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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
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Great vid, his cheeky dink vs West Ham is my favourite, reminds me of Rooney at home vs. AC Milan, like that one, the assist is at least half the goal. And talk about aerial dominance, just unfair. We're lucky to have him.
 
Interesting spread of goals. Out of the 16 goals 5 are headers and 3 from outside the box ,there is one penalty and of the 7 with his feet from inside the box 2 are with the left foot.
 
Re: the goal v Everton, surely the ball hitting the ground, bar, ground again, post, then go in is a first? In broadcast TV that is.
 
Starting to become amused by the pen pushers saying 'without Zlatan Man Utd would be in X position.' :rolleyes:

Its such a ridiculous argument. The whole point of buying world class players is they do the things that keep you competitive. Without Robin Van Persie we would not have won the title in 2012/13. So what? We had him. We do not need to imagine what might have happened if we didn't.

I actually spend more time imagining where we'd be had Zlatan finished his chances against Stoke and Burnley! Given Ibra's quality, I find those misses baffling. Zlatan scored 50 goals last season. If United keep creating chances for him I see no reason why he won't keep scoring.
 
Trurl said:
Re: the goal v Everton, surely the ball hitting the ground, bar, ground again, post, then go in is a first? In broadcast TV that is.
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Zidane's penalty vs Portugal in WC 2006 semi was similar. In that it hit the bar crossed the line and came back to hit the bar before the keeper collected it.
 
prath92 said:
Zidane's penalty vs Portugal in WC 2006 semi was similar. In that it hit the bar crossed the line and came back to hit the bar before the keeper collected it.
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It was against Italy, but different sequence tbf, actually I can't think of an instance with even 4/ the 5 steps, anyway, it's preferable that it starts with bar/post, only then can you really argue clinical intent.
 
Numero uno in Sky Sports' Premier League power ranking:

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http://www.skysports.com/football/n...-power-rankings-as-manchester-united-hit-form
 
NM said:
What exactly is this?
Click to expand...
It's a statistical performance metric.
Each week we list the top-performing players in the Premier League. These Power Rankings are based on points awarded to players for 32 different statistics - from goals and assists to blocks and tackles. Goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards receive a different number of points for certain achievements - for instance, a defender is awarded more points than a forward for scoring a goal.

The standings will take into account the number of Power Ranking points a player has earned over the past five weeks in a season. However, in week five, the value of week four's points are reduced by 20 per cent, week three's by 40 per cent, and so on.

After week 10, we'll provide a second set of rankings for the top 50 season performers, which will reveal each player's accumulative points tally for the season, without any percentage reductions.

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http://www.skysports.com/football/n...-are-the-sky-sports-power-rankings-calculated
 
I watched a lot of games with Zlatan during his time in PSG and its actually interesting that he has even when being 35 developed some of his qualities. He is obviously not as good as he was the second season in PSG, that was probably the best he ever was in his career. Since then it has been some sort of a decline regarding technique and finishing. What also surprised me a lot is that is shot seem to be extremely worse than only a season ago. It honestly doesn't look like he has the same power in it as he used to. A lot of his shots is by the ground and not like they used to be in top corners. Even his long shots and free-kicks seems to be off, both accuracy and pace. This was not the case at PSG, his shots literally went through both defensive-lines and goalkeepers because of the pace and height. Now i cant even remember him taken a shot outside the box that's been over the ground.

But, a quality that I have never seen him have to that extent he have shown in United is his hold-up play. It has been okay, but never anything spectacular. You can even argue that is has been one of his disadvantages because of his height. But in United the last games he has almost looked like the best hold-up player in the world. I have never seen anyone controlling long balls in that impressive ways. And especially not Zlatan in his career. He was never that type of center-tank that just pushed down defenders like nothing and controlling the ball wherever it came. So its really fun, for me who followed Zlatan the last 7 years at least, to see him even become better at some things so late in his career. (Even though he declined a lot regarding his shot).
 
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TheSwedeFromSweden said:
I watched a lot of games with Zlatan during his time in PSG and its actually interesting that he has even when being 35 developed some of his qualities. He is obviously not as good as he was the second season in PSG, that was probably the best he ever was in his career. Since then it has been some sort of a decline regarding technique and finishing. What also surprised me a lot is that is shot seem to be extremely worse than only a season ago. It honestly doesn't look like he has the same power in it as he used to. A lot of his shots is by the ground and not like they used to be in top corners. Even his long shots and free-kicks seems to be off, both accuracy and pace. This was not the case at PSG, his shots literally went through both defensive-lines and goalkeepers because of the pace and height. Now i cant even remember him taken a shot outside the box that's been over the ground.

But, a quality that I have never seen him have to that extent he have shown in United is his hold-up play. It has been okay, but never anything spectacular. You can even argue that is has been one of his disadvantages because of his height. But in United the last games he has almost looked like the best hold-up player in the world. I have never seen anyone controlling long balls in that impressive ways. And especially not Zlatan in his career. He was never that type of center-tank that just pushed down defenders like nothing and controlling the ball wherever it came. So its really fun, for me who followed Zlatan the last 7 years at least, to see him even become better at some things so late in his career. (Even though he declined a lot regarding his shot).
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Interesting point re the strength of his shot. I remember this goal from a few seasons back, has to be one of the most powerful shots I can ever remember seeing. I didnt expect him to actually score goals like that for us, given that those shots rarely go in. But I did think he'd at least batter a few efforts towards goal, even if they flew miles over the bar. But youre right, his long range efforts have been more precise than powerful. A couple have gone in, so fine, but it'd be interested to know if that's just a loss of physical power or a deliberate choice he's made.
 
TheSwedeFromSweden said:
I watched a lot of games with Zlatan during his time in PSG and its actually interesting that he has even when being 35 developed some of his qualities. He is obviously not as good as he was the second season in PSG, that was probably the best he ever was in his career. Since then it has been some sort of a decline regarding technique and finishing. What also surprised me a lot is that is shot seem to be extremely worse than only a season ago. It honestly doesn't look like he has the same power in it as he used to. A lot of his shots is by the ground and not like they used to be in top corners. Even his long shots and free-kicks seems to be off, both accuracy and pace. This was not the case at PSG, his shots literally went through both defensive-lines and goalkeepers because of the pace and height. Now i cant even remember him taken a shot outside the box that's been over the ground.

But, a quality that I have never seen him have to that extent he have shown in United is his hold-up play. It has been okay, but never anything spectacular. You can even argue that is has been one of his disadvantages because of his height. But in United the last games he has almost looked like the best hold-up player in the world. I have never seen anyone controlling long balls in that impressive ways. And especially not Zlatan in his career. He was never that type of center-tank that just pushed down defenders like nothing and controlling the ball wherever it came. So its really fun, for me who followed Zlatan the last 7 years at least, to see him even become better at some things so late in his career. (Even though he declined a lot regarding his shot).
Click to expand...

Zlatan's power is still there, his bicycle kick nearly broke Tom Heaton's wrist! :lol: His technique is also beautiful when it needs to be. There are few strikers who could've caught the volley he scored against City in the same way, or the scooped shot off the post Ibra scored at Crystal Palace.

I also expected Ibra to shoot more from outside of the box. Two things have stopped that I think: First, his goal drought in autumn affected his confidence. Second, Zlatan's modified his game to suit the Premier League.

In that period between Stoke (H) and Swansea (A) Zlatan was not taking his shots as he usually does. I think the chance against City, where he passed it to Stones on the line, was bugging him. He looked to be questioning his choices in front of goal, trying to softly tap the ball in, rather than risk blasting it over or wide.

Zlatan's over that now. Has been since he put his foot through it for his second goal at Swansea.

I think another reason Ibra has scored less from outside the box is he's playing further up field. He does drop off and get involved in the play when we're monopolising possession. A lot of the time we use him as an outlet though. Our defence will go long to Ibra to relieve pressure. Ibra is therefore really high up the pitch, often backing into the last defender. His hold up play, which he did not really need to rely on when playing in a different tactical system, has therefore come in to play more. People are seeing how good he can be as an out and out #9. IMO he's always been good at #9. Few managers besides Mourinho, first at Inter now at United, wanted him to spend most his time bullying centre backs though.

As Zlatan is playing with his back to the last defender, when we play on the transition his chances come within the box. More often than not, Mourinho's tactics minimise the need for Ibra to shoot from range. He can receive the ball, bring runners into play, spin off the centre-back, and look to receive a pass or cross in the area.

Zlatan's adaptability underlines the point you made about him, and I think it shows how great a footballer he is. At 35 years of age he has had no problems changing the way he plays to suit Mourinho and English football. There are some players who can only really play one way. If a team is not set up to those specific strengths they struggle. Zlatan has the talent and, more importantly, the intelligence to play in a variety of roles to suit what his teammates need.
 
Unmutual said:
Interesting point re the strength of his shot. I remember this goal from a few seasons back, has to be one of the most powerful shots I can ever remember seeing. I didnt expect him to actually score goals like that for us, given that those shots rarely go in. But I did think he'd at least batter a few efforts towards goal, even if they flew miles over the bar. But youre right, his long range efforts have been more precise than powerful. A couple have gone in, so fine, but it'd be interested to know if that's just a loss of physical power or a deliberate choice he's made.
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That goal was on a volley so its harder to compare it with the ones he scored at United. But you can for example compare two long shots against Leverkusen and Guingcamp when he was at PSG with the ones he scored against Swansea and Bournemouth. Those two were both by the ground, pretty slow, and to be fair more of misses from the goalkeepers than great shots by Zlatan. Compare those goals to these, who is on a whole other level regarding pace and hight (the one against GuIngcamp is actually almost in the same place at the one against Swansea):





Zlatan hasn't been even close to hitting the ball like that while being at United.
 
How did people seriously think Zlatan would only score under 10 goals in the league? You guys obviously must have known that he would play almost every league match as a striker. How would it be possible to only score 8 goals then? Would he just walk around game after game at the top without getting chances or what? :lol:
 
TheSwedeFromSweden said:
How did people seriously think Zlatan would only score under 10 goals in the league? You guys obviously must have known that he would play almost every league match as a striker. How would it be possible to only score 8 goals then? Would he just walk around game after game at the top without getting chances or what? :lol:
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Pretty sure it was just one poster who thought that.
 
Anustart89 said:
Rooney did that just fine last year In before someone says he didn't play as a striker every game
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Rooney is obviously not a proper striker anymore, and did he really play as every game last season? And he obviously did not score 38 goals in the league the year before. :D
 
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