I think what Zlatan brings to the team, aside from his obvious strengths, is possession with purpose rather than aimless lateral and regressive passing. I think it is no coincidence to see us create far more and to be able to get a strong and consistent foothold in the attacking 1/3 than we used to. Now that the players can use him (Zlatan) as a fulcrum with his ability to dominate the 5 meters around him in terms of possession and linking up the play which gives the other players more confidence to try the forward pass knowing that it won't completely come back at them or be miscontrolled. One example is that Rooney is able to benefit from this and not have all the pressure on himself to try and hold up the ball and create at the same time (something he has been poor at for a number of seasons). It is also not a coincidence that Rooney has contributed more than he has done during this period as well.
10
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 46
- Goals
- 28
- Assists
- 9
- Yellow cards
- 8
- Status
I got that, but it's like he thrives on challenging himself, and wants the great atmosphere to continue, so he's leaving hints as to how important he feels the fans are. We know he will do anything to win tomorrow, and I for one love it!
Genuine question; why do you call the Theatre of Dreams "The Swamp"?
@EyeInTheSky: Very good points, and I agree completely, it's just so tastey to have someone who can dominate CBs again in all aspects of the game (maybe except from pure sprints).
Found this one on RAWK in their hate on MUFC thread 
cool interview
zlatan is a person i really would like to meet personaly. he has charisma and seems to have the heart in the right place and also be a very funny and intelligent guy.
i really hope he wins a title or two with us. so happy to have a guy like him in the team even if its just for 1-3 years
zlatan is a person i really would like to meet personaly. he has charisma and seems to have the heart in the right place and also be a very funny and intelligent guy.
i really hope he wins a title or two with us. so happy to have a guy like him in the team even if its just for 1-3 years
He's a fecking legend of the game. An inspiration to any young player. I can imagine Rashford absolutely buzzing going into training host be he around this guy.
I may be overthinking this but I feel like stones is going to remember this day for a long time...
He brings in some much needed balls to our side. We were a bunch of pussies till last year, harsh as it may sound.
Is that an official youtube channel? If so it's about fecking time!
Last bit there:
"- He's not in my team!
- What!? *i'm gunna kill this bitch*"
"- He's not in my team!
- What!? *i'm gunna kill this bitch*"
Pretty sure it's just a fan/fake channel.
We'll have to wait and see, of course, but I felt like a sharper Zlatan would have gotten a couple of goals in that testimonial match. He's much more match fit now, so I hope you're right
On a different note, I loved the comment from Mourinho regarding Zlatan. Zero motivation needed from him, Zlatan is that determined to win!You have to wonder why Fergie didnt try to sign Zlatan. If there ever was a United type of player then it was Zlatan.
We did get Berbarov, who's probably stylistically the most similar player to Ibra (though nowhere near as dominant or prolific).
I remember when we first signed Berba, we had the same comparisons to Cantona that took place after Ibra signed.
I wish he'd stop dropping so deep. He's not a playmaker. His passing is too poor for that.
I think it's almost certainly because of Raiola.
"I distrusted him from the moment I met him. He became Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s agent while he was playing for Ajax, and eventually he would end up representing Pogba, who was only 18-years-old at the time.
"He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.”
“There are one or two football agents I simply do not like,” Ferguson writes in his new book, . “And Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba’s agent, is one of them.
"He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.”
“There are one or two football agents I simply do not like,” Ferguson writes in his new book, . “And Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba’s agent, is one of them.
If you've heard Fergie's opinion on Raiola, it is not much of a surprise. You weren't getting Zlaten without paying serious agent fees. I'd also add, when Zlaten emerged as a superstar was around when we started cutting spending aiming for talented youth, the price for Zlaten at the time we bought Berbatov seemed out of our range. Another factor is that I think when we were built around Ronaldo, Fergie liked the idea of an attacking third that was interchangeable with two work horses (Rooney and Tevez) who could go out wide and create. I sort of feel Berbatov was bought with the knowledge we were losing Ronaldo the next year, and was brought in to make another push at CL, but also to transition to a more traditional formation once Ronaldo left.
It isn't tbh
I didn't watch him too much for PSG, but for us so far his passing has been poor - a couple of clever flicks aside. The weight of his pass and the choices he makes sometimes really aren't great. Think we'd be better off if he stayed up top more.
I'm not sure what's worse, criticising his playmaking ability or calling him Zlaten.
Don't see what's wrong with criticizing his playmaking ability. That part of his game has never impressed me (maybe he was better at it in Ligue 1, but that's Ligue 1).
Wow...spoken like someone who has only watched Zlatan play for United. His passing hasn't been good for us so far but passing and linkup play is generally one of the strongest aspects of Zlatan's game. I'm confident that Zlatan's passing game in the PL will improve, once he has more match rhythm and the team as a whole has better chemistry.
Watched him lots at Milan and Barca (and Sweden). Never been too impressed with it.
His link-up is good though.
Something is rooney-ing it. If he had the space to drop in to he'd be orchestrating our attacks more efficiently. Am afraid we'll have to settle for Zlatan the target man.
The issue I would bring up is, that I believe his dropping back into the hole tends to be more effective when he is surrounded by pace (and smart off the ball runners). In the current set up, only Martial really offers the pace, but isn't the greatest at timing runs yet. If Zlaten was surrounded by a mix of Rashford, Mkhitaryan, Martial and even Lingard, you would see the benefits of him dropping deep creating holes in the defence to be exploited. Currently, with Rooney and Mata they simply don't have the pace to consistently exploit these opportunities.
Its been 4 games, not a good sample set.
Interviewing wasn't great either, zlatan was making jokes and trying to get a laugh , no response. Saying interesting things which needed more explanation, no follow up question. Zlatan may as well have read a list of questions off a computer screen.
He played an excellent pass to Rooney down to the channel against Hull, how is that not good playmaking? That's on top of the brilliant flick against Southampton and there has been many more examples of clever passes in a sample size of only 4 games. Too many people are looking at his pass percentage stats and they are poor purely because he can sometimes cut an isolated figure up top. People see what they want to see but this is how caf narratives begin with people preaching false information and other people treating it as fact.
I forgot about Fat boy...good call
Well, you can say all those about Rooney and Rooney is still bad anyway.
Shock Rooney is mistreated on this forum
Yeah, just look at all those zero people who have agreed with me so far.
I haven't even looked at his pass %. I'm capable of making up my own mind based on what I see.
Your not the first person I've seen saying it and I just think it's being hugely overstated without actually considering the context in the game.
Don't worry though. I am not too much impressed with his general play myself either. But then again we bought and play him as a target man. As long as he gets goals, he is good.
But the idea that he can play no 10 and has creativity for it is pretty funny.
Zlatan against Stones is gonna be a eye candy.
Being serious about playing zlatan as no 10? Nope.Don't know if serious or being sarcastic.
Hoping for the latter, otherwise.
Well I guess you're one of those who haven't been watching him before, or simply just can't see it then.
Or we have better no 10s to play there and I don't feel like a goal scoring striker playing deep?
That's not what you wrote, you basically mocked his creativity (or lack of it I should say).
- Status