The premise of this thread is GK or ST - if we have to choose which one is most important
To me it's simple, we will win more games with a ST that scores goals than we will lose by not replacing DDG as GK
GK or ST
- Thread starter AshRK
- Start date
To me it's simple, we will win more games with a ST that scores goals than we will lose by not replacing DDG as GK
ST all day long. As much as people on here lambast DDG, it takes a special kind of person to be between the sticks at United. To cope with the pressure etc. We had loads of names after Schmeichel who all struggled.
By what logic? Simply because you're looking at the table at our goals scored/conceded? That's just surface analysis. It doesn't tell you why we have been struggling with the same issues for 10 years.
Ronaldo scored a lot of goals, but that didn't improve us.
Rashford has scored a lot of goals, but that hasn't improved us significantly compared to our average position over the last ten years.
Same with Zlatan. He scored a lot, but we were still miles behind City.
So how will a striker make us that much better? We average pretty much the same amount of goal difference and points every season, no matter the striker, and no matter who scores the goals.
Our main problem is we don't control games, because we constantly give away possession, and we fail to maintain a high line of pressing.
A striker hardly mitigates that alone.
A proper goalkeeper does a lot to improve that, even if we have no striker at all.
You know, just like City and Liverpool dominated for years without a striker.
Including David de Gea. He struggles with that pressure every season, evidenced by his awful passing, hoofing the ball and giving away possession on average 25 times each game, being afraid in aerial duels, not collecting crosses to avoid conceding chances, not directing his backline with confidence, not daring to sweep to relieve pressure, not daring to stand high so that we can maintain a high line while, and getting considerably worse at shot stopping as evidenced by all stats and metrics.
You call that a strong mentality, or "a special kind of person"?
I call that a consistent failure and liability.
You mean the same Manchester City that went from Aguero to Halaand? No mention of Salah who is practically a 30 goal a season striker or City's midfield which is among the best the Premier League has ever seen?
Strangely I thought Aguero was a striker, but that aside those teams had a lot of other players who could and did score goals, United don't our most effective current scorer will not score nearly as many playing in a possession based team
DDG needs replacing, but he so do a few others and he's not at the top of the list, ST and CM are way head of him
Weghorst/Martial up front next season or DDG in goal?
Id take DDG in goal thanks
Id take DDG in goal thanks
Mines a little different.
Striker
Midfielder
Second striker ( please god Martial leaves )
Right back.
No money left if we got these so more happy to give the Golden glove winner another year between the sticks despite him not being able to save penalties.
If I have to choose, striker. But in reality we need both.
Well yes - I get it. But probably this thread hasn't been created in a vacuum or some sort of alternate universe. Why would we think about the question if there aren't any real-world connections. And the biggest connection possible is, if we have a limited budget, are we going for a Striker or a Goalkeeper. Your answer is striker. Me and a few others aren't just saying "go for GK" but we are saying if the budget is limited, its better to not go for the top shelf but make sure all holes are plugged.
That's your opinion and fair enough, but plugging the holes IMO is likely to mean signing players that are probably good enough, with the budget we apparently have + what we raise thru sales should be enough to get 2 of what we need most and IMO GK isn't one of those 2
Thread title brings me to a guesthouse in North Scotland in the earlier 80's . "What for breakfast?" the old lady replied " Orange juice or cornflakes" " Can i have both ?'
"OH NOOOooooo, you canny have both"
"OH NOOOooooo, you canny have both"
Choose only one? Striker of course. We have a passable keeper, even if there's so much room for upgrade. We have no striker worth the name. Not going anywhere as a club unless we correct that. We're not about to morph into Pep's striker-less team.
For contexts sake this was my standpoint on the matter until just a few weeks. I thought, we have shot ourselves in the foot with this ridiculous contract we had given him and so I thought, he'll never be sold or anything, might as well make use of him. As long as he isn't an issue, it gives us the chance to focus on different parts of the team and I thought, that the pain is higher there.
Then I've seen a video by statman dave and I've been forwarded a link to a website. I've shared the link and a few graphs here (Post). Those stats actually shocked me to a degree but if this is the status quo, then it gets really hard to skip the issue down the pecking order. Maybe it is an interesting read for you too. The stats that are depicted in the graphs are explained in the article.
I'm well aware of his faults and his old contract was stupid, but I still maintain that the lack of a striker costs us more than he does
Striker, obviously. Actually, TWO strikers.
We're not losing 10-15% of possesion in each game due to a GK, that's laughably ridiculous. Most of your points are cliches, yes.
10-15 % is not wrong, nor is it any way "laughably ridiculous". We have several games every season against top 10 sides where we only have around 30-40 % possession. If we were not to hoof the ball from de Gea or try silly Hollywood passes, we should be able to average 50+ % possession.
Guess you've never watched or analyzed a City game to understand exactly why they're so dominant. Or even began to grasp why Allison is crucial to Liverpool maintaining possession. City and a Liverpool in form, will regurarly have 65 % possession.
Even Brighton manages to average higher possession than us, and they do not have a better squad than us.
It's not all about the goalkeeper, but it sure as hell is a more important factor than who is playing up top.
It's as far from a clichê as possible.
It's why City managed to trounce Real Madrid.
It's why the best teams in virtually every league follow these principles, and maximize possession by playing out from the back.
Just because you don't get it, doesn't make it any less true.
United average more than 50% possession home and away this season
This can’t be a serious question?
That's right, but averaging possession doesn't give an accurate picture of how much we actually concede possession in games against the likes of City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Brighton.
We might be able to counter them, which is our main tactic, and it occasionally works. But over the course of many games and several seasons, the odds are not in our favour, until we gain more control of the ball.
We can't defend or counter our way to winning the league, and certainly not to winning the league three years on the trot again.
We need to dominate control through possession, just like all the best teams have realized and implemented.
City and Liverpool beat us way more often than we beat them, and when they beat us, it's often a trouncing. We get annihilated and humiliated to the Nth degree. Possession is key to avoiding this, because they don't beat us by playing on the counter. They beat us by playing out from the back and not giving away the ball.
When our keeper boots the ball, it puts us under massive and unneccesary pressure, especially against the better sides.
We can't score when we don't have the ball.
And we can't concede when we have the ball.
Basic principles. So basic, the importance can't be overstated, and is glaringly underrated by many fans and tactically mediocre managers.
Our average possession isn't awful, but it's a far cry away from the best teams. Like... oh well, look at that, about 10-15 percent.
Bottom line: With our goalkeeper, we simply are not able to get where we need to be in terms of possession. A striker won't fix that, it will merely paper over the cracks.
Last edited:
What kind of question is that? We have gk who just won golden glove. Meanwhile our 2 strikers scored 5 goals combined.
We have a revitalized and laughably strengthened defence that keeps us from conceding too many chances, and that's the main reason why are keeping clean sheets.
It's not de Gea, who is a below par shot stopper, which any stats will tell you. It's even clear to the naked eye.
We'd kept even more clean sheets with nearly any other keeper in the league, including many of the backup goalkeepers. That's both a statistical and anecdotal fact.
Using the golden glove argument is a fallacy, and ignores all the obvious issues we have with our goalkeeper.
Bottom line is without a striker we can't get to where we need to be either, so it comes down to which is the one needed most
It really is and I don't know how you can say it with a straight face. De Gea distributing the ball better in those big games would have made very little difference. Not only does fixating on "keeping the possesion" scream of Football Manager but implying the goalkeeper is the key to it indeed laughable. Technical proficiency of our outfield players is fairly low for this level.
Only City and Newcastle have conceded less that us, and we conceded 1/5 of our goals in a single game. A goalkeeper with better distribution will not make us condede less and score 30 more goals. The club knows this, Ten Hag knows this, it is why De Gea will sign a new deal unless we can afford to buy another GK along with everything else that we need.
That's a valid argument to be made.
3rd in goals conceded (and 13 of the 41 came in 2 matches away which skews it worse. )
9th in goals scored
you tell me.
I'm all for replacing DDG but we just went a season where our CF have scored a combined 5 goals in the league.
9th in goals scored
you tell me.
I'm all for replacing DDG but we just went a season where our CF have scored a combined 5 goals in the league.
Surely there must be an Edwin van der Sar type deal out there somewhere?
On the striker front, I'm leaning more towards trying to sign Thuram and a young prospect like Hojlund/Ferguson, rather than splash £100m on Kane. It would leave more funds to find a better CM to partner with Casemiro, and maybe even stretch to a new RB and young understudy CB to Varane. Tbh we also need a young understudy to Casemiro, he's the only real DM we have.
On the striker front, I'm leaning more towards trying to sign Thuram and a young prospect like Hojlund/Ferguson, rather than splash £100m on Kane. It would leave more funds to find a better CM to partner with Casemiro, and maybe even stretch to a new RB and young understudy CB to Varane. Tbh we also need a young understudy to Casemiro, he's the only real DM we have.
Never played football manager, so I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
Back on topic: Why do you think all the best managers and teams today are "fixated" on keeping possession?
It's all the likes of Pep and Klopp talks about, when they talk tactics. He calls it "control" and "dominance". It's all "fixated" on possession. It enables everything else they do, including the important pressing.
Why do you think that even the backup goalkeepers of City, Liverpool and Brighton are good passers and keep possession instead of booting it
Why do you think Pep so ruthlessly and swiftly replaced both Joe Hart and Claudio Bravo -- who both were really good shot stoppers and very much like De Gea?
It's like you don't understand how they are effectively utilized as a 12th outfield player, and 3rd centre back in the systems all the best teams are using.
You seem completely oblivious to the role, importance and impact of the modern goalkeeper.
I've never said a striker isn't important too.
It clearly is.
Hmm. This is tough. Most clean sheets vs having no recognised striker. A real noodle scratcher.
This place
It's really simple, who costs more in general ? Who are more valued by clubs ? What is football based on in its essence? You answer these questions, you know who's the priority.
Choosing a keeper over the striker will never cease to be funny, it's so idiotic I gotta laugh
Choosing a keeper over the striker will never cease to be funny, it's so idiotic I gotta laugh
A striker is (or at least should be) a lot more than just scoring goals. They should also be important in maintaining possession and knitting the entire attack together, good hold-up play, good movement to make themselves available to receive the ball, etc. Basically the exact opposite of Ronaldo (or Rashford when he's a striker).
You bring up City and Liverpool. Aguero was a striker, and while Firmino may not have been a classic #9 he was still a striker who played a big part in helping control games and creating opportunities for others. City did have a season or two before Haaland where they regularly played without a real striker, but they used other good players who slotted in and helped them control things. We don't have anyone who has shown the ability to do that whatsoever, bar the odd period here and there of a fit and in-form Martial.
A goalkeeper by themselves will help maintain possession and control games. A striker by themselves also will. You are overstating the effect of the former and understating the effect of the latter. A goalkeeper by himself certainly does not cause a 10-15% possession swing.
Last edited:
Besides he mentions strikers in our former broken teams and compare with what would a keeper could do with this current improved team.
That's about as dishonest as a comparison can get
Add on the fact that our midfield doesn't have a great record for ball retention either it's a valid argument to say that additions in that category are a higher priority as well
It might all be moot anyway, he hasn't signed a new contract yet (that I'm aware of) so he might be going anyway.
If that is the case then given what I regard as higher priorities there's a case to keep Henderson for next season, in the Forest forum he's quite highly rated in everything bar distribution and at least 1 Forest fan reckons he's the best keeper they've had in years