He simple answer: That depends.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 5
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 0
The point is that some posters here keep banging about some (invisible?) potential while ignoring actual performances.
If you want to talk about his amazing potential then make a thread "how awesome will Hojlund be" and then we can debate about his flaws and strengths.
This is performance thread where we talk about performances of our first choice striker. And those performances (and numbers) are way, way bellow standard which United first 11 player should have.
That is not what you said. You said he played like a little developed youth player, which is not the same as struggling in some aspects of the game. Most players have clear flaws in their game.
No, I don't. But there is a difference in acknowledging a young player's talent and potential and shitting on a young player when he clearly isn't ready to lead the line for us. Omorodion couldn't play for Atletico, Duran isn't Villa's starter, Ferguson can't get ahead of Welbeck etc. Young strikers aren't ready to lead a top team's forward line unless you're Agüero, Haaland or Ronaldo. It is not his fault we're a terribly run club who put unrealistic expectations to our players.
In that case then we should all bash Mainoo in his performance thread. It is about his performances after all, not his qualities or potential.
Ok. Tell me then where exactly is that big potential and talent in him. Seriously, that "potential and talent" is repeated 100 times already. And please, please, don't start with quick and strong.
You really picked wrong example.
Kid in his first season (with only 18 years old) bossed in midfield last year. And in every game you could see amazing talent which that kid has.
How did he play tonight ?
And we could say that about the entire squad so what do we do?
He is a very good finisher for one. He has a powerful shot, and can finish with both feet. He is actually pretty decent at using his weaker foot too, not just for finishing. Then you have his instincts for attacking low crosses into the box, which is kind of his specialty. Sadly, we have three wingers that are on the lower percentile for crossing into the box, as they are more interested in cutting in to shoot.
His hold-up play is good for his age, and showed last season he can hold off some of the best defenders in the league, he just has to learn to use his body more consistently. He is a pretty good passer for a striker, with a great weight of pass, which should have resulted in more assists last season. And then, his dribbling for someone with his size isn't too bad. He isn't a nimble striker with excellent agility or technique, but he has created chances for himself with his dribbling and scored from that as well.
And of course, his pace (dribbling and beating van de Ven isn't something a lot of strikers can do) is a strong asset. He is strong, but in PL, it doesn't matter much if you use your body incorrectly at the situations where you need to use it right, and that's something he needs to improve, and most strikers adapt to that in PL with experience, like Watkins, Solanke and even Kane had to learn.
It is actually hard not to see the potential unless you really don't want to, which seems to be the case for you. You want another striker type, and that is fine, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have potential. His set of skills is clear to everyone, but he also has weaknesses. If he can hone those skills and learn to use them combined and consistently, then he will be a very, very good striker.
I mean, that was the whole point and you're literally making my argument for me. You said it is a performance thread, so we should discuss his performances, so why are you talking about what he did last season? Or his qualities? What use have they been this season? He has been poor this season and quite invisible, and the only quality he has really shown in these games so far are press resistance. What about passing, creating chances, defensive work rate, pace and controlling the game? A 32 year old past it Eriksen has been much better with a significantly greater impact. To me, he looks slow and a bit careless these days.You really picked wrong example.
Kid in his first season (with only 18 years old) bossed in midfield last year. And in every game you could see amazing talent which that kid has.
Even still, that doesn't mean I go into his performance thread and criticise him. He is young, learning and adapting, and shouldn't be playing as much as he does.
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Yes, he does often play like a little developed player, which doesn't mean he's incapable of scoring every now and then. He's weak in the air, weak on the ground (his duel success rate is generally sub 40%), is usually flat footed, is nowhere to be seen in the box (McTominay was much better at attacking balls in the box and I never thought he was good enough for us) etc.
Twitter seems to suggest he had another stinker tonight and was pulled before the hour mark. 4 touches apparently….but that was a report in Twitter.
Thought you didn’t want to discuss potential here?
Also, you don’t ask because you genuinely want to listen, cause many of us have told you all about it for a year. You just ignore it as is evident by your quotes in bold. What you want is to be right so you keep cherry picking and doubling down on your hardened beliefs.
That’s moronic. I saw the match and he played well. Held the ball, won duels, created space and made a brilliant pass that could’ve gotten him an assist.
That’s Twitter for you. Good to hear as we need the lad in some form of groove for this weekend. He wasn’t hooked because of injury was he?
He'll score on Saturday
He is 21. He is developing. There are weak aspects in every young player. Do you honestly believe he should be good at everything? If that are your expectations of our players, then you can't be satisfied with any of them.
The whole point of buying young players is for them to develop, and not be played as our main players, especially not strikers. It is not his fault that our board were amateurs. Putting unrealistic expectations on a player because our club decided to pay big money for him is on the club, not him, and demanding him to deliver equivalent to that fee is quite frankly idiotic.
Yes, this is the situation we're in. It's as fine to talk about his strengths and whatever you consider his ceiling to be as it is to discuss his limitations. This is the performance thread. His shortcomings cannot be ignored.