Wait... so ronaldo the culprit now?
Is there no bottom to this?
Is there no bottom to this?
Unpopular opinion: Ronaldo will be a huge miss
- Thread starter Rajma
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Don't agree at all that it is Ronaldo's fault, when you have a lot of players playing in their wrong positions (including CR7), like Greenwood, Sancho, Pogba. Furthermore you can't expect Ronaldo to be a world class number 9, he was never good in that position at all, including prime years.
You need to play him as an inside forward or left winger (even at 36) if he is to get you goals and assists. It will come at the expense of some players but that can guarantee you goals from set-pieces and crosses (Sancho) when there's another man like Cavani in the box.
The Ronaldo slandering is something curious that has been happening a lot these past few years. The most critical fault in this team is definitely Ole' inability to change his system whatsoever, and his lack of knowledge about how to get the best out of a player, he's been struggling to incorporate VDB, Sancho has yet to play on his RW role and now Ronaldo is looking like shit in his absolute worst position on the pitch. Remember he started as a ball carrier and runner, he doesn't understand the basics of the Center Forward role.
You need to play him as an inside forward or left winger (even at 36) if he is to get you goals and assists. It will come at the expense of some players but that can guarantee you goals from set-pieces and crosses (Sancho) when there's another man like Cavani in the box.
The Ronaldo slandering is something curious that has been happening a lot these past few years. The most critical fault in this team is definitely Ole' inability to change his system whatsoever, and his lack of knowledge about how to get the best out of a player, he's been struggling to incorporate VDB, Sancho has yet to play on his RW role and now Ronaldo is looking like shit in his absolute worst position on the pitch. Remember he started as a ball carrier and runner, he doesn't understand the basics of the Center Forward role.
If Ronaldo is the problem you can let him go to City. In fact he is probably starting to regret not going there now.
He will absolutely tear things up there. Too bad the United connection makes it too hard for him to play there without taking a reputation hit.
He will absolutely tear things up there. Too bad the United connection makes it too hard for him to play there without taking a reputation hit.
I'd seriously doubt this.
Pep never likes a pure poacher in his entire career. He probably hates pure strikers with a passion. Ibra, Eto, Villa, Henry, even Aguero to some extent. You name it. The only striker he's been happy with is Lewan who is much much more than a pure striker.
And Jesus has the best or second best pressing rate among the PL strikers. While Ronaldo has the worst. 2 against 18 or something.
We have to make our entire set up work to service Ronaldo. That might not be the prettiest football but he will win us every game we play if we get the ball to him in the box.
We currently have Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford as wingers who all like to cut inside and shoot, rather than stay wide and cross the ball.
Ole needs to get ruthless and sacrifice other players so we can get the most from having Ronaldo back. If other players suffer then so be it, United is more important than any individual. Ronaldo is our best route to winning games, making him thrive should be the priority - and Ole needs to stop trying to keep so many players happy, which isn't getting results and is jeopardising his job.
We currently have Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford as wingers who all like to cut inside and shoot, rather than stay wide and cross the ball.
Ole needs to get ruthless and sacrifice other players so we can get the most from having Ronaldo back. If other players suffer then so be it, United is more important than any individual. Ronaldo is our best route to winning games, making him thrive should be the priority - and Ole needs to stop trying to keep so many players happy, which isn't getting results and is jeopardising his job.
Or he could get ruthless and move Ronaldo to an impact sub/rotational role, pick and choose his matches rather than being automatic starter and get back to our previous best proven route of winning games under Ole - by having a team focused on Bruno Fernandes.
He wanted to sell Aguero soon as he joined but he didn't because I felt he forced he was too much of a legend of City and he was scoring goals for him too. Don't think he particularly enjoyed him - he tried to use Gabriel Jesus for a long time before aguero made himself back up the first 11.
Juventus finished 4th last season behind Atalanta. Don't worry, this time round man utd will crush Atalanta.
Doesn't matter who is the Manager, Ronaldo has not come here to be a sub and the club didn't bring him back for that either.
Yeah that's conjecture.
He had issues with the former two not because they were pure strikers (they weren't but that's another story), but because their egos were astronomical. Henry speaks glowingly of Pep till today. No documented issues with Villa, and after Aguero and Pep came to an understanding there were no problems.
That said, it's hard to see Pep accommodating a player like Ronaldo who contributes very little in pressing and work effort. Haaland, I could see him working with better.
I don't care how insanely good he is at scoring, it would be crazy to deliberately move potential 20+ goal scorers like Rashford and Greenwood further from the goal just to service Ronaldo, especially since both of them are better at scoring themselves than setting up other players.
He’s purely a goal scorer now. His predatory instincts and finishing is generally quite exceptional. He manages himself very well and you can see he’s perfected the art of choosing his moments to exert himself during a game to conserve his fitness. However, that obviously comes at the expense of very little defensive work and closing the opponent down.
I also imagine him being someone who would quite easily ruffle a few feathers in the dressing room.
I also imagine him being someone who would quite easily ruffle a few feathers in the dressing room.
The club winning is more important than individuals. They have to adapt or die - we've had plenty of players in the past who can adequately assist our strikers and still score a decent tally themselves.
Personally I think servicing Ronaldo is our best route to winning games at this time.
With or without Ronaldo, the Cavani situation would be the same regarding international matches. We probably would be worse off
Ronaldo now though is completely different to all the above, maybe Ibra is the only close comparison given their game now and Ibra was great under Pep (22 goals, 13 assists in 46 games) he just didn't like him and didn't want to be in a team where everything had to go through Messi. He'd be on penalties for City and they'd just be serving him balls on a plate for 90mins.
The fact is he's here and we are going to play him - you have to therefore setup to play to his strengths which are playing in a team that dominates the ball in offensive possession (big problem for us) and where we aren't just going to play long and direct balls (again, issue for us). We have many payers who would suit a possession based style of play and we have wide men who can deliver world class balls (Telles, Shaw, Sancho, Greenwood), I don't really get where the issue is to be honest and why we aren't at least trying to adapt our style.
I think Guardiola initially wanted to base his attack around Ibrahimovic's presence up front, but realized halfway through 09/10 that they'd be even better with Messi in the center and two wide forwards running in behind. Probably the right call in hindsight, 2010/11 was that team's peak once they settled on Messi flanked by Pedro and Villa (no idea what he's doing in that guy's list of pure strikers Guardiola hated or whatever, he adapted his game brilliantly to play along with Messi).
Completely agree with everything else. We've needed to get better at controlling games for ages anyway, which is how you go from high-60s / mid-70s points tallies to actually competing for the title. And when (if?) we do reach that level, Ronaldo is still one of the best players in the world to have on the end of chances,
Where there was that other part of his post where he said, "we'd win every game we played". Would it be worth it to you then?
Yep agree on all. It's a sign of the times I guess that people are pointing fingers but this is one of those really simple things that every football fan can see so clearly: you have to play a certain way with Ronaldo as CF.
I don't even think he has to play as a CF all the time.
It's kinda getting forgotten in this recent run because we're just being overrun by everyone, but one of our biggest problems under Ole has been creating chances and unlocking teams that don't come out and play. That's when you want Ronaldo on the left giving them some movement to worry about. Much better option than Pogba (who for all his talents doesn't move or think like a winger) or Rashford (absolutely lethal when he has space to run in behind, can be frustrating as hell when he doesn't).
It goes back to what I said a few posts ago: if we keep playing crap, Ronaldo is the guy you want to pull goals out of his backside and win games we would have drawn last year. If we get better and dominate games, Ronaldo is the guy to stick 30 league goals a season away. Either way, it's not him holding us back.
If we somehow manage to turn into a City or Bayern-level pressing machine - or hell, even a 2020-Southampton level pressing machine, without Ronaldo on the pitch, then it's time to question whether it's worth having him on the pitch or if his low work-rate actually takes away from the team. Because right now that line of argument is baffling.
It's kinda getting forgotten in this recent run because we're just being overrun by everyone, but one of our biggest problems under Ole has been creating chances and unlocking teams that don't come out and play. That's when you want Ronaldo on the left giving them some movement to worry about. Much better option than Pogba (who for all his talents doesn't move or think like a winger) or Rashford (absolutely lethal when he has space to run in behind, can be frustrating as hell when he doesn't).
It goes back to what I said a few posts ago: if we keep playing crap, Ronaldo is the guy you want to pull goals out of his backside and win games we would have drawn last year. If we get better and dominate games, Ronaldo is the guy to stick 30 league goals a season away. Either way, it's not him holding us back.
If we somehow manage to turn into a City or Bayern-level pressing machine - or hell, even a 2020-Southampton level pressing machine, without Ronaldo on the pitch, then it's time to question whether it's worth having him on the pitch or if his low work-rate actually takes away from the team. Because right now that line of argument is baffling.
I'm not arguing for individuals as I don't care how many goals a certain player scores, it's the total amount of the team that matters and I think that we have a better chance of winning if we play guys like Mason and Marcus to their strenghts instead of pushing them into roles they aren't as good at.
Our attack is also way too predictable as it is already, so to make us even more one dimensional sounds like the wrong way to go. I mean it didn't work that well for Juve so I don't see why it would work for us, especially with an even older Ronaldo in a much better league.
Maybe.. it would be kinda boring to know we were going to win just by reading the lineup.
Atletico play Suarez most but not all the time and he’s their best goalscorer/a great of his generation, Simeone picks his games on the ones that suit him. That’s why the Ferguson video was frustrating, it puts pressure on Ole to play Ronaldo in every match, when he should be picked for certain games. In that way he could possibly be more effective and the team wouldn’t be trapped into forming itself in his image.
On old man that retired as he is not capable of managing a top tier team, understandably, commenting on a team in 2021 is not a problem.
Ronnie is a flat track bully. Play him in 30 games. He shouldn’t start 50 matches.
The idea that we should use Ronaldo as an "impact sub" is an odd one.
He would be a good impact sub though, can’t argue with that.
Once again Ole's playing Ronaldo at CF, expect a shit performance from him
Why don’t people pass to him?
He looks livid.
Something something 36 year old primadonna who causes more problems than he solves.
what a header! I miss headers
Had many chances to score. Can't see him being a problem as his movement is good. If he starts putting more of his chances away, it will be clear that even with his lack of work rate, his inclusion in the team is a must.
Thats the same people who by their logic would want Bamford over Ronaldo because he "presses"
load of shit. Best player in the club by a few light years. Put a real coach their and watch what happens.
I also saw Ronaldo tracking back multiple times for all those press lovers.
I am loving the Fcuk off Cristiano gave to his critics.
If we could bottle that absolute out and out winning mentality he has...
Thanks for that, Ron. Great workrate tonight!
…and a great goal!
Please keep it up.
…and a great goal!
Please keep it up.
Sheer power of will wins games by himself.
Imagine not signing him while Cavani being out for so many matches already.
I bet when new manager comes, he'll bail his arse just as any other.
I bet when new manager comes, he'll bail his arse just as any other.
SIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
HTH.
HTH.
There's a lot of silly sausages on here
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