Borys
Statistics Wizard
This is correct, but the point still stands, if he remains our star player we will need to adjust the team to him.He reminds you of Ronaldo at Madrid? He is not even 10% of what Ronaldo was at Madrid.
This is correct, but the point still stands, if he remains our star player we will need to adjust the team to him.He reminds you of Ronaldo at Madrid? He is not even 10% of what Ronaldo was at Madrid.
He was the only one looking dangerous yesterday but his off the ball work is Ronaldo esque bad. Unacceptable really. How are you going to build a pressing machine with players like that?
He reminds me of Ronaldo at Madrid. As brilliant as he was, it required the whole team to be adjusted to him. When Madrid was attacking, Ronaldo used to do some stepovers and if the opportunity to run with the ball didn't arise, he would just pass it to defenders and go back to starting position. You very rarely saw him do anything in the buildup (even 1-2s), and you never saw him do anything off the ball.
Madrid got very lucky with Benzema as he needed to adjust his game to accommodate for Ronaldo, and he did it amazingly well.
When Andy Cole came to the club he became a well rounded player.
I believe if Pep had to use Rashford, day 1 he'd be forcing him to work on his passing/holding and tracking back and would be much improved by now, Pep knows how poor he is with his comments in the FA Cup final about him not being able to keep the ball.
Have no idea, what did pep say?When Andy Cole came to the club he became a well rounded player.
I believe if Pep had to use Rashford, day 1 he'd be forcing him to work on his passing/holding and tracking back and would be much improved by now, Pep knows how poor he is with his comments in the FA Cup final about him not being able to keep the ball.
Yeah agree. A lot of agendas against the man in here. Sad to see.He is being criticised for alot more than that.
Sums up my thoughts nicely. The amount of times I see players run 2-3 yards past him and he doesn't even put in the effort of pressing them is too high.
I think him becoming the star man after last year, coupled with the fact that his best mates are Lingard and Sancho, that should tell you already quiete a bit the work ethic he has. As they say: You are the sum average of the 5 closest people you spend your time with.
Fairly certain that SAF wouldn't tolerate his attitude. Everyone was expected to run their socks off in his teams, well everyone except Cantona and Ronaldo.
I thought it goes without saying that Ronaldo at Madrid was a magnificent player. I am pointing out that Ronaldo transformed into that version of himself because that gave him the most goals, but that was only possible because the team adjusted to him. I am not sure if this is what we should aim for with Rashford.I can only hope @Cassidy is as eager to defend the rest of our players.
In terms of tracking back, there’s two points to make:
Rashfords average position is usually further forward than anyone else, to no surprise that’s also the case against Brighton. It’s not much of a surprise that after the crucial goals he scored last season, we’re trying to consistently find him in the positions where he’s most likely to create/score. As a result, he won’t track back as much as say Antony, which is only natural given the role he has in the team and what is no doubt a part of Ten Hags strategy.
However, what you do expect is that his pressing is on point when the opposition has the ball close to him, close down passing lanes and don’t allow them time on the ball. I’d say he usually fails miserably here.
Yes, some of the stuff thrown at him is over the top, but i honestly can’t grasp how someone can look at that match, even watch it in replay, and come to the conclusion he’s done well. We consistently tried to get the ball to him in positions where he could cause Brighton trouble and i’d say we were good at it for the vast majority of the first half. Rashford had 9 shots, that is one shot less than all of Brightons attempts and they scored 3 goals and could’ve easily had 4 considering their one on one with Onana. Now, if Rashford was the only attacking player up front and we were desperate for him to do something on his own, those numbers would make sense, but that’s not the case. So many situations where he’d have great options for passes, Reguilon on an overlap with space in behind, Højlund making runs in behind, players available outside the box, and the usual outcome is that he either tries to go past one too many players or he tries to shoot. You can accept a certain level of selfishness, especially if we’re several goals up, but consistently being selfish when it’s 0-0, when we’re down a goal, when we’re down two goals is simply unacceptable at this level. It’s a numbers game and you go for probability, consistently going for individual glory won’t get us anywhere.
Again, you can only look at Brightons goals and the awareness the players have. They look up to see where the teammates are positioned and play as a unit rather than individuals, risk reward. Reverse yesterday and give Brighton similar situations as we had in the first and second half, do you think they’d walk off the pitch with only one goal? I doubt it. Would we have scored 3? No way.
Even the decision making for the goal that was disallowed was shambolic. He had several passing options, there’s no need to continue attempting to go past players and narrowing the angle more and more. Even if the pass doesn’t make it to the intended player, just hitting a ball into the most dangerous area in front of goal increases the likelyhood of someone getting a touch and the ball ending up in the back of the net.
Needs to improve his decision making
Ronaldo had several stages at Madrid, up until the point where he was «only» banging in a shitload of goals with Benzema playing second fiddle. In his initial years there he was a completely different player in a very different role, being both a creative part of the team and goalscorer. Either way, for the majority of the time he was miles above 99,9% of the rest of the players in the world. Ronaldo’s role was earned by pretty much completely dominating the league and it was also a case of longevity at the highest level when he wasn’t able to play the same way as he used to. It’s not like his later years at Juventus and Manchester United, where you sacrifice everything else to consistently try to get the ball to him in front of goal.
I'm not sure it's bad technical coaching that's to blame for the player he is now as much as man management. He used to press and play like this wasn't a chore. This seemed to change in the period he became the Mancunian Princess Diana.
Have no idea, what did pep say?
Well his 3 month hot streak last season got us 3rd in the league and a trophy. He got 30 goals. 30 goals!This mantle he has of 'most dangerous' player for us is a complete myth.
We'd be exponentially more dangerous without him sucking up the vast majority of our attacks with his selfishness
This. Its always someone else to blame. Next they will be blaming the tea lady for not doing her job properly.Blame previous managers, blame the rest of the team, ask why players that often weren't even playing why they didn't do any better, question why we're even taking about Rashford when there are other players who might also be poor, accuse fans of having an agenda against him
The video of us "pressing" yesterday was damning for Rashford. Shades of the famous Martial vs Sheffield United sequence.
Do me a favour. He scored more goals last season than Welbeck has scored for the last 5 years in total, possibly more.As the Brighton fans were singing, he’s a shit Danny Welbeck
Well his 3 month hot streak last season got us 3rd in the league and a trophy. He got 30 goals. 30 goals!
I get the criticism, I really do, but the fact is he's been the only goal threat from our front 3 for a long time. It sticks in my craw when I see people throwing hate at him, when he's taking on our attacking responsibility single handed.
Yes it's probably gone to his head and he's overdoing things then getting tired and sulking. I don't like to see it and Ten Hag needs a word with him. But the revisionism that we'd be a better side without him is laughable. Who replaces him? Garnacho? He's nowhere near the player and he's barely ready to start games, never mind take on that goalscoring responsibility.
He reminds me of Ronaldo at Madrid. As brilliant as he was, it required the whole team to be adjusted to him. When Madrid was attacking, Ronaldo used to do some stepovers and if the opportunity to run with the ball didn't arise, he would just pass it to defenders and go back to starting position. You very rarely saw him do anything in the buildup (even 1-2s), and you never saw him do anything off the ball.
Madrid got very lucky with Benzema as he needed to adjust his game to accommodate for Ronaldo, and he did it amazingly well.
We should have sold him and Shaw in the summer after their "one good season per 2 years" mentality. Now we have to wait till 2025 for them to have high value again.
This logic is just bizarre. He created a goal for Hojlund yesterday, unfortunately chalked off. He got 8 or 9 assists last season as well as being by far our top goalscorer. He's literally the only threat. Remove him and we are in big big trouble.He'll always be one of our main goal threats as long as he's on the pitch because he won't pass, he won't make runs to open space for others, and he wont work so others pick up the slack. Once we finally move on from him we will see the hindrance he has been on our team.
This is our Spice boys era where we have popular players who play for themselves and their egos, and we win nothing.
Yeah agree. A lot of agendas against the man in here. Sad to see.
No ageda personally. My main problem with Rashford is actually the fans. Always thought he s a good player, but bar those 4months last season he has very rarely been close to the star man a lot of fans seem to think he is. Talented but there are a lot of players in our league as good if not better than Rashford....like last season a work colleague who is a fan said he wouldnt swap him for any player in the world when he had that godo spell......like really?
MOTD? I haven’t been able to bring myself to watching it yet. How bad is it?
Saw it online. Noticed it's now posted in the manager thread also a couple of pages back. Obviously not as bad as Martial, but him casually jogging/walking right next to their ball carrier 3-4 times while some of his teammates are pressing doesn't look good for either him nor the manager who allows it. We are giving an inconsistant but talented player the Ronaldo heroball treatment because we are unable to build any sort of team cohesion. The video also shows how out of sync and half-hearted our press is.
Shaw is a fantastic player
I do think Rashford will go next summer. Good LWs are quite plentiful and we should get at least £120m for him. Leao, Kvara, Mitoma all good shouts.I'd bin him for a massive amount and buy someone else. Would like Kvaratskhelia, but he is just too expensive. Mitoma might be more obtainable. Whether they would want to come here is another matter, of course.
This logic is just bizarre. He created a goal for Hojlund yesterday, unfortunately chalked off. He got 8 or 9 assists last season as well as being by far our top goalscorer. He's literally the only threat. Remove him and we are in big big trouble.
Better to concentrate on spreading the threat. Hojlund will help with that but he's only had one game.
Rashford was not the problem yesterday. He really wasn't.
Rashford was one of the best pressers in the team in his first year or so, he was excellent at pressing, but then Ole made him godlike figure on the pitch, and Tan Hag continued to give him freedom to not press at all and pretend he is Messi on the pitch. So yeah, it's obviously a managers' fault he's become so lazy, because naturally he wasn't like that.
Same as they both allowed Mctominay to jog casually back any time the opposition counter attack us, to allow him to start so many times as a midfielder for Manchester United and not track back is simply amateur coaching.
Out of curiosity which LW in the league would you swap him for?
Shaw is a fantastic player