No wide players signed = poor season ahead

Redstain

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Lots of emphasis on the defence / midfield as a state of urgency which is understandable given the loss of individuals and the unreliability of others but the area that has demonstrated a very low standard for two consecutive seasons is the wide forwards / attackers.

They are fundamental to the low goal difference metrics, United scored the least amount of goals in the top 8 (22/23) season and in the recent (23/24) season it's depleted even further being the least in the top 10.

Hojlund overperformed last year when you assess his conversions, he's thrived from having a dearth of service so a new striker won't balance the attack if we objectively assess the data.

To mirror Ragnick's vocabulary this is an area that needs open heart surgery, lowest output in the attack across the top 6, this is a concern:

City
Foden - Grealish - Silva - Doku = 31G / 26A

Arsenal
Saka - Martinelli - Trossard = 34G / 13A

Spurs
Son - Kulusevski - Johson = 30G / 23A

Villa
Baily - Diaby - Mcginn = 22G / 21A

Liverpool
Salah - Diaz - Gakpo = 34G / 20A

Chelsea
Palmer - Sterling - Noni - Mudryk = 40G / 15A

United
Anthony - Rashford - Garnacho - Amad = 16G /8A
 
Yeah it’s not a great selection (on current form) but in the modern game it’s all linked.

Defense / midfield have a massive role in starting and sustaining attacks.

We’ve been routinely playing with 3-4 who are technically well off it. You only need to see the difference Shaw and Martinez have on the team.
 
Berry berry shrew indeed. We need one, at least a young potential if not a first teamer.
 
Rashford, Garnacho and Amad are fine as 3 of the 4. Antony needs replacing but it probably won't be easy to sell him.

Nico Williams would be a nice addition. Salary would be high but his buyout is very reasonable.
 
Yes, we have problems all over the pitch and the wings are no exception. Garnacho is very good for his age and he's probably our best winger, but even he needs to improve. Amad is still a question mark. Rashford should probably be sold, but we will probably keep him because there are more pressing issues. Antony is a lost cause.

Still, there is a chance that they will have an easier job if we fix our midfield and defence. That's a big "if" though.
 
City and Arsenal are so far ahead of United in that area, so ignoring those 2 teams for now.

A more realistic target would be Liverpool, Spurs, Villa so United would need another 8-10 goals next season. Considering Amad missed around 28 games and the natural improvement you would expect from Garnacho and Hojlund. Another 10G between them isn't a crazy expectation tbh.

Ideally United would Sell Sancho/Greenwood and if by some miracle could also move Antony on, then replacing those 3 with a quality wide player would be perfect.
 
RuudTom83 said:
City and Arsenal are so far ahead of United in that area, so ignoring those 2 teams for now.

A more realistic target would be Liverpool, Spurs, Villa so United would need another 8-10 goals next season. Considering Amad missed around 28 games and the natural improvement you would expect from Garnacho and Hojlund. Another 10G between them isn't a crazy expectation tbh.

Ideally United would Sell Sancho/Greenwood and if by some miracle could also move Antony on, then replacing those 3 with a quality wide player would be perfect.
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Agreed I initially wasn't going to include City / Arsenal as the more immediate rivalry will be between the rest.
 
Redstain said:
Lots of emphasis on the defence / midfield as a state of urgency which is understandable given the loss of individuals and the unreliability of others but the area that has demonstrated a very low standard for two consecutive seasons is the wide forwards / attackers.

They are fundamental to the low goal difference metrics, United scored the least amount of goals in the top 8 (22/23) season and in the recent (23/24) season it's depleted even further being the least in the top 10.

Hojlund overperformed last year when you assess his conversions, he's thrived from having a dearth of service so a new striker won't balance the attack if we objectively assess the data.

To mirror Ragnick's vocabulary this is an area that needs open heart surgery, lowest output in the attack across the top 6, this is a concern:

City
Foden - Grealish - Silva - Doku = 31G / 26A

Arsenal
Saka - Martinelli - Trossard = 34G / 13A

Spurs
Son - Kulusevski - Johson = 30G / 23A

Villa
Baily - Diaby - Mcginn = 22G / 21A

Liverpool
Salah - Diaz - Gakpo = 34G / 20A

Chelsea
Palmer - Sterling - Noni - Mudryk = 40G / 15A

United
Anthony - Rashford - Garnacho - Amad = 16G /8A
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I feel like if you're going to include McGinn and Foden in this, you need to include Bruno for us. Also worth pointing out penalty kicks for Palmer, Saka, Son and Salah.
 
CM said:
Rashford, Garnacho and Amad are fine as 3 of the 4. Antony needs replacing but it probably won't be easy to sell him.

Nico Williams would be a nice addition. Salary would be high but his buyout is very reasonable.
Click to expand...

I think Garnacho and Amad are good but for a team that has top four aspirations should be more revolved to a squad role.

They only played extensive games (slight exception to Amad) because their counterparts (Rashford, Anthony) underperformed.

I think United need a player of Williams profile, an outstanding attacker in their respective position not another prospect.
 
Go back a year and Rashford had 30 goals. He'll probably have an up year. It's about the general team. Garnacho and Rashford on the flanks can be very good, garnacho is improving constantly and Rashford has a huge range of outcomes. If it's last season Rashford, then yes it's a problem. If it's rashfrom from 2019-21, 22/23, then we are fine. Depth wise Antony as a 4th choice is fine and Amad as a 3rd choice is fine. It's not winning titles, but it's enough for us to have a good season. We do need players to make the step up or eventually sell Antony/possibly rashford if he doesn't pick it up and then replace him with a proper top winger like Kvara.

Given we have so much to do in our team, it's not high on priorities. But I'm guessing next summer we'll replace Antony with a better wide player.
 
diarm said:
I feel like if you're going to include McGinn and Foden in this, you need to include Bruno for us. Also worth pointing out penalty kicks for Palmer, Saka, Son and Salah.
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Foden has started the majority of fixtures in a wide position but due to City overloading the midfield he transitions centrally. That is definitively different from Bruno who is exclusively a hybrid 10 / 8 contributing to both the build up and the attack but will on a less frequent occasion play out wide.

McGinn also played more games in the wider areas for Villa last season.

Genuinely there are outliers as the case with reflecting on any data but the consensus is the same, United wide players are under firing and the solution for one player to demonstrate a career high level of form is a positive anticipation but it shouldn't be an expectation.
 
For context the numbers for our 2022/23 season with Rashford, Garnacho, Antony and Sancho were 50G / 20A, which is much better output than any of our rivals last season. Of course the most recent season is more valid in terms of the current state, but just saying that with the same trio + Amad instead of Sancho we put out very strong numbers just one year before. That could imply that it's not as bleak as the more recent numbers suggests.

Edit: I noticed you used the numbers exclusively from the Premier League. 23G / 13A in all comps last season. 30G / 12A in PL 2022/23. Although I don't know why one would use only one competition when it's only around 73% of the matches we played last season. 61% in 2022/23.

So perhaps G/A per match in all comps would be the best way to compare these numbers.
 
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Bingo been saying this all season.

This team is toast with the same options going into next year.

Rashford is still our best wide player but is unreliable. Our most reliable winger is Garnacho and he is not particularly great at scoring or creating. Amad is a wildcard and Antony is shite.
 
We're only signing a wide player if we sell Rashford and/or Antony. Amad will feel like a new player, he only played 471 minutes last season with a G+A per 90 of 0.57. For context, Bruno's G+A per 90 was 0.59.
 
Redstain said:
I think Garnacho and Amad are good but for a team that has top four aspirations should be more revolved to a squad role.

They only played extensive games (slight exception to Amad) because their counterparts (Rashford, Anthony) underperformed.

I think United need a player of Williams profile, an outstanding attacker in their respective position not another prospect.
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Both are still young players who will continue to get better with first team exposure but we have to get the balance right with how often they play. Garnacho probably played a bit too much towards the back end of last season, while Amad didn't get the minutes he deserved.

The hope would be that Rashford gets closer to his form of the season before and we bring in another good wide attacker so it reduces the burden on the younger players. That applies to Hojlund as well with the striker situation.

We need to take a more holistic approach than looking at just the personnel in those wide positions though. Our team was horribly unbalanced last season and that's not conducive to playing good football. Recruitment needs to get better across the board and the manager needs to take responsibility for getting the team playing as a unit instead of whingeing about injuries all season.
 
CM said:
Rashford, Garnacho and Amad are fine as 3 of the 4. Antony needs replacing but it probably won't be easy to sell him.

Nico Williams would be a nice addition. Salary would be high but his buyout is very reasonable.
Click to expand...
Them 3 aren’t getting us lots of numbers. Amad and Garnacho still young and we can’t depend on one player being inform again. Depends if Rashford wants to turn up or not. Bruno chips in with goals. Also depends if Højlund can get double digit numbers next season.
 
DJ_21 said:
Them 3 aren’t getting us lots of numbers. Amad and Garnacho still young and we can’t depend on one player being inform again. Depends if Rashford wants to turn up or not. Bruno chips in with goals. Also depends if Højlund can get double digit numbers next season.
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Not sure what you're expecting for next season then. We won't sign more than one winger and it looks like Zirkzee is the striker we're settling on. I think there's more than enough talent there to work with, that's where the manager comes in to get the best out of those players. Just because players are young, it doesn't mean they can't contribute.
 
There really isn't anyone the market that can solve this problem. Nico Williams has had one good season, and even then his goal output was low.

We need goals, and Rasmus is just not close to ready at the moment. Outside of Rashford recovering form, there's nothing we can really do which is scary.
 
top1whoisman said:
For context the numbers for our 2022/23 season with Rashford, Garnacho, Antony and Sancho were 50G / 20A, which is much better output than any of our rivals last season. Of course the most recent season is more valid in terms of the current state, but just saying that with the same trio + Amad instead of Sancho we put out very strong numbers just one year before. That could imply that it's not as bleak as the more recent numbers suggests.

Edit: I noticed you used the numbers exclusively from the Premier League. 23G / 13A in all comps last season. 30G / 12A in PL 2022/23. Although I don't know why one would use only one competition when it's only around 73% of the matches we played last season. 61% in 2022/23.

So perhaps G/A per match in all comps would be the best way to compare these numbers.
Click to expand...
The PL is the only competition in which all compared clubs played the same amount of games against the same teams. That's why it's the most precise comparison you can make. If you look at all competitions you get biased data due to drawing luck in cups and the different level in EL vs CL etc.
 
CM said:
Not sure what you're expecting for next season then. We won't sign more than one winger and it looks like Zirkzee is the striker we're settling on. I think there's more than enough talent there to work with, that's where the manager comes in to get the best out of those players. Just because players are young, it doesn't mean they can't contribute.
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True. But it often means there inconsistent
 
Our attack is a question mark definitely, but I think the issue is more structural than it is individual player quality. Past three seasons we as a club haven't broken 60 league goals.
 
pcaming said:
There really isn't anyone the market that can solve this problem. Nico Williams has had one good season, and even then his goal output was low.

We need goals, and Rasmus is just not close to ready at the moment. Outside of Rashford recovering form, there's nothing we can really do which is scary.
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Ye we do but bringing in Zirkzee may improve the style of play and may improve the wingers slightly. A better style of play can sometimes mean more goals as a team. But ye no one really stands out as scoring 20+ goals on their own.
 
Redstain said:
Lots of emphasis on the defence / midfield as a state of urgency which is understandable given the loss of individuals and the unreliability of others but the area that has demonstrated a very low standard for two consecutive seasons is the wide forwards / attackers.

They are fundamental to the low goal difference metrics, United scored the least amount of goals in the top 8 (22/23) season and in the recent (23/24) season it's depleted even further being the least in the top 10.

Hojlund overperformed last year when you assess his conversions, he's thrived from having a dearth of service so a new striker won't balance the attack if we objectively assess the data.

To mirror Ragnick's vocabulary this is an area that needs open heart surgery, lowest output in the attack across the top 6, this is a concern:

City
Foden - Grealish - Silva - Doku = 31G / 26A

Arsenal
Saka - Martinelli - Trossard = 34G / 13A

Spurs
Son - Kulusevski - Johson = 30G / 23A

Villa
Baily - Diaby - Mcginn = 22G / 21A

Liverpool
Salah - Diaz - Gakpo = 34G / 20A

Chelsea
Palmer - Sterling - Noni - Mudryk = 40G / 15A

United
Anthony - Rashford - Garnacho - Amad = 16G /8A
Click to expand...

A lot of that depends on what kind of season rashford has. Good rashford adds another 10 or so goals to that tally.
 
DJ_21 said:
True. But it often means there inconsistent
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Won't disagree with that but there are also plenty examples of older players we have signed who haven't provided that consistency either. I'd rather see us give the likes of Amad and Garnacho a go than shell out on players who turn out like Alexis Sanchez or Antony have.
 
stefan92 said:
The PL is the only competition in which all compared clubs played the same amount of games against the same teams. That's why it's the most precise comparison you can make. If you look at all competitions you get biased data due to drawing luck in cups and the different level in EL vs CL etc.
Click to expand...

That is true. Then again some people use only PL when bashing Højlund. But yeah it’s hard to come up with 100% equal ways to compare with all comps. Just saying that for example the 61% of games the season before last is far from an ideal way too.
 
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Another striker is a far greater priority.

Rashford can be a bit like Luke Shaw in the sense that you can say at least he does have some good/very good seasons, which, in terms of consistency, is not good enough really for a team with aspirations but it's not a total failure either. If he can get back to his 22-23 form then that would be a big help.

Unpopular opinion but Antony isn't as terrible as last season or what some people would suggest. His first season wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as last year. Amad will improve and Garnacho is the one we're all looking at and thinking he could go up another level to be a star (though it might be another year or two yet).
 
CM said:
Won't disagree with that but there are also plenty examples of older players we have signed who haven't provided that consistency either. I'd rather see us give the likes of Amad and Garnacho a go than shell out on players who turn out like Alexis Sanchez or Antony have.
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100%. Agreed.
 
Irwin99 said:
Another striker is a far greater priority.

Rashford can be a bit like Luke Shaw in the sense that you can say at least he does have some good/very good seasons, which, in terms of consistency, is not good enough really for a team with aspirations but it's not a total failure either. If he can get back to his 22-23 form then that would be a big help.

Unpopular opinion but Antony isn't as terrible as last season or what some people would suggest. His first season wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as last year. Amad will improve and Garnacho is the one we're all looking at and thinking he could go up another level to be a star (though it might be another year or two yet).
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What’s a new striker gonna do differently? Unless it’s a versatile forward like zirkee
 
RuudTom83 said:
City and Arsenal are so far ahead of United in that area, so ignoring those 2 teams for now.

A more realistic target would be Liverpool, Spurs, Villa so United would need another 8-10 goals next season. Considering Amad missed around 28 games and the natural improvement you would expect from Garnacho and Hojlund. Another 10G between them isn't a crazy expectation tbh.

Ideally United would Sell Sancho/Greenwood and if by some miracle could also move Antony on, then replacing those 3 with a quality wide player would be perfect.
Click to expand...

You mention Hojlund, but if we’re counting centre forwards - then you would need to add Watkins to any Villa collection, which would still have them comfortably ahead of us.

In fact, if you only add Hojlund to our group, but don’t add the central striker to any of the others, we STILL fall short of all but Villa there. We have a long way to go in this department.
 
golden_blunder said:
What’s a new striker gonna do differently? Unless it’s a versatile forward like zirkee
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Rotation option if Hojlund has another one of his barren spells and take the heat off the young lad. Was kind of difficult last season with a constantly injured Antony Martial, a consistently inconsistent Hojlund and Rashford (less said the better) as the only centre forward options.
 
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