Poor form now is a bit of an understatement, he's been in poor form all season and it's hardly a stretch to include the period from April last year. We're fast approaching a calendar year.
Last season he started out miserably, to the point where he barely made the cut for England, but after the world cup he went on an insane run where he was producing great numbers.. Obviously if you're consistently scoring or assisting then it doesn't really matter as you're having a major positive impact on our results, it's easy to accept, his goals and assists were vital to us making it into the top 4, but as soon as you take the goals/assists away you're left with very little as his pressing up top is non-existing and his overall play is poor.
The point remains the same, you don't have to replace like for like. It's the overall combination of players and how it improves us as a team that matters here. Rashford might very well outscore Diaz this season, the difference is that Diaz contributes a lot more on the pitch, via pressing and overall play, in a team that's favourites to win the title. It's a bit like taking the piss out of Nunez for not scoring enough, failing to understand that he's also a key player for Liverpool because of his overall contribution during matches
I didn’t imply it’s been a poor two weeks, he’s been poor this season. I’m not going to entertain last season at all, it’s ridiculous to start trying to analyse it week by week, it’s clear that he had a good season last season and trying to deny that is ridiculous.
And if you want to swap a goalscorer for some pressing then up to you, but that doesn’t cut it for me. The reason why Liverpool’s are challenging is because they have a 30 goal forward, it’s not because they have a 7 goal forward who presses.
As I said, do what you like on the other wing. Get a winger with whatever alternative qualities you want, but leave the goalscoring one where he is. And if you feel that the goalscoring one is jot doing the job of a goalscorer well enough, then replace him if you think you can find someone who can. But replacing your wide man who is supposed to put up top level numbers with a winger who is supposed to ‘play a different way’ sounds cool, but football isn’t played a different way where you aren’t required to score goals. If we are going to score 50 a season as a team we are going nowhere. Hopefully Hojlund can become a 25 league goal striker, but that remains to be seen, and even if he does, you want a secondary goalscorer who is good for 15ish otherwise you can forget about trying to win trophies I’d say.
I’ve said many times but the problem with Rashford is not his profile, the problem is his form. This idea that it’s a problem that his first instinct isn’t to cross the ball is nonsense for me. It wouldn’t be a problem if he was scoring more goals, which he is very capable of. But we don’t need to replace him with David Beckham. We could do that if we had Salah on the other side. As it stands, Rashford is supposed to be our Salah. And if he isn’t good enough at that, then get a new Salah. The only problem is there are very few who could probably do it even as well as Rashford, let alone better. I’m not married to Rashford blindly, I’m saying he won’t be easy to improve upon.
I think every top team tries to have one of those forwards who are powerful, fast, can scare and run past defenders with and without the ball, and score 20+ goals. They usually start from wide. Even with a Harry Kane, Spurs needed a Son because it’s a different type of threat which makes them a different type of threat. Those are some of the rarest and most valuable players around. Every time we play a team in Europe first thing I check is who is that player for them, that we need to be ‘scared’ of. Usually, their version isn’t all that, so the team would need to out play us and gain territorial advantage etc. But on the continent many teams don’t have a forward like that to worry about, only the top ones because those players all rise to the top quickly due to their rarity. Rashford is the best one we can come up with at the moment, and a player capable of being in that group of elite versions of this player.
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