27 touches in 88 minutes and lost the ball 11 times.
£350k a week.
And he still could have been the hero... On another day, he could have had either an assist or a goal. On a perfect day, he could have registered an assist
and a goal to his name. Classy ones, too. He actually did the best he could in a dysfunctional side against the best team in the world.
Which, kind of, showcases the conundrum with him. Because when he receives the ball in the wide areas and everything goes through him (it results in many touches), he remains a player who's looking for his moments in the game. I've argued this before. He's a forward that doesn't want to play centrally. And since he's not at making things happen on the half-turn, he also wants to occupy a midfielder's role without doing any of the midfielder's work. He's at his absolute best when he's running with the ball at top speed but, when he doesn’t get that, he's forcing things in search for that golden opportunity.
I suppose his partnership with Hojlund is a work in progress and that it will improve in the near future. But i also feel that, with a "proper" forward in the team, some of his struggles derive from the fact that he's asked to do a lot of "midfield" stuff. It didn't work when Mourinho brought Lukaku in. His numbers were poor and there was a lot of noise about how to get the best out of him. The manager got the sack and he got a bumper contract. Then, Solskajer brings in Ronaldo which, again, shoved him into the role of the provider from the left side. His numbers dropped, the manager got the sack, and he got a bumper contract. He enjoyed his best season under ETH by being the focal point of our attack from his wide left position. But we still missed something. Another dimension to our game in the attacking third and the ability to be threatening in what constitutes 80% of the 90 minutes: At normal speed and against set defences. We go and buy a forward who will basically occupy lots of the spaces in the box he wants to run into. The player who would come from the midfield to the wide areas and allow Rashford to tuck inside (Mount) is also still struggling. It's a mess. He has some excuses but, at some point, there has to be a debate about whether he's worth all the needed adjustments to get the best out of him and make him our main man.