Joshua Zirkzee | signed for Manchester United

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LawCharltonBest said:
This is not a dig at Zirkzee but I would love to ask Ten Hag (off the record so he is more likely to tell the truth) where he thinks the goals are coming from next season

Hojlund and Zirkzee haven’t yet had a high goalscoring season. Rashford is hot and cold. Garnacho is talented but not yet known as a prolific goalscorer. Antony is a floodlight smasher.

At the moment cannot see anything but another low goalscoring season. Hope someone steps up
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At 24% Hojlund has a better chance conversion rate then Haaland (23%) which suggest that scoring goals was never United's problem. That's confirmed by our shooting accuracy at 35% which puts us at par with that of Liverpool and Arsenal

Issues start cropping up the moment we analyse passing accuracy. We're at 83% which is less then Liverpool (86%), Arsenal (87%) and City (90%). But what damning us is the big chances created stat. Arsenal created 87 big chances, City 97 and Liverpool 102. United created just 60 which puts us worse then Spurs (90) and Villa (79) and around Palace (59) and Everton (63) territory. Then there's of course the goals conceded issue. We're at 58 which is higher then Everton (51) let alone the the likes of Liverpool (41), City (34) and Arsenal (29)

United are trying to improve that. By adding competent defenders/DMs who also have a high passing accuracy rate. De Ligt is in the 93% percentile in terms of passing completed while Ugarte passing accuracy is 91.7% which would be a huge improvement on Casemiro who hovers around the 80%. If we retain ball possession then we have more chances to score goals and less chances of suffering goals ourselves.

But were would Zirkzee fit in? Zirkzee is a weird type of striker. First of all his lack of goal ratio is a bit underrated. The guy had scored on a regular basis wherever he's been given ample first team experience (Anderlecht and last season) Secondly the guy has a knack in creating assists for others. Hojlund created 14 assists in 159 games. Zirkzee created 49 assists in 213 matches.
 
LawCharltonBest said:
This is not a dig at Zirkzee but I would love to ask Ten Hag (off the record so he is more likely to tell the truth) where he thinks the goals are coming from next season

Hojlund and Zirkzee haven’t yet had a high goalscoring season. Rashford is hot and cold. Garnacho is talented but not yet known as a prolific goalscorer. Antony is a floodlight smasher.

At the moment cannot see anything but another low goalscoring season. Hope someone steps up
Click to expand...

I think all of Hojlund, Zirkzee, Garnacho, Rashford, Fernandes, Sancho and Mount are capable of offering a goalscoring threat.

We need to concentrate on providing as many of them (well, those of which we determine have a place in the squad going forward) as we can with the conditions to thrive. If we utilise some combination of these players as part of a well balanced team, then the goals will follow.
 
Best case scenario for him has to involve unlocking Rashford via his linkup play as well as helping us have a more measured attack rather than the 0 to 100 attacks we try and generate leading to us giving up possession and control far too easily when the risky passes don’t come off.
Will be interesting to see if there is a plan for him and Hojlund to play together in addition to how Bruno fits with that or if ETH purely sees him as an alternative to Rasmus.
 
Quick signing with not much drama.

For all his faults, EtH's signings are pretty consistent, in terms of profile: hardworker, intense with tenacity, and at good age.

Although hopefully he's not on high wage, so there's still room for rewarding if he turns as good as Martinez.
 
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