IF Rashford gets a knock - Who scores the goals?

Tom Cato

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We have 14 PL games left on the season, as well as opportunity to lift more silverware. With the right set of cirumstances we are also still in the running celebrate the league title at the end of it all, albeit more unlikely.

As we are celebrating new silverware after a very exciting and well fought game against Newcastle, I am left pondering: If Rashford gets injured, who scores the goals?

We have netted 41 times in the Premier League this season. That is on par with the lower end of the top8 teams, but not anywhere near the top2. Marcus Rashford has netted 14 of those goals, or 34.15%. A Marcus Rashford in a career year is the sole reason we are where we are up front, while arguable the presence of Casemiro and Martinez in particular is the main reason we have become stingy at the back after a somewhat sloggy start to the campaign.

The rest of the goalscorers make up the following: - Combining for a total of 24 goals. Or 1 goal per game.

Bruno: 5
Sancho: 4
Antony: 3
Martial: 3
Garnacho: 2
Casemiro: 2
Fred: 2
Eriksen: 1
Shaw: 1
Martinez: 1

By the looks of it, we are almost entirely dependent on Rashford to remain healthy AND keep his solid hot scoring streak going if we are to continue the trajectory of the season. Wout wont suddenly start scoring, Martial is out - probably the rest of the season, Garnacho is high and low with performances. Everywhere else goal contributions are very sporadic.

Do we keep playing Rashford every game until he needs a break/picks up a knock and hope for the best, or do we start giving him rest in some fixtures to maximize chances of keeping him healthy for the entire season. And If Rashford picks up a knock, what do we realisticly do to ensure others pick up the scoring slack?

Scoring at large in 2021/2022 was nearly identical to the current campaign. The only difference is that the form player is Marcus Rashford instead of Cristiano Ronaldo. The real resurgence has happened at the back where we concede significantly less. But we still need to score goals to win, at an average we need 2 per game to win. So who picks up the slack if Rashford gets a knock?
 
The manager is pragmatic.

If Rashford is injured he would set up to get the most out of whomever is the next best fit for the role, possibly Bruno
 
McTominay seems to play further forward every time he's brought on. I reckon he's being groomed to be the next Dzecko.
 
Tom Cato said:
We have 14 PL games left on the season, as well as opportunity to lift more silverware. With the right set of cirumstances we are also still in the running celebrate the league title at the end of it all, albeit more unlikely.

As we are celebrating new silverware after a very exciting and well fought game against Newcastle, I am left pondering: If Rashford gets injured, who scores the goals?

We have netted 41 times in the Premier League this season. That is on par with the lower end of the top8 teams, but not anywhere near the top2. Marcus Rashford has netted 14 of those goals, or 34.15%. A Marcus Rashford in a career year is the sole reason we are where we are up front, while arguable the presence of Casemiro and Martinez in particular is the main reason we have become stingy at the back after a somewhat sloggy start to the campaign.

The rest of the goalscorers make up the following: - Combining for a total of 24 goals. Or 1 goal per game.

Bruno: 5
Sancho: 4
Antony: 3
Martial: 3
Garnacho: 2
Casemiro: 2
Fred: 2
Eriksen: 1
Shaw: 1
Martinez: 1

By the looks of it, we are almost entirely dependent on Rashford to remain healthy AND keep his solid hot scoring streak going if we are to continue the trajectory of the season. Wout wont suddenly start scoring, Martial is out - probably the rest of the season, Garnacho is high and low with performances. Everywhere else goal contributions are very sporadic.

Do we keep playing Rashford every game until he needs a break/picks up a knock and hope for the best, or do we start giving him rest in some fixtures to maximize chances of keeping him healthy for the entire season. And If Rashford picks up a knock, what do we realisticly do to ensure others pick up the scoring slack?

Scoring at large in 2021/2022 was nearly identical to the current campaign. The only difference is that the form player is Marcus Rashford instead of Cristiano Ronaldo. The real resurgence has happened at the back where we concede significantly less. But we still need to score goals to win, at an average we need 2 per game to win. So who picks up the slack if Rashford gets a knock?
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This is more of a rhetorical question but if we are realistically thinking of what Ten Hag would do in case of a serious Rashford injury, I would bet that he focuses a lot more on Garnacho, as well as Bruno and Fred to score with late arrivals in the box. Plan A would be for Garnacho to play the Rashford role, running in behind from the left half-space, when attacking in transition.

And when in possession build-up attacks, create opportunities through triangles and combinations between striker+winger+fullback on either side (Weghort+Sancho+Shaw and Weghorst+Antony+Dalot) to carve chances to cutbacks to Fred and Bruno to score from the area between the penalty spot and the D.
 
We will see, I’m sure he’ll miss a few games eventually this season. I think I trust Haggy to have a plan.

It won’t be Weggy though! Bless him.
 
Hopefully Martial is fit by then :nervous:
 
We have an army of players who can play down the left, albeit less effectively than Rashford. I'm more worried about Weghorst getting a knock.
 
OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:
Casemiro.

If De Gea gets a knock, who goes in goal? Casemiro.

If all of the Glazers suddenly just disappear, who inherits the club? Casemiro
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Heard he's been stepping in when the tea ladies are away sick too.
 
The team will setup slightly differently to spread the goals, because we finally have a manager capable of doing that.

It's a non issue really that befalls all top teams. Where would Barcelona have got the goals from if Messi was injured? Or Madrid with Ronaldo?
 
Hopefully Martial can stay fit for more than 30 minutes and Antony/Bruno can score a few more to lighten the load.
 
Drainy said:
The manager is pragmatic.

If Rashford is injured he would set up to get the most out of whomever is the next best fit for the role, possibly Bruno
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There's your answer, end of. Rashford has been excellent, but it's not as though he's the only one playing well in a poor team. Everyone has upped their game, even Fred has been chipping in with the goals.

A similar question had been asked about when Ronaldo left, "where will the goals come from?".
 
This is like asking who scores for City if Haaland gets crocked or what happens to Arsenal if Saka can't play. The answer, like for us, is the rest of the solidly performing squad.

You said yourself in the opening post that Rashford gets 34% of our goals, which isn't even over half. The rest of the squad are more than capable of scoring, but at the moment they just know that Rashford is unplayable and for that reason, a lot of their focus is on him.
 
It was always obvious it was going to take an injury or a dry patch for him which would lead to us seriously struggling for goals. Weghorst and Antony don’t have enough goals in them.

As good as he’s been in front of goal, there are and always have been serious question marks over his general and link up play.
 
Obviously Bruno and Antony every now and then when he has space to cut inside
 
When we have a full midfield I think we can get goals from several players, but without it we are really desperate.
 
The attack is really blunt if Rashford is off form. Bruno can obviously chip in with goals but Antony, Sancho, Wout, just don't bring enough goal threat and it's a minor miracle if Martial can put three games together without getting injured. It's a big big worry and our goal difference is only +4 at this stage of the season.
 
Martial is back, Casemiro [and Eriksen] will be back to push Fernandes further forward. Fernandes and Martial have good chemistry together, we should be okay.
 
It's a bit worrying. However people always suggest that if a team loses X that was crucial in a season or run of results they'll become midtable or <insert pessimistic prediction here>

It's rarely so straightforward as that, when someone crucial drops out it gives onus to one or two people that are playing in that person's shadow or very much operating to provide service or a particular tactical solution to step up. That's what happened when Ronaldo fecked off after he was the main goalscorer.

Hopefully we can find a solution. Maybe Martial staying fit. Maybe Bruno playing higher than the last few matches. Maybe Sancho continues today's form. Big Weggy? There's a lot of maybes admittedly, but we don't have much choice but to work with what we have. We still have some talented attacking players.
 
We will have to wrap Tony M in cotton wool from now until the end of the season. Relying on him to stay fit is like relying on Spurs to win a competition.
 
We scored two today but goals will be harder to come by without Rashford. Tony will score if he stays fit but, honestly, what are the chances of that?

We’ll be back to 0-0s and defeats unless someone unexpected steps up. I’m going to say Antony will chip in with a few, Case will get the odd header, Bruno with two or three, and pray it’s enough because after that it’s a barren wasteland.
 
Irrational. said:
We will have to wrap Tony M in cotton wool from now until the end of the season. Relying on him to stay fit is like relying on Spurs to win a competition.
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You could wrap Martial in cotton wool, enveloped by satin silk and garnished with jelly all contained within a large inflatable balloon and he’d still end up getting an allergic reaction from the cotton and be out for 2 months.
 
The most important thing is the league now. I'm just hoping that at worst Rashford is back for the Spurs match on the 27th. Before that we've got two legs with Sevilla, which I don't really care about at this point, a league match against Forest, who we damn well better be able to beat without him if we're top 4 material, and an F.A. Cup match against Brighton which I expect we'll lose as it'll be the biggest match of their season.

If Rashford is available for the final 5-6 league matches we'll be alright. If he's out long-term we're sunk once Martial gets hurt again in a week or two.
 
I’d really want us to win another trophy. Surely we have enough depth in Martial if we wrap him in cotton wool before and after games?
 
In the past lots wrote ok on here asking where the goals will come from without X player. It was never a problem, we always did fine.
 
Hammondo said:
In the past lots wrote ok on here asking where the goals will come from without X player. It was never a problem, we always did fine.
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We haven't been so blunt in the striking department like this for many years so worrying
 
Sabitzer can play in attack, he is a clever proper football player. I’m not worried.
 
Weghorst.

Cometh the hour, cometh the MAN!

The first player to score three consecutive hattricks in a row in PL history.
 
Martial obviously.

Weghorst is just a loanee. Cannot even make any money from his transfer. Better to cut loss and stop playing him.
 
I think the problem is more when the team expect Rashford (earlier in the season it was Ronaldo) to score but he has a bad day.

If you've got Fernandes, Casemiro, Eriksen, McTominay, Sancho, Antony and Martial (+ others) all looking to get a goal, then we should be ok in terms of scoring enough to get top 4.

Likewise, we need more players trying to get an assist than simply expecting Fernandes to create chances.

I really hope we've abandoned the Weghorst experiment.
 
We will now have Casemiro and Eriksen back, so I fully expect us to dominate more and create a lot more chances. Rashford will not be there to finish, but others will have to step up. Honestly, I think we will be fine.
 
With Casemiro and Eriksen back I think Bruno Fernandes will move further forward, link up with Martial and score some useful goals. He will be at his gung ho best like a machine banging in the goals or creating them for TM.
 
Rampant Red Rodriguez said:
With Casemiro and Eriksen back I think Bruno Fernandes will move further forward, link up with Martial and score some useful goals. He will be at his gung ho best like a machine banging in the goals or creating them for TM.
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How many goals has Fernandes assisted for Martial? Feels like a fair few since he joined.
 
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