Manchester United, that didn't last long. Seven up

[POWWWWWWWW]

Stumbled across this earlier.

Big chances missed:

Zlatan 12 (top of PL. Next highest is Afobe of Bournemouth with
Pogba 5
Lingard 3
Mata 3
Rashford 2
Rooney 2

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/big_chance_missed

Conversion rate of non-penalty shots taken inside the area

Zlatan 10 goals from 65 non-penalty shots taken inside the area = 15%
Martial 2 from 10 = 20%
Rashford 3 from 19 = 15.7%
Pogba 3 from 32 = 9%
Mata 4 from 23 = 17%
Rooney 1 from 16 = 6%
Mkhitaryan 2 from 12 = 16.7%

Team stats for goals scored inside the area (our main problem. We are 9th, miles behind the top 5):

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/att_ibox_goal

8 headed goals from 595 crosses (goal every 75)



Can't seem to dig out the page, but I think we've had something like 112 shots in the games vs Stoke, Burnley, West Ham, and Hull and scored twice. That's 8 points dropped there, from games we should have won by a big margin. Would have put us 2nd and only 6 behind Chelsea. Of course all teams drop points, have bad performances, but it's the worrying similarity from all the games of wasting very good opportunities.

Today was a lot better, we didn't create that much but put away our chances. Teams above us should be out of sight by now but are dropping equally as silly points as us. They still have a few games to play vs each while we've got easy fixtures on paper. Might even be up to 4th by March.

[Archer]

Even with the draws it is a pretty impressive run of results..... 31 points last 15 which ordinarily is a shoe in for CL qualification if average 2ppg over the season.  As it stands 45 points from 24 played is still the highest recorded in PL history for a 6th place team at this stage of the season. Despite the blips for the teams above, Arsenal are in 4th with 47 points and that has never been bettered by a 4th place team at this stage of the season also.

Big 6 fixtures still to come:

Spurs -  Liverpool (a) Arsenal (h) United (h)
Liverpool - Spurs (h) Arsenal (h)  City (a)
City - Liverpool (h) United (h) Arsenal (a) Chelsea (a)
Arsenal - Liverpool (a) city (h)  Spurs (a)  United  (h)
United -  City (a) Chelsea (h)  Arsenal (a) Spurs (a)

With 3 from 4 away I would have said United's fixtures are the toughest. Unless you mean the forthcoming fixtures.

[TightEnd]

I hadn't realised until i watched Pogba live (at the weekend) how huge he is

such a big unit, impossible to knock off the ball, distributes it well. really protects the back four nicely with Herrera

never really stood out for me on TV until i saw him at close quarters

[POWWWWWWWW]

Yeh up until Chelsea in the middle of March we've got some really good fixtures. That's 7 games where we probably should be getting max points. We realistically need a nice cushion for top 4 before the run of death. I can see us being hard to beat in those games but if we are going away from home to those teams looking for wins I think we're going to come up short. We've got the worst goal difference as well. Would be sickening to lose out via that again knowing the amount of chances we've pissed away consistently every game.

[POWWWWWWWW]

I hadn't realised until i watched Pogba live (at the weekend) how huge he is

such a big unit, impossible to knock off the ball, distributes it well. really protects the back four nicely with Herrera

never really stood out for me on TV until i saw him at close quarters

Yeh he was great defensively on Sunday.Said it right before we signed him that he was exactly the type of player we've been missing. Shame people won't look past his price tag as I think along with Valencia he's been our player of the season. I think he needs couple of years of to mature, as most games he's just trying way too hard to impress.

[POWWWWWWWW]

That was a strange game. First half we were awful at the back, looked very nervous and making tons of mistakes. Wouldn't have been surprised if we had conceded. If that had been a Champions league clash any team in it would have scored 1 or more of those chances. Thought Herrera looked poor all game, gave the ball away a lot and was caught on the wrong side a couple of times. First goal was great. Zlatan has smashed every single free kick he's had this season into the wall, one of them had to sneak through sooner or later.
2nd half thought we were great. Pogba bossed the game again, should have scored with the header but had a great game non the less. Martial had the fullbacks on toast, he's been back to his old self last couple of games, what ever Mourinho said to him seems to have worked. Lingard, Martial and Rashford is such a great attacking line up, I wished we played all 3 together more. Add in Valencia and Shaw (when he comes back) and that's a frightening amount of pace. 3-0 flattered us and St Etienne were unfortunate to not get an away goal, but that's pretty much the perfect attacking performance and we can just go to France and park some kind of large vehicle.

[tikay]

For a 35 year old on a free transfer, this Zlatan fella is pretty handy, huh?

15 goals & 4 assists is it?

When I was able to see Man U v Hull, the crown were getting on his back, as they claimed he was lazy, but he does not strike me as a team player - just a lethal, selfish  goal machine.

Where would Man U be this season without him?

In his absence for injury, or after he moves on/retires, who would replace him?

[Marky147]

Rashford will be a star, I think.

Obv a bit small for a target man, though.

[POWWWWWWWW]

For a 35 year old on a free transfer, this Zlatan fella is pretty handy, huh?

15 goals & 4 assists is it?

When I was able to see Man U v Hull, the crown were getting on his back, as they claimed he was lazy, but he does not strike me as a team player - just a lethal, selfish goal machine.

Where would Man U be this season without him?

In his absence for injury, or after he moves on/retires, who would replace him?

I think people get on his back because he is so wasteful. Like I posted further up the page, he's got one of the worst shot conversion rates of any striker in the Prem and misses the most clear goal scoring opportunities. United create so many chances if we had a proper lethal striker we'd be top of the Prem or thereabouts. That run of draws we had 112 shots and scored 2 goals. Fans are sick of us being so team playing so well and being so wasteful, and when you play as a lone striker a lot of the stick is going to fall at your feet.
He's 35 so I don't think people are expecting him to be chasing everything, but I do think they expect him to be putting away the chances when they fall to him.

[tikay]

For a 35 year old on a free transfer, this Zlatan fella is pretty handy, huh?

15 goals & 4 assists is it?

When I was able to see Man U v Hull, the crown were getting on his back, as they claimed he was lazy, but he does not strike me as a team player - just a lethal, selfish goal machine.

Where would Man U be this season without him?

In his absence for injury, or after he moves on/retires, who would replace him?

I think people get on his back because he is so wasteful. Like I posted further up the page, he's got one of the worst shot conversion rates of any striker in the Prem and misses the most clear goal scoring opportunities. United create so many chances if we had a proper lethal striker we'd be top of the Prem or thereabouts. That run of draws we had 112 shots and scored 2 goals. Fans are sick of us being so team playing so well and being so wasteful, and when you play as a lone striker a lot of the stick is going to fall at your feet.
He's 35 so I don't think people are expecting him to be chasing everything, but I do think they expect him to be putting away the chances when they fall to him.

So back to my question, where would Man U be without him this season?

[POWWWWWWWW]

Without him and with just the other strikers we have, we'd def be struggling.

Without him and with a suitable replacement I don't think there'd be any difference.

[pleno1]

Also think he's one of the most overrated players the premiership has to offer. Every time I've watched him he's been awful and missed a bunch of absolute sitters.

[arbboy]

Also think he's one of the most overrated players the premiership has to offer. Every time I've watched him he's been awful and missed a bunch of absolute sitters.

I think he has hurt the overall development of their squad further down the line this year.  Typical Jose all about the present and fuck youth development.  If you had used his wage budget you would have got similar production without him.  You might have got the same production without even having him if you give Rashford and Martial the free reign.  That isn't Jose's style though.  Hence why he doesn't last long as most clubs.

[POWWWWWWWW]

These 2 vids highlight some of his misses earlier in the season and it's been a similar story since. Those two headers vs Chelsea and Liverpool were at crucial stages of the game and should be bread and butter for a player like him. Notice Pogba is assisting a lot of these chances. His link up play with Zlatan has been incredible this year, they both should be hitting league best goals and assists. While I kinda agree with arb the thing you get with Zlatan is that experience and ego with him. He's always going to play, and as we've seen get the goals. Even through rough patches his head isn't going to drop and he's a big enough character to take any stick people throw at him. Which, if we did have Martial and Rashford as our only strike force, like we've seen earlier this season, they've gone big spells without goals, heads have dropped, and they've been left out for a while and come back better, so it's nice to be able to rely on someone like Zlatan. I think so one or two seasons he's a perfect stop gap till we get someone else in. Plus we've still got up to 25 games left this season. The young lads are going to be getting games, and having these players with bags of pace as impact subs is going to be pretty important.

[Archer]

The family man likes him and compares him to Cantona:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/ryan-giggs-hails-unbelievable-zlatan-9860522