have openly said it will be two or three years before we're in a position to challenge. That's how long we have to bridge that gap in attack, assuming everything goes to plan.

If people are interpreting "enough goals" to mean hitting that standard immediately then they're just setting them up for a season of pointless whining.

The question for this season is whether we have enough goals to return to the CL. Which, based on the average amount of goals scored by 3rd/4th placed teams over the last four seasons, is around 70 goals. So do we have enough in the team to bridge that 13+ goals gap on last season? That's much more doable.
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Absolutely, I agree. I'm not expecting us to score those amounts of goals or challenge for at least 2-3 years.

My point is more that bringing in better players will help us bridge that gap considerably over the next years, but that alone is far from enough.

Unless we also opt for a more possession-based tactical approach, achieving those numbers is statistically almost impossible, no matter how good the players are. Even Liverpool, who are considered a transitional team, average a lot more possession than us. And even they only managed to win the league once.

The average possession numbers of league winners sits between 60-65%. That's what we tactically have to aim for, to even stand a chance of scoring enough, and also not to concede as much.
 
ifightdragons said:
Absolutely, I agree. I'm not expecting us to score those amounts of goals or challenge for at least 2-3 years.

My point is more that bringing in better players will help us bridge that gap considerably over the next years, but that alone is far from enough.

Unless we also opt for a more possession-based tactical approach, achieving those numbers is statistically almost impossible, no matter how good the players are. Even Liverpool, who are considered a transitional team, average a lot more possession than us. And even they only managed to win the league once.

The average possession numbers of league winners sits between 60-65%. That's what we tactically have to aim for, to even stand a chance of scoring enough, and also not to concede as much.
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100%.

People sometimes talk about "possession football" and "transition football" like they're opposing aspects of the game, when in reality top sides are strong in possession & transition.

Even if we want to be a more transition-focused side, we still need to also be dominant in possession. Just as a more possession-focused side like City need to also be better than most of their opponents in transitions. That's just the standard for top sides.
 
Incidentally, when we're talking about where goals will come from...

Last season Arsenal and City scored 20 & 16 goals from set-pieces respectively. 1st and 3rd in the league. We scored 9 goals, 15th in the league.

It won't be as obvious to us as one player suddenly scoring more, as you'd expect it to be spread throughout the team. But of the 40-odd goal gap we need to eventually bridge between us and the title contenders, about 20-25% of those goals likely lie in improved returns from set-pieces.
 
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