Why can’t we score goals? (Not the Wout bashing thread)

[cyberman]

Martial dropped far too deep to get involved so our passes went sideways and back again.
People can blame the wide men for not bursting forward but so what if they do? They have nobody to square it to anyway.

 

[Mike Smalling]

We just really lack quality on the wings, when we play Antony and Sancho. Bruno, Casemiro and Eriksen are capable of moving the ball to them, but nothing really happens.

 

[Idxomer]

We don't have a proper striker. It's really that simple. You can't sign the likes of Ighalo and Weghorst and say " oh look we have strikers but we're still not scoring". We need a top quality forward.

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

 

[GledTheRed]

Painful wathcing these lot mount an attack.

 

[shabadu84]

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

I agree it's not just all the striker but there is a knock on effect in play. A central forward properly making runs, linking up, and going at central defenders creates space and opportunities for our current wingers and midfield to better exploit. Without that, the rest of the team is more disjointed and less than the sum of the parts.

 

[Chairman Steve]

Paul Hirst of The Times who is usually quite reliable says we’re after two strikers, and if that is indeed true then it’s curtains on Martial.

I don’t think ETH trusts Martial long term and Weghorst probably wasn’t even on his Top 30 striker shortlist in January, but ownership issues and all that dictated his loan.

 

[TomSkalle]

Its not only the attackers that are the problem, its more serious than that.
I feel we only have a few goal threathening players in this team, and alot less than we are used to.
Its not about single players, but the team as a whole. More and more i seem to notice we make wrong decisions in goal scoring/creating opportunities. This team has a problem hitting goal when they are stressed it seems, or they just blindly fire in the middle of the goal, or straight at the keeper. Or they shoot when they need to pass or pass when they need to shoot.

You cant score goals if you dont hit the goal.

That said, this attacker lineup is weaker than any attacking lineup i have ever seen in United. That doesnt help.
Im looking forward to the moment we get top 4 secured, and at the same time can put this season behind us.
We need to massivly reinforce this team to be competative next season, its as simple as that.

Kinda funny that we will have a better season than Arsenal if we get top 4, because we are not even close atm.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

Agreed. People complaining about Martial dropping deeper, but literally neither winger presents any sort of danger to a defense on the ball or off it.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

I agree it's not just all the striker but there is a knock on effect in play. A central forward properly making runs, linking up, and going at central defenders creates space and opportunities for our current wingers and midfield to better exploit. Without that, the rest of the team is more disjointed and less than the sum of the parts.

Well it all depends, because you can also have a CF that drops deeper and links which then allows the wingers to cut in/make runs behind in ways they can't do if that CF takes up all of the central space. There's a reason Martial and Rashford have worked great together historically (when Martial wasn't crocked), because Rashford takes advantage of the striker dropping off the CB's. Sancho and Antony don't, they just stand there wide to receive the ball, look at the defender, the pass it back.

 

[Ted Lasso]

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

It's a bit of chicken or egg. I get equally frustrated with our wingers. But I don't think the likes of Martial make good enough runs to give them the most basic options

 

[miked99]

A class striker would transform this team. Time and time again we play lovely intricate stuff until we get to the edge of the box and then it fizzles out. We'd create so many more chances and score far more goals if we had a high quality number nine to play into.

And then who knows where we'd be? Not winning the league, but much closer to the top two. Despite some horrific aberrations, our defence has more clean sheets than anyone in the Prem. We're continally undone by not being able to find the goal we need to turn 1-0 into 2-0, 0--0 into 1-0 or 0-1 into 1-1. Even when we win we're having to fight for the whole 90 minutes because we can't put the game away, and that has a knock on effect too.

Obviously there's a few areas in the team that need improving, but being able to score more freely would relieve the pressure on everything else.

 

[shabadu84]

Well it all depends, because you can also have a CF that drops deeper and links which then allows the wingers to cut in/make runs behind in ways they can't do if that CF takes up all of the central space. There's a reason Martial and Rashford have worked great together historically (when Martial wasn't crocked), because Rashford takes advantage of the striker dropping off the CB's. Sancho and Antony don't, they just stand there wide to receive the ball, look at the defender, the pass it back.

One thing I've noticed is how rarely we score goals that used to be the Man United bread and butter - wingers crossing across the face of the goal or pulling back to lay on for an oncoming midfielder. I think that's a symptom of the poor #9 play - we don't have one making runs to get themselves in positions for wingers to target or to push defenders back and create space for midfielders to run into. The box ends up being jam packed with defenders that can easily cut out passes and crosses. Our personnel is best suited for fast transitions and we haven't had someone capable of leading the line for that style in most of this season.

 

[Von Mistelroum]

We have a genuinely bad attack. It's really that simple. We spent a lot of money on Sancho and Antony and while Antony isn't a lost cause, he's very unproductive, and Sancho is just terrible.

We also put a lot of faith in players who have been here a long time line Martial who is not even close to good enough, and Rashford who generally just runs in a straight line (even if there's a defender in the way) and had a purple patch that will have our fans convinced he's amazing for a year or so until it becomes apparent, again, that he's quite average really.

Obviously Wout is terrible which is a shame, but also we have Garnacho who is young and raw, and while he might well be a very good player in time, he does need time. This is a shame because out of the attacking players we have available he's actually the closest to being good enough.

Ideally we could do with a whole new front three, but since that's impossible, we need a striker and to hope that next season Garnacho is ready to take over the left most of the time, with Antony hopefully getting much better in his second season...

Oh and also, that striker would really help because nobody has that instinct in the final third right now, so any crosses are mostly pointless and passes into the striker's usual domain are left to roll on through harmlessly while Rashford and Martial stand stationary at the edge of the box looking confused.

 

[El Jefe]

Players like Antony and Sancho should never be in a front 3 but its just our luck we have two of them in our front 3 atm.

As a player in a front 3 you have to be really good at scoring or creating, bonus points if you can do both. Neither of the two are any good at scoring or creating, their best attributes are closer to what you'd want from midfielders than attackers.

The difference when Garnacho came on is night and day and he's only 18. If we had a right sided version of Garnacho the difference would also be clear if they replaced Antony.

The strikers get most of the blame but I think its evenly split with the strikers and wingers excluding Rashford and Garnacho.

 

[Irwin99]

Paul Hirst of The Times who is usually quite reliable says we’re after two strikers, and if that is indeed true then it’s curtains on Martial.

I don’t think ETH trusts Martial long term and Weghorst probably wasn’t even on his Top 30 striker shortlist in January, but ownership issues and all that dictated his loan.

How do you get rid of him though? Final year of his contract, on massive wages-i always thought he'd stay for his final season as a third choice striker but if not then i'm not sure how many clubs would be in for him.

 

[RuudTom83]

I don't actually think the wide players at United want to create for the CF.

9 times out of 10 they will look to score themselves.

So it will be interesting to see how they play if/when EtH buys a very expensive CF. I expect it will take a while for them to adapt.

 

[Woziak]

I don't actually think the wide players at United want to create for the CF.

9 times out of 10 they will look to score themselves.

So it will be interesting to see how they play if/when EtH buys a very expensive CF. I expect it will take a while for them to adapt.

I think depending on who buys united, they will give sone serious thought to this problem, Weghorst and Martial will go, Antony should spend 1 season being understudy to another right winger and only the left inverted area is really looked down, by playing Bruno as an 8 in a 4231 system, the club will get more out of him, ETH wants Kane because he’s a 9 and a 10 and could even play him with Rashford as the 9, our front 4/5 positions need serious work and there may have to be some high profile sales, loans departures to get the club firing again, and finding the right personal to jel.

No quick fix for this, I think we need 3/4 offensive players, a new 8/10, a CF, a back up striker and BTB goal scoring midfielder.

 

[flappyjay]

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

This year we have had Ronaldo, Rashford, Weghorst and now Martial leading the line, Antony and Sancho have never created for any of them. Antony doesn't create and Sancho dithers. We can't blame everyone else for their incompetence.

 

[KjaAnd]

We obviously need a quality striker but more than anything I feel like we’re lacking proper coaching of attacking patterns.

Watching our attacking play is incredibly frustrating. Nobody seems to know what to do - on or off the ball. No one-twos (Martial’s chance today was a rare exception), no threatening runs, no trough balls, no creative link up play etc.

IMO this is why we don’t get any tap ins or easy goals. Rather, we pass the ball around the box all day before losing it or shooting from an impossible position.

I assume this will improve once EtH gets time to drill the side properly, but I really don’t think it’s going to solve much just buying new players without working on the tactical aspects of attacking play.

Teams like Brighton, Brentford and Villa have worse forwards than us but their attacking play looks way more fluid and creative.

 

[glazed]

Good young strikers are expensive. The Glazers didn't want to buy one. Our only proven goal scorer is home grown.

 

[Ole'sgunnarwin]

For all the stick Weghorst gets, Sancho is just as bad I think. While Antony is very wasteful, there's something there with him. He works hard, gets involved, I like attitude when doesn't lose it. Goes without saying, we need a top striker. Garnacho should be ahead of Sancho though

 

[surf]

SAF liked to sign strikers, perhaps because he was one himself. He understood their value. I'd be tempted to bring in two strikers, ideally Kane and a competent deputy. They can take over from Martial and Weghorst.

Hopefully Garnacho will take over Sancho's spot as well.

 

[Woziak]

Stage One
ETH clearly knows how to coach teams that score goals but he needs to set all squads players individual targets for goals and assists and then create a team bonus scheme where he pitches the new owners with a clear idea that every member of the squad gets £500,000 if we score 70 PL goals and 110 in all competitions, £750,000 for 80PL and 125 in all
Competitions and £1,000,000 for 90PL goals and 140 in all competitions. This is a maximum of £25m which they have the moment the debt is paid and we do not have to pay Legacy interest payment plus if we score the max target, the club would make the money from being in top 2 PL and probably SF of CL at least.

Stage Two
Pick the players who can’t do it and are lazy, sell, loan or let them rot in the reserves. Weghorst, Martial and Jadon are out of chances, Elanga must be sold and Greenwood should be only leant to a club that can offer us a high calibre player in return, no more chances they don’t work hard enough or don’t fit the managers ethos. I think we could offer Greenwood as a makeweight in a deal for V Osimhen, O Dembele or R Laeo. I think there’s still
Enough interest in J Sancho to get £50-55m from bundersliga or try and interest Bayern in a swap deal for L Sane, I’ll go one stage further, I’d even take Leon Bailey and we’d probably make money on that deal.
So Sell Sancho £50m, Sell Martial £15m, Sell Ellanga £5m, loan Greenwood, release Weghorst.

Stage Three
Identify the correct players, age, style, personality that can replace these players but know they will not have a guaranteed place they have to play for the team, my choices would be ; H Kane or V Osimhen(120m), M Thurham(Free),
L Bailey (40m) added to Rashford, Garnaucho and Antony who would have to fight it out with L Bailey, add Amad and that’s a solid 7 players for squad depth.

Stage 4
Create a solid Midfield with an option to play 4231 away from home and an aggressive 4-1-2-3 formation at home, we must sign R Lavia, Paulinho, Moses Caciedo or A Rabiot to play in double pivot with Casemiro, we need to sign a genuine BTB midfielder and we should go for Jacob Ramsey and then finally we need another versatile number 8/10, two choices James Maddison or M Kudas. Based on budget We could sign A Rabiot(Free), J Ramsey (45m) and J Maddison (£40m) so overall that’s £240m gross added to Ericsen, Casemeiro, Bruno , K Mainoo and we could sell DVB, Mctominay and Fred (50m) for all three of them to add to the £70m we get for strikers so £120m recouped To offset the £240m we would need to spend.

United won’t do it, but that’s whats needed £120m net spend to fix our attack and midfield creativity.

 

[Dominos]

The lack of elite striker is only 1 issue.

Our wide players in Sancho and Antony aren't very good at beating their man. And neither of them ever put a dangerous cross into the box, maybe twice a season if we're lucky.

Our ball retention and passing in general is horrendous, so many attacking moves break down with an unforgivable poor touch or a simple 5/10 yard pass going astray.

In general I'm confused about our use of the wide areas. We very rarely work a decent 2v1 situation out wide where we can utilise an overlap. It seems like we don't even want to work good crossing positions out wide, I'm not sure if it's because the players know we have no one in the box you can rely on to get on the end of crosses so they don't even bother?

We have 4 full backs in the squad and only 1 of them (Shaw) is capable of doing anything remotely useful in the final third.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Besides the lack of a top class striker and Rashford missing in certain games,

Our decision making at times in the final 3rd is diabolical. Players go for shots when they should go for a pass(Bruno's late game pot shot being an example and McTominay ignoring a wide open Bruno) and we overplay it when there's a need to be more direct.

When's the last time we scored a cutback from a player on the byline? It feels like we never have options for a cutback and the player always has to play it into a crowded box.

 

[croadyman]

Stage One
ETH clearly knows how to coach teams that score goals but he needs to set all squads players individual targets for goals and assists and then create a team bonus scheme where he pitches the new owners with a clear idea that every member of the squad gets £500,000 if we score 70 PL goals and 110 in all competitions, £750,000 for 80PL and 125 in all
Competitions and £1,000,000 for 90PL goals and 140 in all competitions. This is a maximum of £25m which they have the moment the debt is paid and we do not have to pay Legacy interest payment plus if we score the max target, the club would make the money from being in top 2 PL and probably SF of CL at least.

Stage Two
Pick the players who can’t do it and are lazy, sell, loan or let them rot in the reserves. Weghorst, Martial and Jadon are out of chances, Elanga must be sold and Greenwood should be only leant to a club that can offer us a high calibre player in return, no more chances they don’t work hard enough or don’t fit the managers ethos. I think we could offer Greenwood as a makeweight in a deal for V Osimhen, O Dembele or R Laeo. I think there’s still
Enough interest in J Sancho to get £50-55m from bundersliga or try and interest Bayern in a swap deal for L Sane, I’ll go one stage further, I’d even take Leon Bailey and we’d probably make money on that deal.
So Sell Sancho £50m, Sell Martial £15m, Sell Ellanga £5m, loan Greenwood, release Weghorst.

Stage Three
Identify the correct players, age, style, personality that can replace these players but know they will not have a guaranteed place they have to play for the team, my choices would be ; H Kane or V Osimhen(120m), M Thurham(Free),
L Bailey (40m) added to Rashford, Garnaucho and Antony who would have to fight it out with L Bailey, add Amad and that’s a solid 7 players for squad depth.

Stage 4
Create a solid Midfield with an option to play 4231 away from home and an aggressive 4-1-2-3 formation at home, we must sign R Lavia, Paulinho, Moses Caciedo or A Rabiot to play in double pivot with Casemiro, we need to sign a genuine BTB midfielder and we should go for Jacob Ramsey and then finally we need another versatile number 8/10, two choices James Maddison or M Kudas. Based on budget We could sign A Rabiot(Free), J Ramsey (45m) and J Maddison (£40m) so overall that’s £240m gross added to Ericsen, Casemeiro, Bruno , K Mainoo and we could sell DVB, Mctominay and Fred (50m) for all three of them to add to the £70m we get for strikers so £120m recouped To offset the £240m we would need to spend.

United won’t do it, but that’s whats needed £120m net spend to fix our attack and midfield creativity.

Think you can safely say even IF we do bring in Rabiot on a free we are still not going to sign another two midfielders as well. I agree that we need other profile of midfielders in there but don't see it happening this summer unfortunately

 

[croadyman]

The lack of elite striker is only 1 issue.

Our wide players in Sancho and Antony aren't very good at beating their man. And neither of them ever put a dangerous cross into the box, maybe twice a season if we're lucky.

Our ball retention and passing in general is horrendous, so many attacking moves break down with an unforgivable poor touch or a simple 5/10 yard pass going astray.

In general I'm confused about our use of the wide areas. We very rarely work a decent 2v1 situation out wide where we can utilise an overlap. It seems like we don't even want to work good crossing positions out wide, I'm not sure if it's because the players know we have no one in the box you can rely on to get on the end of crosses so they don't even bother?

We have 4 full backs in the squad and only 1 of them (Shaw) is capable of doing anything remotely useful in the final third.

Yeah our ball retention and passing will only significantly improve when we bring in better technical players. Hopeful we sign a couple this summer but can't sort it completely

 

[ti vu]

It really isn't. If we had an actual top quality winger today, he would've scored at least a goal. How many times did Antony have the ball today in space wide and ended up doing nothing with it? Sancho also dithers on the ball a lot and ends up either passing it back or losing it.

This game is more of an exception than the norm. All our starting attackers are shit including Bruno. In many other games, when other positions do decent enough, not having a proper CF let us down.

Casemiro goal should be what we would expected more from our CF. You don't expect Casemiro just abandons his position all game to make these kind of run and score. That should be the CF job. Have a proper CF, the less drastic shuffle in formation IMO, we would get more out of the game like this. Weghorst not doing really good, but his presence as CF today help us opening up a bit.

 

[padzilla]

For all the stick Weghorst gets, Sancho is just as bad I think. While Antony is very wasteful, there's something there with him. He works hard, gets involved, I like attitude when doesn't lose it. Goes without saying, we need a top striker. Garnacho should be ahead of Sancho though

There's no way Sancho is starting games ahead on Garnacho based on merit.

 

[mshnsh]

This year we have had Ronaldo, Rashford, Weghorst and now Martial leading the line, Antony and Sancho have never created for any of them. Antony doesn't create and Sancho dithers. We can't blame everyone else for their incompetence.

Of those, only Rashford was good as a striker. Not an excuse for Sancho or Antony; they are mediocre.

 

[Okey]

Well for starters, we have no good striker. Wout is Wout. Martial pretends to be a striker, but his average position when we're attacking is 10 yards outside the opposition area. For all the other problems, it's kinda hard to score if you hardly get in the box.

 

[flappyjay]

Of those, only Rashford was good as a striker. Not an excuse for Sancho or Antony; they are mediocre.

Its not about who was good. The criticism is that Martial stays outside the box which is given as the reason why Antony doesn't create goals for him. Weghorst, Ronaldo and Rashford are always in the box looking for goals but I still don't see Antony create for them either.

 

[davidmichael]

I don’t think anyone could have prepared for what’s happened to us up top this season with Ronaldo showing his true colours, the Greenwood situation and Martial being built like a soft stuffed toy which has basically taken three first team forwards out of the squad with only one in Weghorst on loan being brought in to replace that some of that loss.

Up until the second suspension for Casemiro we also had a lot more control in midfield too but after that Southampton game Casemiro has almost looked scared to play his natural game for fear of suspension and the drop off in quality week Casemiro was out was massive, we played much more work man like and concerned ourselves grinding out results instead of killing games off.

 

[Isotope]

...

Teams like Brighton, Brentford and Villa have worse forwards than us but their attacking play looks way more fluid and creative.

Brighton has Mitoma and March in attack, so obviously better than us.

 

[ti vu]

I don’t think anyone could have prepared for what’s happened to us up top this season with Ronaldo showing his true colours, the Greenwood situation and Martial being built like a soft stuffed toy which has basically taken three first team forwards out of the squad with only one in Weghorst on loan being brought in to replace that some of that loss.

Up until the second suspension for Casemiro we also had a lot more control in midfield too but after that Southampton game Casemiro has almost looked scared to play his natural game for fear of suspension and the drop off in quality week Casemiro was out was massive, we played much more work man like and concerned ourselves grinding out results instead of killing games off.

Last season especially just after the winter window, we had the excuse. This season? No. The people above ETH messed up totally. When Ronaldo pushing to move like that, should have let him. Medical team at the club should have Martial's fitness data and advise us to look for a back up CF. Martial injury issue didn't start this year. From what he himself said, he has been struggling previous two years too. It's totally foreseeable. We should have people look at this, right (?), and have line of communication to the head coach, recruitment team? Can't just let the manager to do everything from profiling, listing transfer target, which limit us to Arnautovic, Weghorst, Gakpo.

Our goal scoring issue is simple. Rashford hot form fizzled out. We don't have enough goal in the team even though we still had period in games where we create and pin opposition back.

 

[Idxomer]

This game is more of an exception than the norm. All our starting attackers are shit including Bruno. In many other games, when other positions do decent enough, not having a proper CF let us down.

Casemiro goal should be what we would expected more from our CF. You don't expect Casemiro just abandons his position all game to make these kind of run and score. That should be the CF job. Have a proper CF, the less drastic shuffle in formation IMO, we would get more out of the game like this. Weghorst not doing really good, but his presence as CF today help us opening up a bit.

The lack of a goal-scoring threat from our wide players not named Rashford has been a problem all season and Rashford really isn't a wide player. A great striker will add goals of course but we will have plenty of games where we'll need more from our wingers and our playmaker when that striker is marked out of the game.

 

[Real_Knut]

I had a quick look at some stats and it actually seems that our xg from open play is similar to City, Arsenal and Liverpool. There's very little in it between these teams. The others are far more of a threat from dead balls though. Arsenal and Liverpool have 12 goals from corner kicks, City have 10. While these numbers are nowhere near the whole story, they do present a part of where the problem lies.

As an aside, City have had 10 penalties, while we have had 2. How many should we have had?

 

[ti vu]

The lack of a goal-scoring threat from our wide players not named Rashford has been a problem all season and Rashford really isn't a wide player. A great striker will add goals of course but we will have plenty of games where we'll need more from our wingers and our playmaker when that striker is marked out of the game.

Our winger especially Antony needs to up his end product. However the main issue is always the CF. We are about 12 goals off from our xG (abnormal), our CF movement inside the box is lacking, it means we creat good enough chances/opening, but the players closest to the goal are both wasteful and not available enough to receive service.

Not all CFs play like Lukaku or old Ronaldo last season. The CF would help create too. You underestimate how much a threatening CF presence would occupy defenders and open enough space for his partner. Especially someone like Kane is like another playmaker.

 

[Drizzle]

Our winger especially Antony needs to up his end product. However the main issue is always the CF. We are about 12 goals off from our xG, our CF movement inside the box is lacking, it means we creat good enough chances/opening, but the players closest to the goal is both wasteful enough and not available to receive service.

Not all CFs play like Lukaku or old Ronaldo last season. The CF would help create too. You underestimate how much a threatening CF presence would occupy defenders and open enough space for his partner. Especially someone like Kane is like another playmaker.

This is a good point that many miss. Having a real threat from a mobile goalscoring striker opens up the rest of the final third for our other players. I think Antony, Bruno and Rashford will get much more space and time as a result.

Plus we'd have someone to actually put the ball in the net from headers, 6 yard scrambles, snapshots etc on the regular.

 

[buckooo1978]

The personnel arent good/consistent enough..... the players we have are either too flawed or lacking in confidence

We could really do with moving on Martial, Weghorst, Elanga and Sancho, bringing 2/3 players in.

the biggest issue is the lack of a dedicated number 9.

Hard to gauge some players as United's form has dropped off badly since Carabao Cup final and players have shown signs of fatigue