well i think neither rashford or martial are no9's. nor are they wingers, though. both remind me of henry or mbappe, which is something in between. problem is now that we have telles and it seems like we're putting more balls into the box, we need a no9
FT Inspired substitutions at halftime, for a change. Didn't see us getting anything out of that after 45 minutes, and would have taken the draw when we got back to 2 - 2. Watching Cavani reminds us all what an actual no.9 looks like, if only he wasn't in his forties. Fernandes on the scoresheet yet again too. Back above city, 5 points off the top with a game in hand.
How many escapes have we had against Southampton since they returned to Premier League in 2012. RvP heroics twice, the cup final, Lukaku's late winner, today... Might have missed something. What a super sub. Gracias Matador!
Of course but you don't win what we won without our forwards being unreal. Ole has his 126 goals in something last 150 90s, he was absolutely crazy with how lethal he was. Yorke didn't last long tbh but made us tick and elevated our play. Cole i could see the argument against but not Rooney, he's the best out of the lot
Meh inevitable and highlights exactly why the 5 sub rule would only favour the top clubs. Our top striker is injured and we can only bring on Shane Long or youth players, they can bring on someone who is likely on £300k a week, probably more than half our first 11 combined get paid. Probably 2-3 sides max in Europe spend more on wages and transfers than Utd and they are basically marginally better than a mid table side.
I loved Rooney until he took the piss with his flirtation with City. I don't think his decline helped perceptions
On a seperate note that stat looks skewed? How many of those goals were in 90 minute games? BTW not saying Ole wasn't a legend or a fantastic player, not sure I would say he was World Class, though again.....labels :
Jan Bednarek has scored 3 goals for us, all in 3-2 defeats where we've blown a two goal lead. Ban him from scoring.
That's not United's fault or the subs rule's fault - that's just poor squad management leaving your options to be 'Shane Long or youth players'
He made 320 appearances but only about 150 90 minutes worth of appearances (i forget his exact number) his conversion rate was absurd. He was also surprisingly creative with the ball too. Labels are difficult (what does one mean by world class for example?) But if somebody was to be called world class Ole would be it imo @The Doc this is an example why it's better to talk in terms of per 90 minutes, obviously small sample size but if people look back and see 8 apps 3 goals 1 assist for Cavani you think ok that's good, but a goal or assist every 64 is ridiculous. You don't get the full story just from appearance numbers
Yeah I get how stats work chief. I even understand that ole was very good as a striker and his goals per minute is also good. But stats only tell a portion of the story as much as I rate him and as quality as he was, never had him as the best striker at the club never mind in the World.
No squad has 3 world class strikers. Man United didn’t, they didn’t have any. It’s a term used far too much, like legend.
That's because others were better at almost every other club Ole would have been their best striker. Yes we did, you don't dominate like we did without an unbelievable wealth of quality.
You can be quality without being world class. Andy Cole could barely get in the England squad, Dwight Yorke didn’t play on the world stage. They have a solitary European Cup to their name. You didn’t dominate Europe. They were very good players, not world class. Like I said it’s a term thrown about far too often.
It probably boils down to how broad the term world class is for each viewer. You don't want to label every player in a top club world class but you also don't want to narrow it down to just the biggest few names in football. For what it's worth I think the defending standards have really gone down in recent times so that can contribute to a bit of a skew in certain stats as well. At the end of the day I don't think it's something to be argued about much, as long as the system in the team is working I don't care about how each player is rated individually. Bayern have nailed that recently.
Again I feel I have been dragged (probably down to myself tbf) into the World Class argument, it is subjective but for me (and again he was fantastic and is a legend,) he wasn't in that top echelon. ANYWAY my original point was Rashford doesn't need the label, but does need to develop areas of his game, depsite already having some top quality attributes.
