Yeh the bigger the ego the more wasteful shots.
Yes he will, i said all along he’s score 20 in the league and thats about what his on pace for.
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Agree completely with this.
Zlatan is still a force and can get on the end of lots of chances and put a fair number into the net. The issue is that when Zlatan plays, everything revolves around Zlatan. If you watch United, they have terrible movement and combination play. Its either Zlatan dropping deep to get on the ball or Zlatan waiting in the box for somebody to give him service. Its no surprise that players like Martial and Rashford have struggled hugely this season because they get few opportunities and Zlatan’s static movement so rarely pulls the defense out of position in ways that create opportunities for wide forwards to swoop in and exploit. United are also absolutely toothless on the counter, in significant part because Zlatan has very little pace at this point in his career. iMO, is a big part of why they have been so bad when trying to hold onto one goal leads late in games - Mourinho’s instincts are to shut up shop and play on the counter but they can’t really play that way.
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PSG scored 102 goals in Ligue 1 last season despite having a guy that doesn’t “pull defenses out position”. Pretty impressive.
Of course, this doesn’t matter because we all know there are only farmers in Ligue 1.
yeah I think that Zlatan is more than just a diva up top who doesn’t work for the team… he has a massive ego, no doubt, but is a sublime footballer with a lot more in his locker than just waiting up top and banging goals in.
Good for PSG. They managed to build a team around Zlatan by bringing in the right players and making it work. United doesn’t seem to have the right mix of players. But from my perspective, they are more than welcome to build their team around a 35-year-old striker to maximize their short term ambitions, finish fifth or sixth in the league anyway, and undermine the development of Martial and Rashford in the long term.
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Those are different issues - maybe they shouldn’t have signed him b/c he is 35 and the risk of decline (although apparently he is in insane shape and still is a dominant force at times) and they shouldn’t have risked hurting the development of Rashford, Martial, etc., but saying he is the cause of ManU’s dysfunction is dubious.
I think the team composition and structure/tactics overall under Mourinho, especially with the personnel at their disposal is more the issue. It is also probably true that Rashford’s best position is up top, Martial’s best position is up top, and obviously Zlatan’s best position is up top - but that isn’t really Zlatan’s fault. He is still probably the best of the bunch for that particular position. Mou has issues all over the pitch fitting square pegs into round holes is probably more the issue - and the fact that he is a c*nt who only knows one way to manage (although to be fair, ManU have been playing a LOT better lately and just haven’t had much luck getting 3 points).
I don’t think we really disagree. As I first said, Zlatan is still a force and pretty clearly their best offensive player. But there can be drawbacks to building the team around a player like that, especially when he is that old. Its definitely not Zlatan’s fault - he is just doing his thing and scoring a fair number of goals. But neither is it clear that buying Zlatan was a good idea. United are caught between short term pressures to start competing for the title immediately (which Zlatan was supposed to help them do) and the longer term goal of building a team around young talents that can eventually be among the best in the world again (which having everything run through Zlatan may undermine). Right now they’re accomplishing neither - they will struggle for top four and their young attackers aren’t developing.
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If his movement is so static, then how is he somehow getting on the end of so many chances even now? If he wouldn’t know where to move around and when, then the managers would never even allow him to drop deep in the first place. Much like how Mourinho never would have signed him, if he didn’t want to have a striker that would drop deep and offer lots of creativity and intelligent movement in these areas of the pitch. It makes perfect sense then, to sign someone like Mkhitaryan, who (much like di Maria I guess) has good movement and is strong in his combination play.
If Ibra drops, then you’d expect someone like him or Rooney (who now is starting to look like a footballer again) to know how to respond to it.
Rashford, unlike Cavani, doesn’t have good movement and doesn’t know how to respond to it. Rashford wasn’t even shooting enough before Ibra was there and he doesn’t now when he’s there either. Only natural that he’d stop scoring given the way he was playing before that. He’s got a very long way to go before we can talk about him as a top class player.
Martial has been playing better recently and only just recently scored twice against West Ham. Way over the top to suggest that Ibra is somehow “blocking” them on the pitch. Which is why I mentioned PSG, because obviously, if Ibra was blocking players, then they never would have scored that many goals with him in the team. You’re making perhaps his biggest strength sound like his biggest weakness. Why is this guy talked about as if he’s only a more skilled version of Giroud or Carrol?
Also worth mentioning, that United have gone from a team that averaged 11.3 (15th) shots per game in 15-16, to 16.4 (4th) per game this season. Would they have been able to do this, if their combination play really was that terrible? 
I agree that their counter attacking isn’t good. But again, they also had the slowest attack in the league last season and their counter attacking has been very poor even in the games without him.
Yep. If he was about as tall as Alexis or Messi, then people would have described him as a “false 9” instead of a classical cf/target-man. After all, he often operates in the spaces that false 9’s operate in and I doubt you’ll find a striker that actually plays more passes than him.
(I’d never describe him as false 9 because I hate that word, but for sure, he’s only described as a target-man because of his size and not because of the way he really plays)
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Lovely match winning goal last night. Good movement in the box, good ball by Pogba and a lovely finish.
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It was a great finish.
A rare good point was raised on MOTD last night. Zlatan is 35 and has practically played every minute of every game for United. Superb athlete.
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Yeah he’s an incredible athlete. No doubt about that. And to think some people on here turned their noses up at signing him.
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When was there a chance for Arsenal to sign Ibra?
Sorry, don’t get all the sudden changes of heart. He’s had a decent game against palace and so he should have. He’s been pretty dire so far and when you bring with you an ego like his and also refer to yourself in the third person you expect a guy like this to hit the floor running.
You have to applaud to Maureen that he can have Ibra to run all game long for every single game (and productive enough).
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What else is he paid such a huge salary for, if not for running like a footballer should?
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I am not sure if you played FIFA too much or don’t understand every player is different and not every single one runs like Sanchez, especially a 35 year old.
Well for that money if he is not running like Sanchez, then thank goodness we have Sanchez for half the wages.
Good that you are comparing 2 different types of attacking players who are in different stages of their career, saying we are good to buy an orange and not an apple.