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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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Him being the lone striker, yes you could say the attack is built around him to some extent, but i really doubt Mou has told the players to "just pass it to Zlatan and let him fix it". With Zlatan having scored nearly half of our goals this season we need more goals from our other attacking players

No other forward player has got the minutes though.

Rooney/Rashford/mikhi and Martial are the players we want playing next. And they haven't ever had concistent game time up top.
 
If he does get a 3 match ban, we'll have a chance to test this a little bit. Be interesting to see how Jose sets the team up.
Good point. Let's see how Rashford does at center forward and the focus of the chance creation machine
 
People still have to remember that he is the fifth highest scorer in the Prem still.

However Sanchez, Costa, Kane and Lukaku all have a better goals per game ratio. He also has the least joint assists out of all of these.

He hasn't been a massive flop as I feared. However he hasn't been a massive success either. He's averaging about a goal every two games in the league which is still very good.
 
Point is... I knew he would miss. When you're having a bad day just let others take the peno. Im sure some players felt confident enoughl to convert.

No number 9 worth their salt would give up a penalty, no matter how bad a day they were having.
 
People still have to remember that he is the fifth highest scorer in the Prem still.

However Sanchez, Costa, Kane and Lukaku all have a better goals per game ratio. He also has the least joint assists out of all of these.

He hasn't been a massive flop as I feared. However he hasn't been a massive success either. He's averaging about a goal every two games in the league which is still very good.

He has been a massive success. Get your head out of your ass.
 
How does a yellow card nullify a striker's game? That too of a 35 year old who rarely tries to track back/win the ball/put in tackles. I don't see how the it impacted Ibra's game in 2nd half. For the most part, he played exactly like he normally does. Shame he couldn't put the penalty away and again, I can't see how the yellow card had any role to play in the miss. He did have a poor second half but no way was that down to his yellow.

The fact that Mourinho kept him on despite bringing 3 attacking changes speaks for my argument. I would argue that a top-top manager knows way better than us. You simply do not sub players like Ibra and Pogba because they can win you games in the blink of an eye. Especially not because they are on a yellow. Besides, anyone you could bring on for Zlatan was on for good twenty minutes. It didn't change anything so had we not brought a good player off of the bench, I may have been inclined to agree with you. Even then it would have been a ridiculous change. Yeah, he cost us the game today but you will do well to remember over half a dozen games he has won us (a very recent cup final) and the alternatives we had if we had decided to sub Ibra. Neither the yellow card nor his performance in 1st half justifies the idea of his proposed substitution thrown up by you at halftime.
Because Ibrahimovic relies on his strength and bullying defenders off the ball. He was clearly affected in the second half. You're right Mourinho does know more than you or I. That does not make him infallible. We didn't win the game which means not every decision was the right one today.
 
But you don't understand. Without Zlatan on the field, our attacking players will magically turn into world beaters scoring many goals.:)
Because that's what I said? Did keeping him on win us the game? Maybe if he'd been off somebody who wasn't playing with their head up their arse may have taken the penalty.
 
Because that's what I said? Did keeping him on win us the game? Maybe if he'd been off somebody who wasn't playing with their head up their arse may have taken the penalty.
And you know that someone else would have scored that penalty how?
 
No other forward player has got the minutes though.

Rooney/Rashford/mikhi and Martial are the players we want playing next. And they haven't ever had concistent game time up top.
Let's not pretend Rooney hasn't had plenty of game time. He has found himself on the bench not because of Ibrahimovic but because he has been crap this season and last.
 
Ibra has disguised the deficiencies in the attack. Being the most effective we have he seems to have priority when it comes to free kicks whereas Mata and Pogba should be given more opportunities, and penalties. It appeared clear he was in for one of those days after the first half, but Mou daren't replace him. Rashford should heve been on after 55 minutes.
 
It'll be really interesting to see how we look without him.

He seems a double-edged sword. Yes, he does things that are amazing and he's undeniably been great for us, but he's also 35, slow and not clinical.

Not saying we'll be better, but at least know a bit more.
 
It's incredibly frustrating how he is immune to being subbed on days like today. I think we'd have stood a much better chance of winning if Rashford replaced him around the hour mark.

I'm guessing he'll get a retrospective ban for the elbow anyway so Rashford may well be up front next game.
 
It's incredibly frustrating how he is immune to being subbed on days like today. I think we'd have stood a much better chance of winning if Rashford replaced him around the hour mark.

I'm guessing he'll get a retrospective ban for the elbow anyway so Rashford may well be up front next game.

In fairness, he's scored hatricks playing like he did today.
 
It is a strange one. He's obviously been very good and it's hard to criticise him with his goal tally, BUT he also does miss more than he should do as well.
Every great striker misses some that they should bury, but it seemed a lot rarer with say, RVN.
 
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Given the media will be all over this like stink on shit to make sure he's banned for 3 games, Jose has a big call to make in regards to who plays #9 in his abscence, he's not seemed to trust Rooney or Rashford in the role.
 
Zlatan is entitled to have off games, so I don't think he is to blame for today whatsoever.

But Mourinho has to substitute Zlatan when its clear that he is having an off day, esp after an incident like the one with Mings.

Of course, to substitute Zlatan in such situations, we need a top class striker who plays in rotation, not be depending on Rashford, who is still too raw to have such expectations from.

Mourinho shoulders the blame today, and needs to urgently rectify in the summer transfer window.
 
Given the media will be all over this like stink on shit to make sure he's banned for 3 games, Jose has a big call to make in regards to who plays #9 in his abscence, he's not seemed to trust Rooney or Rashford in the role.

Regardless of what happens to Mings, he should receive the equivalent suspension for a violent conduct red card offence.
 
Was awful today largely down to tiredness i'd imagine. He needs a rest from time to time and he should be taken off way more.

Today was a perfect opportunity to rest him as well, Jose needs to grow a pair and drop/sub this guy sometimes. And Bournemouth were playing all sorts of sloppy back passes in the first half, Rashford would have taken advantage of some of those with his pace.
 
There's something fundamentally wrong with United's attack.

After adding 3 top players in Zlatan, Pogba and Miki and having the likes of Martial (17 goals last season), Rashford, Mata, etc. we are barely outscoring the likes of Bournemouth, WBrom, Swansea, etc. And have been outscored by Everton who have no creative players (of high quality anyway)

Everton 42
United 39
Bournemouth 37
WBrom 36
Swansea 35

That's terrible.
 
No number 9 worth their salt would give up a penalty, no matter how bad a day they were having.
He has been a massive success. Get your head out of your ass.

These two are right.
Zlatan has been a massive success, and shouldn't have just "dropped" taking the penalty. The penalty was well taken, it was a great save however, and that isn't something Zlatan should be blamed for, let us give credit where credit is due.

On the other end, I can both understand Zlatans reaction after that stamp on his head, but on the other I wish he was able to keep his cool and use it as fuel for an improved and more focused performance, unfortunately it didn't go that way, and drawing today is insanely frustrating as it feels like we fail every bloody time we have a chance to catch up to the rest of the top teams. I do however see it more as an issue after the initial "finding a good footing" part of the start of the season rather than a "we're shit, period" kind of issue.
 
Don't really understand the caf's obsession with it having to be all one side or the other lately.

He has been a success, but that doesn't mean he can't be criticised for not putting away chances he should have.
 
There's something fundamentally wrong with United's attack.

After adding 3 top players in Zlatan, Pogba and Miki and having the likes of Martial (17 goals last season), Rashford, Mata, etc. we are barely outscoring the likes of Bournemouth, WBrom, Swansea, etc. And have been outscored by Everton who have no creative players (of high quality anyway)

Everton 42
United 39
Bournemouth 37
WBrom 36
Swansea 35

That's terrible.
That is worrying. At our current rate we'll be at 57 goals, just 8 more than we had under LVG.
 
And you know that someone else would have scored that penalty how?
I don't. They couldn't have missed it any more than Ibrahimovic though could they? I think sometimes people get so caught up in defending a player they don't stop to actually think logically. I'm not saying he's a terrible human being because he had a bad game but he clearly should've been hauled off at half time.
 
In fairness, he's scored hatricks playing like he did today.
I disagree. He has scored goals in games where he's been a bit below par but generally he shows at least a couple of good moments in those matches.

I can't think of any positive contribution he made today, he was genuinely terrible. Obviously you can accept an off day given how good he's been for the most part but it was obvious things weren't working from quite early in the game.
 
I don't. They couldn't have missed it any more than Ibrahimovic though could they? I think sometimes people get so caught up in defending a player they don't stop to actually think logically. I'm not saying he's a terrible human being because he had a bad game but he clearly should've been hauled off at half time.
I haven't talked about you or anybody saying he's a terrible human being, don't know where you got that from.

He's the most likely to score from all of our players, and we needed goals. Why would you take him of? I don't see the logic of taking your top scorer of because he's had a bad half.
 
He seems to be able to score in the difficult games but not in the so called easy games.
 
Nothing went right for him, apart from getting away with a red card. Mourinho should have took him off at half time as he was probably our worst player in the first half.
But if he's getting banned then hopefully he can get a good rest as well as the International break coming up.
 
Despite being lauded as a messiah recently, him being more clinical could have helped us quite a bit until now. He has missed his fair share of sitters and today he might as well have been sent off to allow rashford to lead the line at HT, was not at the races at all.
 
I hope this isn't taken the wrong way but part of me thinks if he ends up getting the ban it wouldn't be all bad. He'd get some rest before the final stage of the season, which I think he needs but probably won't get otherwise.. Furthermore, and I think more importantly, Jose would be forced to choose and develop a plan B for our attack. It would be interesting to see how that goes and could prove to be beneficial in the long term, to have some sort of alternative on the table.
 
There's something fundamentally wrong with United's attack.

After adding 3 top players in Zlatan, Pogba and Miki and having the likes of Martial (17 goals last season), Rashford, Mata, etc. we are barely outscoring the likes of Bournemouth, WBrom, Swansea, etc. And have been outscored by Everton who have no creative players (of high quality anyway)

Everton 42
United 39
Bournemouth 37
WBrom 36
Swansea 35

That's terrible.
Yes it is.

People who say Zlatan has been an unqualified success - yes he's scored a lot of goals but he's also the fulcrum of our attack, which is obviously misfiring.
 
We've just gotta take the good with the bad with him. Some days we get the glory, some days we do not.

edit; That head stomp thing was ridiculous. The elbow slightly less-so, don't know if I want a talismanic player doing something like that but part of me thinks "fair play" and he got away with it during the game. But, a horror incident.
 
I haven't talked about you or anybody saying he's a terrible human being, don't know where you got that from.

He's the most likely to score from all of our players, and we needed goals. Why would you take him of? I don't see the logic of taking your top scorer of because he's had a bad half.

That's exactly why you should be taking him off. Because you need to score goals and he's being bad at it in this game.

Believe it or not, that's what substitutions are for. Taking off players that are playing badly. Crazy isn't it?

If your best defender was having an absolute shitter of a game would you not take him off because "we need to keep a clean sheet and he's out best defender"?
 
He's been great and I love him, but he was a disaster today. Without a doubt, his worst game. Nothing came off for him and I was nervous with him taking the pen too.
 
He let the team down today. The biggest disappointment was him concentrating on elbowing his opponent when he had a great chance to score with a header at a crucial stage of the game.
That's not fair. Isn't he allowed to have off days? Is he supposed to do Everything? Why shouldn't the other players help him when he has a bad day? Martial missed, Pogba missed, Rooney missed. Ibra wasn't alone with a bad performance in this awful game.
 
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