Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

Yeah, I hope it’s repeatable on a regular basis. My fear is that it was just the situation the game was in that led to chances like that, ie. loads of room to counter a team with 70% possession trying to chase the game. Positive signs overall though.

Difficult to say…. there could also be a coaching component involved .

At a lot of the Utd corners he gets involved in wrestling matches with opponent markers which doesn't allow him to attack the ball. If I was his coach I would tell him to concentrate on the ball and not love ins with the opposing centre half often ending up on the ground.

Also he seems very 'heavy' on the ground ie no 'spring' prone to falling .

Confidence is undoubtedly a big component in his lack of goals. for his own sake and the teams hope he regain that .

However there needs to be a change of strategy from the coaching staff for him regain confidence, going on with the current

performance is in my opinion guaranteed to fail.

Will be interestinig to see how we set up vs La Real on Thrusday.

With Yoro injured and Dorgu not suspended I would guess Mazraoui moves into the back line and Dorgu and Dalot play WB. MDL and Maguire or Heaven the other CBs.

the other 5 is a big question imo.

I'd go with Ugarte, Casemiro, Bruno, Garnahco, Zirkzee. tbh its really just down to Hojlund or Casemiro imo - and I would go with Casemiro and move Bruno closer to goal.

Is Yoro out?

Amorim said after the game that he was a maybe, although he wasn't very specific on the issue.

Fully agree on Cas being a threat and a help from set pieces. While he's been good recently I thought he faded badly yesterday, which is understandable so I'm not having a go. I'd be looking at Cas being the like for like replacement for Ugarte after 70ish mins. Collyer likely not being fit enough to start either also makes Hojlund the fave to start.

Agreed he needs to start showing something more for the rest of the season. He has been getting more chances of late so he needs to do better.

Can't see Ugarte starting myself. One thing we've seen from Amorim is that he's fairly cautious with bringing guys back from injury. Even though this is a huge game, I don't see him starting Thursday if he wasn't fit for some minutes yesterday. He didn't seem overly optimistic that Ugarte would be back in the post match press conference.

I think it'll be Bruno and Casemiro in the two. If there was to be a change to that, I think it would be more likely to see Collyer in beside Casemiro to push Bruno further up (I wouldn't do that but I think it's more likely than seeing Ugarte start).

Ah ok, if he has been rested then I would be thinking along your lines, Ugarte and Casemiro together, Bruno and Garnacho with Zirkzee up top.

That gives more "options" from the bench. Bruno can drop deep in the second half if/when Casemiro tires. Or Collyer in for Casemiro if we're not having to chase the game.

The way Rasmus is playing, a striker is becoming our number 1 priority rather than just one of a number of issues.

It's probably easy enough to calculate how many points Onana has cost us this season, based on his errors. But although it's harder to calculate, how many losses would have been draws or draws would have been wins if we had a striker averaging a goal every 2-3 games?

You've people saying Hojlund shouldn't play again this season, that he needs to be replaced, that he is rubbish.

What standard are you looking for?

Think it’s unfair to Martial to be put in same breath as Rasmus at this point.

Martial took a bad rap because he looked lazy stylistically, suffered injuries and badly faded towards the end to the point he stopped trying (recency bias).

Martial was uniteds best player for stretches under LVG. He is in a different stratosphere than Hojlund as a player. His link up play when he was fit would utterly transform this United team.

If Hojlund leaves this summer, he will go down as one of our worst ever signings (he’s a worse signing than Antony). His 24/25 season might be the worst individual season in United history for a player to consistently start.

To be fair he is being fairly universally slated at this stage. Get the odd defender still (always get those) but he’s trending on twitter pretty much every game we play with all sorts of mental stats and criticism bandied about.

The plan last summer was (imo) for Zirkzee to facilatate Rashford, Garnacho and Bruno to hit their top numbers - in a 4231 system.

Obviously we got it wrong.

But if Zirkzee had got 8-10 or goals while Garnacho hit similar, Rashford 15/20 and Bruno 15/20 (which all players couldm arguably be said to have the potential to have done so) we'd look far better for goals, and position.

Obviously NONE of that worked out.

And with the change of formation, Zirkzee can't do what he was invisioned to do imo.

We now need the striker to be doing 15/20 goals, and the two AMs doing 10/15, the 8 doing about 8/10 and the WBs chipping in 10 between them.

And we only have Bruno who is capable of doing what is neede there in terms of goals.

IMO.

I don't see how Hojlund can be classed as worse than Antony.

Antony - £81m - 96 games - 12 goals - 3 assists

Hojlund - £64m - 68 games - 22 goals - 3 assists

So Hojlund cost less, has nearly twice the goals and the same number of assists in 28 less games. More goals may be expected as he's a striker, but Antony's lack of assists was horrendous.

facilitator player (like Firminho) to create spaces an opportunites for the attacking players around him.

I actually think Zirkzee is more suited to Amorim's system than the 4231. He was never going to play 10 (with Bruno there) and I think he's better as one of the two 10s in Amorim's system than he would have been wide left / drifting in under ETH's.

One hopeful signing was never going to be enough in my eyes but that's in the past now. I just hope we seriously prioritise players who can add goals to the team this summer.

A striker, a 10 who scores, and an attacking RWB would be my priority targets.