Will this set of players under ETH struggle for goals WITHOUT Ronaldo?

crossy1686 said:
Can only image how liberating it would be to no longer have someone around that wants to win every game. They'll be saying the same when Ten Hag get's sacked next, these players have no business being at the club.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly.
Most fans don't seem to understand what a talisman with a winning mentality brings to the team.
Many of our players do not like Ronaldo, as he demands the very best of them. The other person who noticed this was Ralf R. He repeatedly stated that the mentality of our players is poor. Ronaldo has seen this, too and and these are the 2 people who won't be at the club for next season.

Any fan who says that removing people with a winning mentality is a good thing need their heads read.
There are only 3 players who I would not sack - Ronaldo and DDG (our 2 best players from last year) and Bruno (as he has the winning mentality). Every other players IMO, should be removed.
The "virus" will stay within the dressing room and will infect every new player we buy. Notice how most players we buy, start off really well, then they regress? That's the virus.

R'hllor said:
Until we purge these cnuts, there is no going forward with us, our culture is rotten to the core. I wouldnt enjoy playing with such obnoxious cnut like Ronaldo but that tweet makes it sound like all time great winner Ronaldo locked their quality/desire/hunger, like they were winning left right center before him haha, feckers have no shame.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
And playing alongside a "winner" isn't ever going to be fun, but you'll definitely get results and trophies.
A lot of our squad want to enjoy their football, get paid and not win.
 
Didn’t both you and Juve score more goals before he arrived? You won’t miss him.
 
Rooney, Benzema and juve players got better without Ronaldo.

The same will happen to our players no matter how crap they are thought to be.

It’s obvious when watching Portugal what Ronaldo does to players like Bruno in the same team.
 
HTG said:
Didn’t both you and Juve score more goals before he arrived? You won’t miss him.
Click to expand...

The problem isn't Ronaldo but we've also lost two forwards who scored 30 goals combined in 20/21 in all competitions.

That's not taking into consideration Rashford playing like a competition winner last season, same with Martial for the last two years. Gambling on them getting back to their form two or three years ago would be suicidal.
 
Last edited:
I get the argument about Ronaldo being generally more static and slower paced. That's fair enough. But we'll only score more goals if we have more mobile and motivated strikers. I don't remember Ronaldo telling Martial not to follow in and pressure every back pass to the keeper....That's something any striker does...every game....all season....and usually results in at least 3 or 4 goals. Martial doesn't do it.

I also don't remember Ronaldo telling Rashford to continue running down blind alleys, before unlashing a low percentage shot into the near post, so it goes straight out, rather than at least maybe gets parried across the goal.

I'm really positive about the changes EtH is making, but it's no good having loads of possession if your forwards are totally static or move in completely predictable ways. Ronaldo going won't "unleash" the strikers...they need better coaching or improvements in their effort and endeavour in order to make the possession result in actual chances.

I don't think either have the quality of a "top notch" striker, where they are ruthless with chances. However I could accept that if they at least created a lot of chances. For both to be "transformed" this season I think is highly unlikely. I'm not convinced either of them has the ability to change. So for me we need to bring in probably 2 strikers, and hope that we can utilise younger hungry forwards like Elanga and Garnacho where possible.
 
LoneStar said:
Am I the only one who thinks we will miss Greenwood (the stupid feck) more than Ronaldo? The season before, Bruno, Rashford and Greenwood were lighting it up. We have already added Sancho and Eriksen to that list. While letting go of Cavani to be fair.

Hypothetically, if we had a like for like replacement for Greenwood, we would have a decent attack. Bruno, Rashford, Sancho, Martial, Eriksen, VDB and this hypothetical replacement will have enough goals between them. I realise that it's easier said than done to find a replacement for a talent like Greenwood though.
Click to expand...

We’ve already missed Greenwood loads since January. The kid was just so talented and has loads of potential, literally best academy product in a long time.

I actually feel really bad and guilty that I still hope to see him in a United shirt. The leaked recordings don’t paint him in a good light at all but then that’s only part of the story too. I’ll reserve judgement till the court case.

But boy oh boy would I love to see him in a United shirt again. Such an exciting talent!
 
We struggled mightily with goals when he was here though.

Not all the blame should go to him, but clearly something went wrong and the balance of the team was upset. Of course we also had a fraud of an interim manager.
 
We scored more goals without him the last two seasons. Ronaldo's ego even at 37 is that he has to be the main man and the whole team needs to be setup to accommodate him. He'll throw a huff and a puff if he's on the bench or something doesn't go his way. I would classify Ronaldo as toxic now. Ronaldo gives the body language that's it's the players around him that's the problem, not himself. Even at 37 I think he still thinks that he is the best player in the world and should be an automatic starter and he is far from that now. I actually believe he thinks tactics should be setup to make him the main main.

Better off to get rid now and start looking towards the future and get new forward in. What's the point in keeping him? He's not going to win us any trophies. I'd actually be happy enough with Sancho Rashford Anthony as our front three next season in a 4-3-3 with Ten Hag utilizing three in a line DVB, Fred, Garner, Bruno, Eriksen, FDJ without the duo of Mcfred in a 4-2-3-1.

I'd still ride him though. Sexy motherf***er.
 
sullydnl said:
A better way to frame it is to forget about the 18 league goals Ronaldo brought this season and ask whether we can regain the 34 league goals we lost somewhere between last season and this season, which left the team scoring a net 16 fewer league goals despite Ronaldo's 18.

Obviously Ronaldo accounts for a portion of those missing 36 goals, either due to the downsides of his presence in the team or simply because he's scoring some of them as part of his 18. So some of those will return to other players once he leaves. Then there is the penalty factor, with us having received many more the previous season. It's difficult to predict whether we can get any of those back, so some of those goals might be lost.

Beyond that, as far as I can see it's coming from the loss of Cavani & Greenwood and an apparent deterioration in the general standard of our play. If we replace those goals this season we might be okay.

In other words, we certainly need to sign attackers as our attack is currently weaker than it was before Ronaldo arrived. So yes, this set of players as is would struggle. But if ETH improves the general standard of our play then the attackers we bring in don't need to indivudally rack up high goal tallies as Ronaldo did.
Click to expand...

The number of penalties we receive correlates highly with the dribbling skill and speed of our forwards. When Rashford, Martial and even sometimes Greenwood were dribbling into the area at speed they earned us a lot of penalties. Ronaldo doesn't have the quickness to earn those penalties anymore and so far Sancho doesn't seem to be able to either. I think if Ronaldo left and a motivated Martial returned to the striker role we might earn a fair few more penalties than we did last year. His ball skills invite defenders to trip him. Same with Rashford when he's on form and carrying the ball towards the net with speed.
 
I do think we would have a better functioning team without Ronaldo and I never understood why we chose to bring him back. Without him, I think we would find other ways to replace his goals. But, it's not just about the number of goals. It's also about when they are scored. I think we might struggle to replace his ability to step up in really clutch moments and score late goals that change the outcome of a game.
 
I think we'll do fine because EtH will enforce a style of play that will involve better chance creation for those we still have. I also tend to think that getting the crap out of the dressing room will get them all back on the same page. I believe that Rashford, Sancho, Bruno, Elanga, and even Martial can each step up with another five goals each in the league and more than make up for the loss of Ronaldo.
 
Mickeza said:
Let me spin it another way - Ronaldo got 18 PL goals last season. Rashford, Elanga, Martial and Sancho got 5 or less.

Would you take a poacher who doesn’t press, doesn’t run channels, is non-existent with his back to goal and rarely runs in behind but guarantees 18 goals OR an all round attacker who is good at linking play, great at pressing and is physically a threat in behind - but only scores 10 goals.

What benefits the team more - the extra 8 goals or the non-poacher? It’s a no-fecking-brainer even without the bullshit behind the scenes and the very real risk he’ll completely undermine ETH.
Click to expand...

Besides we have lost the main scorer in the past and done better after. This isn't the first time it has happened and won't be the last.
 
What’s incredibly frustrating is for years we’ve been crying out for midfielders who are comfortable on the ball and can pass while we’ve had plenty of forwards. This has meant we’ve always had to rely on counter attacks especially in recent years.

Now that we address it with bringing in the likes of De Jong and Eriksen, we’ve now got no forwards!
 
I think we will be a much better functioning team without Ronaldo. I believe we will score a lot more goal than last season. Can’t be as bad as last season really. Many more different scorers. Looking forward to this
 
You must log in or register to reply here.