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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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His acrobatics are great but he needs to be more aware sometimes that the ref is obviously going to give a foul if his foot is near someone's head.
 
How does this guy keep getting 90mins. I hope he leaves in summer he makes our football so tumescent at home. Everyone plays slow when he's on the pitch.

Main issue with him is he's only really good for one goal a game at best. Which doesn't help with out suspect defence.

If we get Griezmann we should consider moving him on. Antoine should be the main man with Martial. Ibrahimovic is more of a hindrance to this side.

Because of Ibrahimovic. We play Rashford a good striker out wide on the wing. I don't understand why for a game vs Hull at home we don't go with pace. We don't need Ibrahimovic in these games he won't get time on the ball.
 
Overrated like hell. Have thought it for ages. Add to this that he's just not the right fit for us and it becomes quite difficult to watch. Incredibly slow, no movement, poor finishing. All three of these flaws mean he cannot be a truly world class striker. He has his strengths of course but it's not enough. We depend on him too much because he's Jose's boy but it's to our detriment.
 
Lazy today - when you see him constantly trying to flick, drag and flick balls it's laziness... or he needs a rest. If we keep relying on him to bail us out all the time top 6 will be our best hope.
 
The one thing I don't understand which probably has nothing to do with his overall performances or today's is why he has to play 90 mins every game he starts?

Because it is in his contract or jose does not want to upset him?

I mean how long a 35 year old can play on top form or close to it like that for a whole season?

We don't have many strikers that can score atm. It is pretty risky business to do.
 
The one thing I don't understand which probably has nothing to do with his overall performances or today's is why he has to play 90 mins every game he starts?

Because it is in his contract or jose does not want to upset him?

I mean how long a 35 year old can play on top form or close to it like that for a whole season?

We don't have many strikers that can score atm. It is pretty risky business to do.

FFS not the 'he must play every game because it's in his contract' thing again:lol:
 
That's where you're wrong - we structure our tactics so that he's the focal point. This means that when he's ambling around, missing chances, permanently offside and giving away fouls by lazily fly kicking a defenders head; we as a team are somewhat screwed.

These tactics may work for the 50% of the time when he's scoring at a rate you'd expect for a team is funneling the majority of chances through one player. However the other 50% of the time you consistently drop points because everything breaks down offensively because of him.

Lets put it plainly: he's not doing enough and he's not doing it often enough. He looks like exactly what he is: a player that hasn't had to work hard and battle for results in the best part of a decade.

We use him in the wrong way again lately. Look at the amount of times we hoof the ball to him. When we stopped doing that for a while, our play improved. Yes he's been poor lately, but the entire team has dropped lately. And people alluding to excuses made for him akin to Rooney are off the mark. Ibra's our most productive player and it's not even CLOSE. He's our entire attack at the moment. Should he play less? Maybe. Mourinho might have overplayed him. I think he's looked a bit legged since the new year.

But again, if people think Ibra is holding us back or something, they need to take a long hard look at other players who keep escaping criticism. If people want to bring in Griezmann to replace Ibra, that's a different story. I would be for that. Which is why I think we should go after Griezmann, because Ibra can't play forever.

If people think the solution is Martial or Rashford up top instead of Ibra, I think they're wrong and badly wrong.
 
He is far from great lately, but I won't criticise him. It's time for our other player to step up, and they aren't doing it. Pogba, Mkhi are all playing even worse and excuses are being made all the time for their performances. Especially Mkhi, who's become redcafe darling after literally few good games. For some reason he escapes any criticism despite being average for a month now.
Agree.

My only frustration with him lately is how he is indisciplined in giving cheap fouls.
 
i don't think he should have carte blanche to stay on the pitch for 90 minutes every time. he has scored a lot of goals but some of those balls/chances he wastes hurt sometimes. i also feel that when we are playing against teams that are setup to just defend we need a bit more movement, movement that he doesn't provide so getting subbed here and there could maybe be the solution.
 
How is this guy getting away with his performances lately? he has been so dire. He's hiding behind his goalscoring earlier in the season but how many good games has he actually had taking into account 90 minutes?

Now I understand he's 35, so I won't place the blame on him but Jose needs to have a back up striker or a young guy up front to give the side a modern dimension in attack.
 
The one thing that annoyed me was his stupidity in giving away free kicks, killing momentum and allowing Hull to waste time. Doing the high feet twice within minutes was ridiculous.
but he really needs help from others.

When he comes deep, it drags defenders so you need to rely on others to get deeper. The one chance that was created in the first half was because he came deep and Pogba went ahead of him.
When hes dropping deep, you need whoever the wide strikers / wingers are (or the third midfielder is) to get ahead of him. Its not the hardest thing to do because Zlatan is a good passer of the ball.
 
I said it months ago but he really needs to stop fecking about with this kung fu football shit. He tries to over complicate things too often. In a match like this where Hull are sitting very deep he needs to stay in the fecking box, he's a centre forward who spends way too much time swanning around outside the box.

He will obviously be here next season and i don't mind that at all, but we really need a top striker if we want to challenge for the league next season. Zlatan has scored a fair amount of goals but he's very wasteful.
 
It kind of says everything about where this club is at the minute that the first name on the team sheet against Leicester will probably be a 35 year old striker who hasn't scored in 3 games.
 
Not his best game tonight but he can't do it every week. Our results this season have almost entirely depended on his goals - when he wasn't scoring we were drawing every game, he hit form and we started winning, now he's dropped off again and we're back to drawing every game. Other players need to contribute more, we can't expect Zlatan to do it every week.
 
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I love Zlatan but that performance had me screaming at the screen. He just has no respect for attacking pressure, the value of keeping the ball in play against a team hell bent on time wasting. The unnecessary fouls and the countless offsides took too much from the team tonight.
 
When he doesn't score or assist no one else steps up... worrying. And people wonder why hes playing every week
 
The anti Ibra patrol have an excuse to come out - some of the posts on here. This guy is basically the reason we even in contention for top 4 still.

Not his best night by a long stretch but Pogba should have scored from his back heel and he was general handful for the two CBs. We need other players to start scoring goals and not expect him to pull something out the bag from shitty crosses with no pace.
 
He might only get two or three chances in a game so he has to start taking his chances.

Too often, he has 6-7 shots and doesn't score.
 
The anti Ibra patrol have an excuse to come out - some of the posts on here. This guy is basically the reason we even in contention for top 4 still.

Not his best night by a long stretch but Pogba should have scored from his back heel and he was general handful for the two CBs. We need other players to start scoring goals and not expect him to pull something out the bag from shitty crosses with no pace.

I think this is a good evaluation Tomo. The man has proven this season he still has what it takes & I think we all expected more from him today? Perhaps he should not get rested? It doesn't seem to translate into a more inspired performance.
 
He is just so slow. It is like he has a 25 yard temporal field around him where everyone is forced to play slowly around him. It is a strange phenomenon. I still find him pretty hard to watch, that is being real.

I don't really know how we can fix this. He's billy big bollocks on the field and with his stature off it as well. Jose really needs to be telling him to stay up and stop dropping deep, like the Leicester game let the team get rhythm inside the opposition half and create around the box rather than having Zlatan come so deep he gets in the way and the play runs off up field leaving him behind.

Pogba wants to push up, Zlatan wants to drop deep. Unstoppable force meets immovable object type scenario that doesn't help us.
 
This has been mentioned but has he realised he can head the ball instead of attempting overheads yet? Does my head in.
 
Love them posts in which basically posters are saying we should be grateful for his goals.

Ffs he's doing his job, the job he's paid for, paid for extremely well, there's nothing to be grateful.

Our entire gameplay is constructed to accomodate him, to rely and bring out the best from him, he can't be dropped, can't be subbed, we can't explore other options and people are actually contemplating we should be grateful.

Also that 2nd part that others should pitch in with goals. They do ofc, but all others bar him and Pogba can't be subbed and are very wasteful.
 
He's frustrating as hell to watch. Never looked like scoring tonight and had one decent touch to Pogba, which should have been a goal, but that was it.
I don't understand the push for pace out wide with him up front. He slows play down and I don't get how media call him intelligent - he is sly but certainly not intelligent.
 
I do hope we haven't offered that contract extension. Personally I don't want him here next season.
 
We focus on trying (and failing) to put him in to score with aimless high balls and crosses which is predictable and easy to play against. We need to do more playing into feet and running off him.
 
Well punting the ball is jose's plan B though. It is why he has all the tall players in all his teams.

Which is not a bad tactic of course. We just can't criticize players who go with the plan.

It is just that in one of those situations, he ran in to bodycheck the keeper from like 10 yards out when it was sure that the keeper was going to catch the ball anyway. The keeper could have made a meal of it and wasted more time. I mean what is the point?

I agree that he is reckless, especially with those dumb high foot karate kicks he does all the time.

Neville mentioned the other week that we were going long too early. I think that is a problem too.
 
I don't want him as our starting striker next season. We need a younger dynamic forward.
 
Looked fatigued tonight. Maybe time to sub him in some games.
 
He was still pretty much our best attacking player yesterday, created that 1v1 for Pogba in the first half, involved in most attacks. He's not the problem (people bringing the 'immobile and slow that makes everybody around him play worse' argument are pretty much as funny as those bringing the same type of shit when talking about Fellaini), it's high time our other attacking players finally stepped up as their numbers are rather pathetic.
 
He was still pretty much our best attacking player yesterday, created that 1v1 for Pogba in the first half, involved in most attacks. He's not the problem (people bringing the 'immobile and slow that makes everybody around him play worse' argument are pretty much as funny as those bringing the same type of shit when talking about Fellaini), it's high time our other attacking players finally stepped up as their numbers are rather pathetic.

He's the centre forward. It'd be weird if he wasn't.

Some of trying criticism he's getting is a little harsh but equally let's not praise him for basically being on the pitch.
 
He's the centre forward. It'd be weird if he wasn't.

Some of trying criticism he's getting is a little harsh but equally let's not praise him for basically being on the pitch.

No, it would mean he's a poacher who doesn't add anything significant to our game apart from goals, just like Chicharito did.

Instead, he's our highest scorer and is greatly involved in the link up play, playing with his back to the goal and bringing the wide men/midfielders in.
 
He's the only player we have who can fill the role of #9 in the system we play. We do look slow in transition but at least he finishes a good portion of his chances, unlike the rest of the team.

I doubt we are going to change system during the season... and Mourinho switching Carrick for Rooney yesterday (instead of Mata, or putting Miki in #10 and bringing on Martial) just underlines our inflexibility. Rooney drops so deep at times it's just like playing 4-3-3 anyway.

Now if we do sign Griezmann and build a system where he can play up top - 4-2-3-1 for example - then we have many more options for that striking birth, because I believe Rashford and Martial could also play there. If Ibra were to stay, then we would at least have two plans of action and depending on the opponent, we could use Ibra when he is most dangerous.
 
No, it would mean he's a poacher who doesn't add anything significant to our game apart from goals, just like Chicharito did.

Instead, he's our highest scorer and is greatly involved in the link up play, playing with his back to the goal and bringing the wide men/midfielders in.
People are generally talking about his reckless and brainless fouls in the last game.

He is still the best striker we have and the rest are not even close atm which is HUGE problem for us especially considering his hot and cold form with either scoring or overall play throughout season so far.

And if it is still the case for next season, Jose will probably get sacked after that. Our striking department needs some good reinforcement.

It is funny that our plan b is hoofing/crossing high balls into the box to a CF who only uses his head about 50% of the time for those balls. It is just so weird.
 
It is funny that our plan b is hoofing/crossing high balls into the box to a CF who only uses his head about 50% of the time for those balls. It is just so weird.

The amount of times he goes for spectacular overheads/scissors/volleys and ends up committing a foul does frustrate
 
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