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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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Another day goes by when the only thing the big man does ... is score! :drool:

A quiet first half as Jose's line-up looked awkward & disconnected but always a threat; always looking for a killer pass or one-two.
And proved again he is always alert & ready to calmly slot the all-important second goal past a great keeper and secure the three points for his team.

How can you justify taking him off ... he's not tired; he doesn't have to run :lol:

Sure, we could have Rashford slide over and play there for a few minutes but there will be more games this season & next for Rashford to secure himself in that role. In the mean time just let Ibra do his thing & let Rashford learn from his example.
 
20 goals for the season and he's got a 6.1 rating? Ridiculous. He's been an excellent signing.
 
Nice game from the big man. Think it's really unfair that some people in here seem to have unrealistical expectations on him. There's only so much he can do. The only thing he lacks of is the speed and that is something he can't do anything about. Besides, he's never really been a fast player, more of an intelligent player who knows when and where to run at the right time.

35 years old, new country, new league and new team - despite these thing he's still managed to contribute in a great way. 15 goals in 20 appearances makes a record in the PL now for a player his age. If the wingers improve I'm almost certain Ibra's magic will appear more often. But it's like this sometimes for some players - some get a lot of unfair criticism sometimes and some players can "get away" with more things
 
20 goals for the season and he's got a 6.1 rating? Ridiculous. He's been an excellent signing.

Yes, really unfair, but ratings tend to be like this if a player has a few bad games - which he had during his drought, some people weren't convinced if he was good and when he couldn't score they probably gave him 1's. I believe there were some PSG "fans" who criticized Ibra during his time there aswell. Some claimed that Cavani would have done a better job - a bit like some claim that Rashford and Martial would do a better job than him.
 
His link up play was excellent today especially the flick around the corner in the build up for the 3rd and was then in a position to give Mata a option to square it for a tap in.
20 goals 7 assists in his first season in the EPL for a side that is only starting to get to top level is insane.
Can't believe he is 35 :lol:
 
I am not here to hype Zlatan since this is a Zlatan typical performance.

Just point out for Mata goal: Zlatan didn't directly touch the ball to be contributor. His movement messed up Morgan positioning and played Mata onside. This is what I tried to explain few times in different thread when people just want to play Rashford & Martial as no 9 and let them swim. I disagree with that kind of development route. Rashford & Martial need to learn how to stretch the defensive line/ occupy opponent CBs even when they're not receiver of the crossing just to enable chances their teammates. They need to rightfully force Mourinho's hand with what they can do in training to displace Zlatan as no 9, not that we change the tactic to accompany them as no 9 so they can play the no 9 the way they feel comfortable. It's a proper development. Even Zlatan had to do so as second fiddle to Trezeguet when he first moved to Juventus.
 
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He's hit at least 30 goals in the last 5 seasons running, and looks set to make it 6. He plays every minute, it's hard to see him not getting another 10. The oldest player to hit 15 PL goals as well. At the age of 35, it's amazing really.
 
I'd love to know how far back you have to go to find a striker hitting 20 league goals (which he'll do) at 35 in the top division in England.
 
I never submit ratings on here, I've done it about 5 times all season as I keep forgetting.

Zlatan on 6.1 Caf average is laughable.

The overall average is 6.8 in a game we won 3-0. So I wouldn't pay too much attention to that.
 
20+7 in early Feb is quite good. He's been frustrating at times, but give him service and players running off him things will happen.
 
Zlatan doesnt score for 2 games and plays just like the whole team poorly, still one of the top goalscorers in PL, and caf wants him out of the squad. Hes overrated, to old to play in United.

Zlatan scores one goal, everyone talks about how impressive he is.

Sorry but sometimes this forum is really nothing to have when it comes to analyzing players. Two matches without scoring makes a player shit, one match with one goal makes him incredible. :wenger:
 
Zlatan doesnt score for 2 games and plays just like the whole team poorly, still one of the top goalscorers in PL, and caf wants him out of the squad. Hes overrated, to old to play in United.

Zlatan scores one goal, everyone talks about how impressive he is.

Sorry but sometimes this forum is really nothing to have when it comes to analyzing players. Two matches without scoring makes a player shit, one match with one goal makes him incredible. :wenger:

Yeah but you can't generalize like that since it's not the same people who says he was crap before who praises him when he does well. It's just the people who don't like him really come out in force when he's poor and then when he plays well they are usually silent while he gets praise from others. (just like with many other players).
 
Zlatan need his haters more than other players. More haters, better Zlatan, better United. So don't worry about that.
 
Nice comp of his season so far



Other than Zlatan, who has been very good, the video is basically an infuriating illustration of how poor some of our finishing has been. If we converted about five of our missed chances as we should have, we could well be in 2nd. If you add a few more goals from our weird obsession with hitting the woodwork, we would be within a few points of Chelsea.
 
To be fair that's not a bad way of looking at things. We have lost the same number of games as Chelsea, but the nine draws (compared to Chelsea's two) has killed our season. Goal scoring is a serious issue and has been since Van Persie left. People complaining about Zlatan (He does nothing but score..he's too slow etc) are talking nonsense. Guy's a great player and sets up plenty of chances. He's not the reason we haven't scored more, the other forwards have to step up their game.

He's been great, but also shares some blame for poor finishing. Something too keep in mind is while Zlatan has scored 15 in the PL, he's also missed 12 big chances. The highest in the league. For comparison strikers with similar goals scored Diego Costa, Lukaku and Harry Kane have missed roughly half of that amount 6. The reason why the argument against Zlatan holds some merit is that the whole team is forced to play through him, and relies on him to score most the chances. When the player on your team with the best scoring chances misses roughly 45% of them, its not a surprise we struggle to score. So i think there is something to be said about how Zlatan's inefficiency at converting chances is hurting the team, while individually he's been performing great. Something a manager should look into. I'd try to create more balance with scoring opportunities.
 
So that's 20 goals and 7 assists in 33 games, at 35 years old, in his first season in the Premiership, in a team still finding it's feet under Mourinho

Brilliant stats really for the pensioner! Honestly I never doubted he would be anything but a success here. The ridiculous thing is if we had decent crossers in our side he would have alot more goals, he feeds off scraps too often.
 
People complaining about Zlatan (He does nothing but score..he's too slow etc) are talking nonsense.
This is just being hyperbolic because you don't agree. Many users have stated many credible things from which they have derived their arguments detailing their views on Zlatan's contribution to our team. Labeling it nonsense does nothing to dispel any arguments that people have made. If the stats back up his low conversion rate then people are more than entitled to investigate and discuss it, regardless.

In my opinion, I think he was quite poor before we scored the first goal against Leicester. The goal he did score was the perfect example of how the other players need to utilize the ball around him. (That is not to just say "other players need to score more i.e. do better")

One thing that has been a constant theme this season is his lack of pace, there is no side-stepping around it. The game has to slow down to accommodate him, I do believe it has a big impact on why he gets/creates a lot of chances and has a poor conversion rate.

When we played Leicester earlier in the season at home we were shown a glimpse of a really tight microcosm of how Zlatan can be extremely effective. When we squeeze from the back and push the game up and compress an opponent into their own half, they want to sit back waiting to counter. Obviously that is Leicesters tactic so that really suits Zlatan and the opposition doesn't stretch out leaving him isolated in the space. This aspect completely negates his lack of pace because the opposition positioning brings the game tighter to him and his skill on the ball as the game moves toward him in tight areas. This allows him to open up space for other players with pace to exploit in more dangerous areas because opposition players have learned that if you don't go with him and allow him to drop while keeping position, you usually negate the effect he has on the ball. He's not going to pick it up and cause havoc on it, so if you keep your position zonally, you really put him in a situation that ends up clogging our other players trying to move off-ball. What we saw in the games against Hull was the perfect example of this.

Last night it took about 15-20 minutes before the Leicester line was pushing up and really squeezing us in transition for Mkhi to pop out in acres on the right and score.

It is food for thought on Zlatan. I still, again, maintain in this league he's quite a hard player to watch. I've gone back to watch some old tapes of his time at PSG and he is allowed far more time and space on the ball. In the EPL, defenders learn quickly that if you can't run in behind then keeping the opponent face up is pretty much 3/4 of their job done.
 
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Nice comp of his season so far



People have complained about Ibra missing a couple of goalchances but watching this clip shows a lot of "would be" assists made from Ibra if his teammates could have scored. It amazes me that Ibra is still a bit underrated...

On thing that really annoys me is the fact that some always mention his lack of speed. Everyone can't be fast, there are different types of players. The important thing is to use the player in the correct way. For instance, Messi is also a goalscorer but no one complains about the fact that he's not suited as a target player. Like I said, one player can't have all the best "attributes" - they are not robots. We should be glad that Ibra has a lot of great qualities and his lack of speed is basically the only thing that can be said is "wrong with him".
 
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People have complained about Ibra missing a couple of goalchances but watching this clip shows a lot of "would be" assists made from Ibra if his teammates could have scored. It amazes me that Ibra is still a bit underrated...

Aye, it's something that has been brushed over when claiming his misses cost us points versus Stoke, Burnley etc. when the truth is, he has also put things on plates for other players in games that we have drawn & has won us a tonne of points through important goals of his own. He is the only forward so far that can be extremely happy with his output, the rest (and Pogba) really need to buck up. Fortunately Miki seems to be doing just that and Mata can always be relied upon for a goal, I think Miki, Mata & Zlatan will be starting most games from hereon in due to this.
 
Other than Zlatan, who has been very good, the video is basically an infuriating illustration of how poor some of our finishing has been. If we converted about five of our missed chances as we should have, we could well be in 2nd. If you add a few more goals from our weird obsession with hitting the woodwork, we would be within a few points of Chelsea.

He's been great, but also shares some blame for poor finishing. Something too keep in mind is while Zlatan has scored 15 in the PL, he's also missed 12 big chances. The highest in the league. For comparison strikers with similar goals scored Diego Costa, Lukaku and Harry Kane have missed roughly half of that amount 6. The reason why the argument against Zlatan holds some merit is that the whole team is forced to play through him, and relies on him to score most the chances. When the player on your team with the best scoring chances misses roughly 45% of them, its not a surprise we struggle to score. So i think there is something to be said about how Zlatan's inefficiency at converting chances is hurting the team, while individually he's been performing great. Something a manager should look into. I'd try to create more balance with scoring opportunities.


Yep, the emboldened in particular. Heck, even just putting those easy chances against Stoke and Burnley instead of passing it to the keeper and shanking it over would have made our season look very different.
 
I see we're allowed to mention his age again now he's done well.

In the buildup to his signing so many said it was irrelevant, that he was at his peak, don't keep going on about it.

Now it's being used to further enhance his achievements:

He really is a phenomenal striker. 20 goals in his first season in England at his age, it's just stunning.

Why aren't the same people responding to these posts pointing out his age has nothing to do with it?

Freak I don't mean to single you out. Plenty have said the same thing, you're just the most recent.
 
I see we're allowed to mention his age again now he's done well.

In the buildup to his signing so many said it was irrelevant, that he was at his peak, don't keep going on about it.

Now it's being used to further enhance his achievements:



Why aren't the same people responding to these posts pointing out his age has nothing to do with it?

Freak I don't mean to single you out. Plenty have said the same thing, you're just the most recent.
It is, in itself, a feat of strength to be at your peak at 35. People expected him to succeed because he's in such brilliant physical condition for his age, and because he's a formidable player. However, it is rare for a 35 to do what he's done, as proven by the fact that he's the oldest player in the Premier League to score 15. So, age is relevant. And his age should rightfully be used to "further enhance his achievements".
 
It is, in itself, a feat of strength to be at your peak at 35. People expected him to succeed because he's in such brilliant physical condition for his age, and because he's a formidable player. However, it is rare for a 35 to do what he's done, as proven by the fact that he's the oldest player in the Premier League to score 15. So, age is relevant. And his age should rightfully be used to "further enhance his achievements".

I agree it is an achievement.

My point is that many posters have gone from saying age is irrelevant, he's at his peak, to saying "wow can't believe he's doing this at 35."

Just a bit of double standards in my opinion. It's either relevant or its not. Can't be both depending on how he performs.
 
I agree it is an achievement.

My point is that many posters have gone from saying age is irrelevant, he's at his peak, to saying "wow can't believe he's doing this at 35."

Just a bit of double standards in my opinion. It's either relevant or its not. Can't be both depending on how he performs.

It's not double standards.

His age is irrelevant because he's somehow in his peak still and that is a credit to him.
 
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