We need a fecking centre forward thread

el3mel said:
Well, I said that in the Martial's thread before the season started, entering the season depending on Martial as our main center forward and with Ronaldo's debacle means we are basically giving up on the season. Guess what, I got crucified for this.
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Martial is aspiring to be our version of Daniel Sturridge with a doctor's sick note in his back pocket.
 
Ole'sgunnarwin said:
Maybe because we sign good proper strikers we'll into their 30s. Cavani, Ronaldo, Ibra. When's the last time we signed a good young striker?
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Lukaku was the closest thing to a good young ST we signed which is scary
 
We do need a striker. The reason being at his age Ronaldo needed a pre-season. Whose fault was it he didn't get one? Somebody has given him terrible advice. Taking a drop in wages might have been better advice then we might have been able to shift him and get that striker in. I like Toney.
 
We need two center forwards. Ronaldo is done/old/leaving and Martial is made of glass. He's done. We need a main striker and a back up.
 
Pexbo said:
Can we automatically add “thread” to the end of every thread title? It really helps
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Post that says: I agree with that suggestion. Makes it much easier to know which threads are threads.

DomesticTadpole said:
We do need a striker. The reason being at his age Ronaldo needed a pre-season. Whose fault was it he didn't get one? Somebody has given him terrible advice. Taking a drop in wages might have been better advice then we might have been able to shift him and get that striker in. I like Toney.
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I totally agree that a striker is needed, and we're getting nowhere playing Ronaldo (except merch, presumably - my kid still loves him).

I have to admit I'd always thought a lot of Tony M's "injuries" might go away if he were in the regular eleven and the team was winning; I'm sort of pleased that he hasn't just been sulking, but if he really is this fragile then it's time to accept that he's not happening either.

I maybe haven't seen enough of Toney, because he doesn't strike me as a fit; from my point of view fit is the crucial thing this season. An Arnautovic or whoever might have done a job, and maybe those extra results are the difference in getting top four or whatever; it's not that I don't want that, but I'd rather see the club set up properly - and that means no sticking plaster quick fix stuff.
 
RkkMan said:
Same Sancho who's been bang average for 2yrs? Not to mention one injury and we'd have been back to Elanga on the RW. Antony was just as important a signing as a Midfielder/CF
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We can do a season without a prolific RW. We absolutely can't without a CF. Priorities, man.
 
I don't remember SAF ever built a team without minimum two prolific goal scorers, let alone one. And he was very quick to plug that gap if one is out of form.

Strange united abolished that philosophy and has been compromising on on-again/off-again strikers like Martial, Rashford for so many years. And on top of that bringing pensioner strikers to fill the gap. Astonishing level of lack of planning and foresight.
 
cyberman said:
Bench Rashford. I don’t care what he brings to the side, he goes through these periods when he expects to miss so straight up does. Can’t start him until that passes. It costs us too many games every single season.
You might as well not create the chance if it falls to Marcus, he only scores a certain type of chance and if it doesn’t fall into that narrow category then you’ve wasted your time. Might as well recycle the ball
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Bench what is pretty much our only creative outlet? We created zilch against Newcastle until he came on.
 
Toney seems to be the stand out one but what is frustrating is why we never took the gamble on him when he was smashing it in the championship, same with mitrovic and bowens, the one time we did it recently we typically did piss poor scouting and ended up with the severely and clearly limited dan james.

I know people will say hindsight is easy but rationally the potential benefits outweighed the risks because even if any of these three players had flopped at united they would not have cost a great deal and there would always be buyers for them at good prices based on what they did in the championship, just look at dan james, he was clearly worse than the other 3 other players mentioned and was nothing but a back up player for us and yet we still got our money back.

I wish we would be more daring in the market with High potential low risk players for good fees.
 
Lecland07 said:
Bench what is pretty much our only creative outlet? We created zilch against Newcastle until he came on.
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And then we create and scored feck all from it. We’ve seen this too many times with Rashford up top. He needs to be benched during these runs when he gets inside his own head, we can’t afford to be dropping points like this.
Im a Rashford fan but these runs happen every season. It’s better for the player and for the team if he comes off the bench over the next few games. I’m not saying he’s shit or anything like that but we do know his traits and we can manage around it
 
RkkMan said:
Lukaku was the closest thing to a good young ST we signed which is scary
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Our strikers post RVP are pretty mad:

Falcao (28, but coming off the back of a huge ACL injury);
Ibrahimovic (34);
Lukaku (24);
Ighalo (30);
Cavani (34);
Ronaldo (36)
 
cyberman said:
And then we create and scored feck all from it. We’ve seen this too many times with Rashford up top. He needs to be benched during these runs when he gets inside his own head, we can’t afford to be dropping points like this.
Im a Rashford fan but these runs happen every season. It’s better for the player and for the team if he comes off the bench over the next few games. I’m not saying he’s shit or anything like that but we do know his traits and we can manage around it
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But we literally created nothing when he wasn't on, so how are we going to score? It happened against Sheriff, also, so it isn't just one time.

Do we just go through 60 or so minutes of the game creating nothing and then hope Rashford can do something in the remaining minutes? Seems a terrible idea.
 
Lee565 said:
Toney seems to be the stand out one but what is frustrating is why we never took the gamble on him when he was smashing it in the championship, same with mitrovic and bowens, the one time we did it recently we typically did piss poor scouting and ended up with the severely and clearly limited dan james.
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Think you answered your own question there.
 
Lecland07 said:
But we literally created nothing when he wasn't on, so how are we going to score? It happened against Sheriff, also, so it isn't just one time.

Do we just go through 60 or so minutes of the game creating nothing and then hope Rashford can do something in the remaining minutes? Seems a terrible idea.
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I suppose the solution is to find a set up that results in goals and not just an alternative way in failing to score.
 
Lee565 said:
Toney seems to be the stand out one but what is frustrating is why we never took the gamble on him when he was smashing it in the championship, same with mitrovic and bowens, the one time we did it recently we typically did piss poor scouting and ended up with the severely and clearly limited dan james.

I know people will say hindsight is easy but rationally the potential benefits outweighed the risks because even if any of these three players had flopped at united they would not have cost a great deal and there would always be buyers for them at good prices based on what they did in the championship, just look at dan james, he was clearly worse than the other 3 other players mentioned and was nothing but a back up player for us and yet we still got our money back.

I wish we would be more daring in the market with High potential low risk players for good fees.
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In the past United would have taken that risk on Toney. Unfortunately as the club got bigger and bigger the fans expectation on big name signings also rose. We made a rod for our own back. Hopefully we are going back to taking risks.
 
Could Leão become a proper centre forward for us? His dribbling and pace is really exceptional but perhaps he's more of a Rashford competition than a Martial? Don't know what his contract situation is like but I feel like perhaps he might be on the market soon. Isn't there some controversy about him having to pay out his Sporting contract or something? Would be all for signing him if we thought we had a suitable place in the side for him and the fee wasn't crazy.
 
Lentwood said:
Yes we do. However, whilst we wait for the opportunity to bring a new striker in, I feel we have to stop playing Ronaldo.

I mean, at this stage, what's the point? He cant press, he can't hold the ball up, he can't run in-behind, he's managed one goal in open-play and obviously wants to leave.

I'm not saying we should discard him altogether but he shouldn't be starting. If Rashford and Martial are missing, use somebody, anybody else, even if it's a pure 'runner' like Elanga. Then we can bring Ronaldo off the bench for 30-mins and that will probably suit him right now.
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Agree with this. Ronaldo is like playing with 10 men, plus Bruno and Antony only seem to try and find him even if others are in a better position.
I like Martial in Ten Hags system but he's injured too often to be paid what he is.
A new 9 should be our biggest priority by far.
 
Are people projecting Cody Gapko to eventually become a 9? i think he is having a decent season. would be cheaper than a lot of other options
 
Clearly, bringing in a proper 9 is our highest priority at the moment — ideally in January as I’m increasingly concerned about decent chances going wasted and having to go into stoppage time to secure three points.

We can’t wait for the perfect 9 who will score 30 goals a season. One who can score 15, and then the little things that a striker needs to do, such as running off the ball to pull away defenders, hold up play and chance creation will do quite nicely. We have one, Martial, but is unable to remain physically or mentally fit. So we move on.
 
GreatDane said:
Agree with this. Ronaldo is like playing with 10 men
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I think what many posters fail to appreciate is that defenders would much rather face 'technical ability without physical attributes' than a player who isn't that good technically but is a physical specimen.

It's well and good talking about Ronaldo's 'ability' but without the pace and power to go with it, it's of limited threat.
 
el3mel said:
We can do a season without a prolific RW. We absolutely can't without a CF. Priorities, man.
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Two balanced flanks with serviceable STs>Unbalanced flanks with a good ST. Balance is important
(and there wasn't a top CF available worth spending big money on)
 
RkkMan said:
Two balanced flanks with serviceable STs>Unbalanced flanks with a good ST. Balance is important
(and there wasn't a top CF available worth spending big money on)
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We don't even have serviceable STs. That's the problem. We have a 38 years old forward who wanted out the entire summer and someone who is almost always injured and even when not, he's hardly reliable. We entered the season thinking these two will be good enough to do for an entire season. Well, they aren't even good enough as a stop gap at the moment. Our attack isn't really balanced at all the moment. None of our wingers are capable of playing with Ronaldo.

This would have made sense if we signed a stop gap to fill the striker position for a year, with the plan to get another one next year. Even Ten Hag wanted Arnautovic, as awful as he's.
 
I don’t follow reserve football at all, do we not have anyone there who we could play as an experiment in the europa? With a view to benching ronaldo he was fecking woeful and has been all season.
 
The Purley King said:
I don’t follow reserve football at all, do we not have anyone there who we could play as an experiment in the europa? With a view to benching ronaldo he was fecking woeful and has been all season.
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McNeill but far too young for Erik I reckon
 
atkar83 said:
Is there no one in reserves to help out until January? I mean Rashford came out of no where when he was given a chance due to an injury crises, we basically have a crisis now too with Martial hobbled
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It is so hard to send out a reserves prior to Ronaldo when he hasn't injury. His bad mood will influence Portuguese group and past RM group badly. Maybe also Brazilian group.
When you see all players chose to pass him difficulty ball rather than pass a easily ball to others
 
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We don't need a striker to score goals...but to hold, run in channels, freakishly strong/fit, and able to create for others.

Someone complete like prime Rooney.
 
meamth said:
We don't need a striker to score goals...but to hold, run in channels, freakishly strong/fit, and able to create for others.

Someone complete like prime Rooney.
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Don't need striker to score goals, wow I really thought I had read everything
 
meamth said:
We don't need a striker to score goals...but to hold, run in channels, freakishly strong/fit, and able to create for others.

Someone complete like prime Rooney.
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Lautaro Martínez looks very good, he never stops running or pressing, he's an okay finisher who isn't selfish can create for others to score, a proper team player.
 
How many of Toney’s 8 goals have been from penalties?
 
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