We are not going to score enough goals

careca07

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Jun 19, 2017
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It’s a problem that’s been getting worse every season, and last time out we were 50 goals behind city and 40 off Arsenal.

While I’m aware we are chasing a striker and ETH acknowledges the issue, it’s unnerving that our focus seems to be on a young player in Hoijlund that is not certain to score more than ten in a season.

Rashford did great last season but has a habit of blowing hot and cold. We can’t rely on Mount for more than five to ten goals max. Antony doesn’t score goals. Martial is always inured. Sancho wont get more than six.

There’s just no chance we are mounting a title challenge currently and while Onana helps the playing style, it’s the amount of goals that City, Arsenal and Liverpool score that makes the difference.

I think it’s this issue that could see us only just scrape top four. We really need two new strikers.

Anyone disagree or do you think the new playing style plus Hoiljund and Mount might be enough?
 
Excellent.

I can’t stop worrying about this season now.

What date does the 24/25 season start so I can get my hopes up again?
 
A striker is not going to magically fix it, we dont create enough from the wingers, all the want to do is cut in and blast it.
 
Kag said:
This has been our overhwhelming issue for ten years now.
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Exactly if you look at the stats for goals scored it’s been a huge issue: which means moaning about Hojlund is barking up the wrong tree. It’s all about the formation/style and getting those chances
 
It's not only the striker position, but we have been lacking goals collectively from the team. We barely score from set pieces and our chance conversion from players generally is poor.
 
The problem has been others chipping in. Rashford scored 17 (league) goals last season.

After that our next highest scorers were Bruno 8, followed by Sancho & Martial on 6.

Our defenders only scored 3 goals between them.

Ideally you’d want at least 2-3 players in double figures. Your CM’s on 6-7 goals, and your defenders with 8-10 goals between them.

The only players who scored the amount of goals you’d expect for players in their position.. Rashford, Bruno, and Casemiro
 
I think we all agree that in an ideal world we would be signing two strikers and one of those would be a proven commodity who will get us 20+ goals but this summer there is a real scarcity of decent strikers available. The supply/demand situation there means that even rough diamonds and journeymen are being valued at 60M and the handful of true stars are priced astronomically.

I am hopeful that Rasmus will have an impact beyond his own goals if he is indeed signed. I am optimistic he can get 10-15 goals even as he is developing with the chances we tend to create but I am also hoping that the net effect of having a true threat in the box will allow a little more spce for our other attackers and we will see increased goal totals from the likes of Bruno and Sancho.

I do also think that a second striker signing is a possibility. It may be late in the window because our outgoings are slower but I would not be surprised if after Rasmus we go for squad depth both in the shape of another midfield signing and a veteran striker as based on his comments it is clear ETH would like additional signings in these areas.
 
All jokes aside, OP does make a fair point as we struggled for goals last year, ending with the lowest in the top 6 with 58. And that was with Rashford having a great turn of form midway through the calendar year.

Sadly, it's an incredibly hard market for strikers who guarantee goals, particularly as football has evolved beyond the point where teams tend to rely on single strikers to make up the numbers (exceptions like City aside with their Nordic robot).

We'd have to spunk over 100 million on a guaranteed rate of return with the likes of Kane, with almost that amount for a young player like Hojlund who might become that type of player. It's a complete risk and a pricey one at that.

The saving grace is we'll still do well because our defence is rock solid. We'll be catenaccio'ing like it's 1997.
 
Honestly, this is going to be a problem whether we sign a striker or not. Other than a nice purple patch last season, Rashford rarely looks threatening and is easily closed out, Antony too as long as you don't let him cut in and shoot on his one good foot. Sancho is still Sancho and Garnacho is still young. We don't have a huge amount of firepower.

Overall the squad isn't bad, but as it currently is, we're very unlikely to get top 4 next season looking at how other clubs have strengthened. With a striker and assuming he can come in and make a difference right away then we should be challenging for top four though. Probably alongside Chelsea, Newcastle, Arsenal, a mysteriously hyperactive Liverpool side, and maybe Villa.
 
I agree - I think this will remain Utd's biggest issue next season, even if Hojlund is signed.

The main problem area really is RW still - Antony just wastes chance after chance. Maybe Sancho could end up being preferable for there as he looks a bit sharper of late, but even then I can't imagine him remaining anything other than wildly inconsistent.

Utd's defence remains solid, and there should be enough good options in midfield whatever happens (even if Casemiro remains the only top drawer player there).

It's in attack where Utd most lack dynamism and a winning mentality right now.
 
A decade of signing nothing up front but stop-gap strikers will do that
 
Dont understand the shit the OP is getting. We scored far too little last season and resorted to weghorst. All thats happened in an attacking sense is weghorst leaving. We will almost certainly sign somebody, but like casemiro joining after a terrible start last season , to bolster the most glaring gap in our squad, it would have been better to have some business done sooner.

Fingers crossed Hojlund is clinical, as it looks like he's the man we're looking to
 
Syphon Wallet said:
A striker is not going to magically fix it, we dont create enough from the wingers, all the want to do is cut in and blast it.
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And part of the reason for that is there's no striker to pass the ball to so they don't have many options, all said and done United create plenty of opportunities, not as much as we should, but enough that the number of goals we score would rise considerably if we had a proper striker
 
It's not just about strikers. Clearly we do need a striker, ideally two. That is obviously going to help.

But it's not just that simplistic. We need more control of the match. We need better creation. We need players that are attackers not named Rashford to improve their performance. You can't ask a striker to do Garnacho, Antony and Sancho's job for them. They have to produce more. For a start they have to create for the striker, not just rely on Bruno to do it. Then they have to score 8--10 too.

I think one or two are living in cuckoo land when they think it's just about plonking in a Harry Kane and there's a title challenge as if it's that easy. Well, no. Spurs and England look tumescent a lot of the time with Kane in the team. Which is not to criticise him but unless you're bringing in prime Messi that will dominate on his own then you have to put these strikers into a winning formula and if that isn't in place then the team won't compete against the standards that are now set at the top end of the PL and CL.

I think we've made a bit of headway with getting Onana in to get a bit more controlled possession without hoofing. Hopefully Mount brings some additional quality and creation McFred struggled with. I think Amrabat would be a tremendous help to improve our progression and game control and give the attackers a platform. Of course we need a striker too, it's paramount. But we have to build our play to higher levels which I am absolutely sure ETH is focused on. It will be easier to start that process when we have a proper 9 in the door.
 
A striker (or lack thereof, really) is just one of our problems. As others pointed out, scoring goals has been our problem for years but a huge part of that is simply not creating enough high quality chances. Simply adding a top class finisher isn't going to fix that.

And yes, we aren't going to challenge for the title. That's obvious. We were never going to.
 
Doesn't help that referees have been scared to give us penalties ever since Jaws made them sly comments about referees favouring us on penalties.
 
Below is the percentage of players in the squads of last season's top four sides who returned goals at below their expected values.

Man City - 45%
Arsenal - 34%
United - 65%
Newcastle - 44%

In other words the problem isn't just that CF position. Across pretty much all positions of the pitch, our players need to convert the chances they get better than they did last season. Simple as.

If they do that then there's more goals in this team even without actually creating more than we already did last season. If they don't, we're fecked regardless.

Because you can't expect to do well when only 35% of your players are converting at an average or better than average rate.
 
Hoping Bruno hits a hot streak at some point. Feel like I went from being confident in his finishing to not at all.
 
Yep as other have said above we don't create chances for a striker, so just buying one won't fix it. Rashford and Antony aren't creators, neither is Antony a reliable goalscorer.

We also have zero threat from set pieces (lowest number of goals in the league last season) due to the lack of height and physicality.
 
Leftback99 said:
Yep as other have said above we don't create chances for a striker, so just buying one won't fix it. Rashford and Antony aren't creators, neither is Antony a reliable goalscorer.

We also have zero threat from set pieces (lowest number of goals in the league last season) due to the lack of height and physicality.
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Bruno created more chances last season than any other player. More than De Bruyne, more than Odegaard. As a team we should still be creating more, but a top goalscorer is imperative.
 
golden_blunder said:
Exactly if you look at the stats for goals scored it’s been a huge issue: which means moaning about Hojlund is barking up the wrong tree. It’s all about the formation/style and getting those chances
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I'm really not sure about that. We seemed to create loads of chances last season in particular, we just weren't very good at taking them.
 
El Zoido said:
Bruno created more chances last season than any other player. More than De Bruyne, more than Odegaard. As a team we should still be creating more, but a top goalscorer is imperative.
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Yeh I agree. Granted there were plenty games last season where we did struggle to be creative, but I felt that overall we created plenty. The problem was the striker (or lack thereof)
 
This is what makes me almost certain MG is going to play for us this season. He's arguably the best finisher in the squad and since he's already a United player the glazers don't need to spend any money bringing him in. Compare that to Hojlund, who isn't a guarantee and is going to cost over 50 million, or Kane, who is a guarantee but will cost 100 million. I imagine in the eyes of the glazers it's a no brainer. Rashford is too hot and cold to be consistently relied upon for goals for a season, Bruno's finishing has gone off the boil, Martial is non-existent, Sancho is Sancho, and Antony isn't much of a goal scorer either.
 
It's a real concern and I kinda agree that signing a 20 years old striker won't be enough. The hope is more goals will come from everywhere else. Wouldn't be surprised if we added more forward options before the end of the window.
 
Syphon Wallet said:
A striker is not going to magically fix it, we dont create enough from the wingers, all the want to do is cut in and blast it.
Click to expand...
You're spot on. We somehow have the worst group of strikers AND wingers of any big team. That is the reason why we are not scoring goals and we will continue to not score goals.

Close to £200m between Martial, Sancho, Antony!!!!
 
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