Ekeke
Full Member
Did fairly well with his holdup play in the first half, second half way too quiet. Kept trying throughout ET and at least he scored his penalty which was a lot of pressure. Wasnt one of our issues today imo
He and Maguire showed the most energy in extra time subs aside. But it’s clear he shot of confidence just like the rest of the team. The chance he had in the box at when he dwelled on the ball instead of getting the shot away quickly showed.Feels like the physicality of the season has taken its toll on him. Looked a physical beast when he started and it’s a complete 180 now
Not good enough.
He’s averaging 1.87 shots a game which puts him in the bottom 9th percentile for strikers across Europe’s top 5. That’s mental. I think a big part of that is down to service, but it can’t be the only excuse.Getting tired of this guy not only not scoring a goal, but not even nearly scoring a goal. Game after game. Even when he had a scoring run, half were ricochets and bundles. It is so rare to see him just have an actual shot on target.
His movement is crap. As much as I dislike Martial the difference is night and day even when hes been playing half arsedHe’s averaging 1.87 shots a game which puts him in the bottom 9th percentile for strikers across Europe’s top 5. That’s mental. I think a big part of that is down to service, but it can’t be the only excuse.
Overall I think he deserves another season when we hopefully play football that looks somewhat like the type you’d expect a big team to play, but there’s definitely some reservations to his game. The pure no.9 stuff doesn’t look natural to him. Worry if it ever will.
One of the rare in this thread who understands the situation.Terrible miss and a great penalty. Looks like a player short on confidence and playing in a system that vastly prefers wingers to score instead of creation. Needs time and a partner to take the pressure off of him.
His lack of ability to create a yard of space and get a shot off is a big concern. Everything in the box looks clunky with him.Getting tired of this guy not only not scoring a goal, but not even nearly scoring a goal. Game after game. Even when he had a scoring run, half were ricochets and bundles. It is so rare to see him just have an actual shot on target.
One of the rare in this thread who understands the situation.
Meanwhile, most of others decided he is not good enough and want to get rid.
He’s averaging 1.87 shots a game which puts him in the bottom 9th percentile for strikers across Europe’s top 5. That’s mental. I think a big part of that is down to service, but it can’t be the only excuse.
Overall I think he deserves another season when we hopefully play football that looks somewhat like the type you’d expect a big team to play, but there’s definitely some reservations to his game. The pure no.9 stuff doesn’t look natural to him. Worry if it ever will.
Looked loads better when Rashford went off. Weird.
Was well marshaled in the first half, but, it was 3 on 1. Actually created space well, eg for McT goal.
But needs to get shots off far faster.
Do believe there's a good player in there though.
Very very difficult to be a top striker without top level technical ability. Another transfer mistake by us overpaying for a decent player.I made the point when and since we signed him, but I really believe that the explosion of Haaland seduced us into buying him. Which is poor if true. Stick to the script. I say that because before one started scoring 50 goals, I would not have seen Haaland’s profile as the sort of player that a top team signs. We’re even seeing the pitfalls of this with Haaland himself IMO. Football was moving towards teams trying to build total football sides, but City and Pep almost ‘sold out’ because maths is maths and Haaland represented a cheat code. The thing is, if the guy doesn’t score 50 goals, or even loads of goals, then it doesn’t work. Hojlund has to score a high number of goals to justify, as he’s not a creator or top link player.
This talk of players like Zirkzee or Sesko spells real danger for him. At the current bar, another promising young striker hardly has to do too much next season to move ahead of him. He’s spent the vast majority of his games here not posing any real threat NOR offering any real creativity. Work rate and hard running gets you a gig far lower down the table than our aspirations.
As you alluded, way too early to cast the dice, but at the same time I’m also not in favour for just putting what we’re seeing down to perfectly normal and expected progression, and just taking for granted that if we just sprinkle some more time, we’ll have a top striker. What we are seeing is a huge let down.