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Zlatan Ibrahimovic Sweden flag

2016-17 Performances

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6.2 Season Average Rating
Appearances
46
Goals
28
Assists
9
Yellow cards
8
Status
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montpelier said:
What you say about Rooney, Rashford & Martial is right, unfortunately.

So it ends up being Zlatan or nothing, which was the point I was trying to make. Zlatan is involved in it developing into that, style wise. Even his greatest fanboys haven't yet been saying he's a gloriously unselfish leader of the line plating up loads of golden chances for everyone else. Zlatan scoring or Zlatan missing is mainly what is happening, atm. I'm fingering Zlatan for possibly being involved in the development of this scenario.

However, if supplying Zlatan is just about all we can do with this squad we had best make the most of it I suppose.
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1) He's the lone striker therefore his main priority is scoring goals. Also means he will generally get most of the chances and will be rightly criticised if he fails to convert them. That's sort of what happens with lone strikers and is hardly unique to Zlatan.

2) He has been creative and set up chances however as usual this season, those chances have been squandered. Tonight he set up Lingard for a pretty decent attempt and that was a possible goal.

You admit you dislike the guy and attempt to twist everything into a negative slant which is rather sad.
 
Stringer said:
1) He's the lone striker therefore his main priority is scoring goals. Also means he will generally get most of the chances and will be rightly criticised if he fails to convert them. That's sort of what happens with lone strikers and is hardly unique to Zlatan.

2) He has been creative and set up chances however as usual this season, those chances have been squandered. Tonight he set up Lingard for a pretty decent attempt and that was a possible goal.

You admit you dislike the guy and attempt to twist everything into a negative slant which is rather sad.
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Aye, true enough. And on the other side, Z is getting excessive credit for stuff that he simply doesn't do.
 
First off, full marks for honesty re the handball, big respect. Second, I am surprised that there is no reaction to Shearer's comments on MOTD last night. Zlatan 'used to be' world class. But maybe best ignore the attention seeker. Funny old dynamic between Neville and Shearer. Really warming to Zlatan.
 
Moonred said:
Pogba has a 6.1 who has clearly been better and a consistent performer for us. Zlatan also went through a phase where he missed sitters after sitters and his general allround contribution was poor. 6 is above average, I would probably give him close to 7 so far. But it isn't that harsh if you look at overall effectiveness and where the team is.
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I also think other players are harshly judged, Pogba should be 7.5. Zlatan should be 7, imo. More 7 than 6. Doesnt matter, anyway, people on here let one act change their opinion on a performance.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ratings are useless. Always have been. Ibra's been excellent. Great goal return and his all round game is top drawer.
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Agreed. Top class.

His job as a target man is under-appreciated on here. He always gives us a chance of recovering the ball if we clear it or hoof it long, which is a very nice trait.

And he's got the class, too. Look at that magnificent chance he laid on a plate for Lingard in the second half. So clever.
 
The ratings are generally a bad reflection as people having a tantrum after a bad result are more likely to give everyone ridiculously low scores (even if they played well) than they are to give very high scores after a good result. Pulls the average down.
 
It was a technically very difficult finish as well. Took it so assuredly.

Makes me wonder where we would be if he had that ruthless streak about him in our run earlier in the season...
 
marjen said:
Agreed. Top class.

His job as a target man is under-appreciated on here. He always gives us a chance of recovering the ball if we clear it or hoof it long, which is a very nice trait.

And he's got the class, too. Look at that magnificent chance he laid on a plate for Lingard in the second half. So clever.
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The run is the clever bit, the pass I expect a good player to make.

Same goes for the goal, Pogba should be making that pass, it's pretty simple for a decent player. It was Ibra's run that made it happen.

For a chance of the top four we need more of that.
 
Ixion said:
I feel like I'm falling for a troll attempt here but maybe the difference is because our top scorers last season Rooney is about as dangerous as a wet paper-towel now, Rashford hasn't scored in about 3 months and Martial has forgotten how to play football. Zlatan can't score all the goals himself, we need everyone to chip in.
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Sadly, it's not.
 
marjen said:
It was a technically very difficult finish as well. Took it so assuredly.

Makes me wonder where we would be if he had that ruthless streak about him in our run earlier in the season...
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If he was on the same run then as he is now consistently, we would be 2nd IMO. Those 4 draws at home really cost us. He did miss some good chances, could easily be on 10-15 league goals!
 
Bill.s.preston said:
No more than I'd expect from any professional athlete to be fair.
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He's 35 and done it all. Yet still is motivated to test himself in the hardest league playing every minute at such a high level. How many 35 year olds are like that. Bearing in mind he rejected zillions from China.
 
Funny that he is coming good at a similar time to Pogba and Mkhitaryan, almost like these new signings needed time to bed in!
 
Adisa said:
He's 35 and done it all. Yet still is motivated to test himself in the hardest league playing every minute at such a high level. How many 35 year olds are like that. Bearing in mind he rejected zillions from China.
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If your job is to keep fit and play sport, it shouldn't matter what your age is. Looking after yourself, watching your diet, physio, yoga, stretching etc should be second nature. I do things like that and I only play sport for a hobby.

To flip your question over, how many 35 year olds get the chance to sign for Man Utd? That should be all the motivation he needs, despite what he's achieved in the past.
 
Bill.s.preston said:
If your job is to keep fit and play sport, it shouldn't matter what your age is. Looking after yourself, watching your diet, physio, yoga, stretching etc should be second nature. I do things like that and I only play sport for a hobby.

To flip your question over, how many 35 year olds get the chance to sign for Man Utd? That should be all the motivation he needs, despite what he's achieved in the past.
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He is able to sign for Man Utd at 35 because of how he's kept himself. Ideally you should expect it from every player but it doesn't happen. That's why he's one of the few 35 year olds playing very well at the highest level.
 
What amazes me is he's actually growing into our game now, at first you could see the pace of the games were getting to him. Now he knows when to hold his run, close down and chase balls down, he's not dwelling on the ball as much as he knows he's going to get clattered as you don't get time on the ball.

He's always going to score goals as he's so direct and has a huge physical advantage, but he's also a fantastic team player as well. The more I see the more I want him for another year, he's won me over.
 
His latter years of his career have been his best which is unusual and I think it's had a lot to do with maturity. His physique for his age is ridiculous and he can still easily last the 90 minutes.
 
He's played for the biggest clubs in the world, scored goals galore in leagues galore and came to United knowing we weren't what we were under Sir Alex, has only said the right things about the club - his desire to be here, to be in this league and to score goals is outstanding. He's a benchmark for players to follow and admire.
 
Tincanalley said:
First off, full marks for honesty re the handball, big respect. Second, I am surprised that there is no reaction to Shearer's comments on MOTD last night. Zlatan 'used to be' world class. But maybe best ignore the attention seeker. Funny old dynamic between Neville and Shearer. Really warming to Zlatan.
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I agree with him. You can be really good without being World Class. We have had genuine World Class prime strikers in the premier league, ones like Thierry Henry, Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Suarez, Van Nisterooy, Torres, Shearer, Bergkamp, Aguero, Drogba. So it is perfectly logical to conclude that 35 year old Zlatan cannot compare to those strikers when they were here. They offered better variation, threat, consistency and goals as well as destroying some teams singlehandedly (in some cases). For a 35 year old he is world class (if that makes sense), as he still has some quality, but there are strikers right now, you would always choose ahead of him today. Lukaku for example scores goals, brings players into games, creates chances but he is never world class. Just a very good striker. His minutes per goal in the premier league is actually higher than Zlatans and he has more assists. But neither are world class but are very good still.
 
Stacks said:
I agree with him. You can be really good without being World Class. We have had genuine World Class prime strikers in the premier league, ones like Thierry Henry, Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Suarez, Van Nisterooy, Torres, Shearer, Bergkamp, Aguero, Drogba. So it is perfectly logical to conclude that 35 year old Zlatan cannot compare to those strikers when they were here. They offered better variation, threat, consistency and goals as well as destroying some teams singlehandedly (in some cases). For a 35 year old he is world class (if that makes sense), as he still has some quality, but there are strikers right now, you would always choose ahead of him today. Lukaku for example scores goals, brings players into games, creates chances but he is never world class. Just a very good striker. His minutes per goal in the premier league is actually higher than Zlatans and he has more assists. But neither are world class but are very good still.
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There are some names there that definitely didn't offer more variation than Zlatan.
 
Adisa said:
He is able to sign for Man Utd at 35 because of how he's kept himself. Ideally you should expect it from every player but it doesn't happen. That's why he's one of the few 35 year olds playing very well at the highest level.
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Exactly my point. It's not admirable as it should be the norm. It's part of his job, arguably the most important part as he gets older. Hopefully he'll have a Cantona-esque impact on the mindsets of the young players coming through. Rashford's been making comments about learning from him, ideally it'll be about lifestyle as well as on the pitch advice.
 
Yeah he's playing really well. You can see he is getting used to the pace a lot more. For a while he was in French-league mode, struggling to get a grip of the games.
 
GBBQ said:
Funny that he is coming good at a similar time to Pogba and Mkhitaryan, almost like these new signings needed time to bed in!
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If we hadn't given Rooney overlong time to find any type of form, had never experimented with the bullshit 4-4-2 containing Pogba and Herrera as central midfielders and had presented Mkhitaryan, maybe not with first team spot, but with opportunities from the get-go, we would have had the chance to find, as well as form, this kind of chemistry much earlier.
 
We really missed him in that Arsenal game, and I reckon we would have probably won it if he'd played.
 
Vashu said:
If we hadn't given Rooney overlong time to find any type of form, had never experimented with the bullshit 4-4-2 containing Pogba and Herrera as central midfielders and had presented Mkhitaryan, maybe not with first team spot, but with opportunities from the get-go, we would have had the chance to find, as well as form, this kind of chemistry much earlier.
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Possibly but considering the clusterfeck that was LVG's philosophy you can understand why the key formation took time to find. Herrera never played this well under LVG and even though Carrick is still a revelation you can see why Mourinho might have thought we shouldn't rely on a 35 year old as our midfield anchor.

Main thing is we're on the up and i think we're going to be a much better team when the rest of the strikers catch up.
 
GBBQ said:
Possibly but considering the clusterfeck that was LVG's philosophy you can understand why the key formation took time to find. Herrera never played this well under LVG and even though Carrick is still a revelation you can see why Mourinho might have thought we shouldn't rely on a 35 year old as our midfield anchor.

Main thing is we're on the up and i think we're going to be a much better team when the rest of the strikers catch up.
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Yet we can rely on a 35 year old as a main goals scoring threat?
 
Stacks said:
Yet we can rely on a 35 year old as a main goals scoring threat?
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Yes, they are two different positions that require different attributes. Plenty of target men can be big slow lumps. Come on, try harder.
 
stevoc said:
Great game, cracking goal. But that should be the last free kick he takes for us he's fecking woeful at them.
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He's not, I'm assuming you have not watched much of him prior to United. He has scored a few crackers. The one last night just happened to be a bad one.
 
TsuWave said:
He's not, I'm assuming you have not watched much of him prior to United. He has scored a few crackers. The one last night just happened to be a bad one.
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For a beautiful free kick, he misses 100. It was the same thing at PSG and everyone wanted Lucas or David Luiz...
 
Stacks said:
Plenty of deep lying midfield anchors also. Pirlo? Scholes? Xavi? Gerrard?
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These are the exceptions to the rule (as Carrick also proving to be). Most teams do not rely on a 35 year old in central midfield so I can understand Mourinho being reluctant to have Carrick as the main anchor in the new team he was creating. Thankfully it took him less than 20 games to figure out he was our best choice there though.
 
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