Is he playing anywhere near the level of the first-choice strikers at the best clubs in the league? Not even close. Which is a problem, no matter how much we look for positives after each game.
20
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Goals
- 10
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 5
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
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If Van Persie was a team (bare with me), he'd be in free-fall for the last year - occasionally picking up the odd win (goal) or draw (assist). But falling down the leagues consistently.
If you imagine a Premier League of world strikers - top 20 in the world - where would Van Persie be based on performances over the last year? That's a genuine question. When we bought him he would've been in the top 3, but based on the last year or so, where now? Top 10? Top 15? Would he even still be in the league...?
I personally feel we're approaching the point of living in the past when it comes to Van Persie. There are sporadic moments of brilliance (his header in the world cup, his strike against Hull) but they're few and far between. And most importantly, they don't merit being an automatic starter at Man Utd.
A lot of the time it feels as though we're playing with 10 men, or at most 10 and a half.
I understand that tonight Van Gaal had to play him, but as soon as Rooney's fit I'd really like to see Wayne up top and give RvP a few games coming off the bench - it's the best thing for the team AND for RvP at the moment.
If you imagine a Premier League of world strikers - top 20 in the world - where would Van Persie be based on performances over the last year? That's a genuine question. When we bought him he would've been in the top 3, but based on the last year or so, where now? Top 10? Top 15? Would he even still be in the league...?
I personally feel we're approaching the point of living in the past when it comes to Van Persie. There are sporadic moments of brilliance (his header in the world cup, his strike against Hull) but they're few and far between. And most importantly, they don't merit being an automatic starter at Man Utd.
A lot of the time it feels as though we're playing with 10 men, or at most 10 and a half.
I understand that tonight Van Gaal had to play him, but as soon as Rooney's fit I'd really like to see Wayne up top and give RvP a few games coming off the bench - it's the best thing for the team AND for RvP at the moment.
Yup. You have to judge him by his own high standards and he's a shadow of the player he once was, in a season where he should really be our main man.
How do you mean the second game in a row and blabla? It was Carrick for that header and Herrera for his goal vs. Hull. Don't really see how his movement can be up for debate. Very interesting though
When you don't score you're obviously not good, but I don't feel he was bad tonight either, worked hard and looked sharp. Goals are like ketchup, the great Ruud van Nistelrooij once said.
How do you mean the second game in a row and blabla? It was Carrick for that header and Herrera for his goal vs. Hull. Don't really see how his movement can be up for debate. Very interesting though
When you don't score you're obviously not good, but I don't feel he was bad tonight either, worked hard and looked sharp. Goals are like ketchup, the great Ruud van Nistelrooij once said.
You know he had run offside when he headed that ball, right?
I don't think the system is suiting him, as with Falcao, Wilson either. It seems this system involves a lot of possession and passing with the midfield diamond and full backs, but there isn't enough directness to let the strikers get involved too. There aren't enough penetrating though balls that are attempted. It seems an out and out striker like RVP is right for the system. Rooney is as he covers so much ground. I'm unsure Falcao will be more successful than RVP.
Have to agree with pretty much all of that. When Rooney and Falcao are both 100% fit then van Persie should be on the bench based on his current form and performances. We all want him to get back to his best but right now he does need to be dropped for a while. I was one who thought under van Gaal he would flourish and score for fun but unfortunately that just hasn't been the case.
Van Persie has been a world class player and is more than capable of rediscovering his form down the line but he isn't contributing enough so Falcao will hopefully get his chance to start soon. Van Persie was incredible in his first season for us and we pretty much have him to thank for winning the league but he doesn't look anywhere close to that level right now so it's only right he makes way for Falcao and Rooney when they're fit if his form doesn't improve soon. His goal against Hull was beautiful though so should go some way to helping his confidence hopefully.
It's a tough one. It's one of those things where being at the game is of far more use than watching at home. Often the run is only as good as the pass. Especially if it's a tough "risky" creative pass. There was a point in the Arsenal game I remember well (because it really annoyed me at the time) where Di Maria made a fantastic run on a break, but Rooney didn't even attempt to find him because it was a tough ball. Instead he dribbled forward a bit, by which point Di Maria was offside, and Wayne eventually lost it anyway stumbling towards 3 defenders. I think LVG even mentioned it post match, and how we need to gain the confidence to play those types of pass. Maybe we're not there yet?
It's hard to know whose at fault conclusively from TV. Though I certainly agree we made very, very little today, which was very disappointing.
Yep. He's working hard, and he wasn't poor really, but he wasn't that good either. Been that way all season, and much of last year with the goals covering up. Not a patch on the Van Persie between 2011 and 2013, and his place in the team is definitely under threat, with Rooney maybe coming back from injury in the next game, Falcao probably being fit enough to start, Wilson looking like a brilliant youngster and having his pace. For him to keep his place, with the competition we have, he just needs to be on top of his game or score almost every game really. That's just how it is with the competition we have. At some other clubs maybe his performance would have been enough, but when you have Falcao, Rooney and Wilson to compete with, it's nowhere close to enough.
This game I really focused on Van Persie when he was on screen off the ball and he did make a lot of good runs but ignored the vast majority of the time. A couple I could understand but some passes to him were so simple to make but players preferred one more touch or a more complicated pass, meaning the moves gone. I do think his performance today was a bit better than his previous ones this season
Same here. I noticed some nice runs as well, but given how deep Stoke's defence were, I somewhat doubt that those runs would have been useful. Only in the second half did things become better for us, and as a result, van Persie performed better.
One thing that really irks me is how van Persie is playing so high up the pitch and always trying to get into the box. So often, we are in dire need of a striker to drop back a bit to receive the ball in space and open things up, but van Persie never does this. Rooney's the best at this, and Falcao does this as well, whilst Wilson has yet to play like and is still learning. However, van Persie's performed like this so often at his best, so to see him play in such a limited way is worrisome for me. Maybe he's not physically cut out to play so dynamically?
Exactly, the standards have dropped so low after last season that I can't believe the excuses being made. When you look at Aguero, Costa, Lewandowski, Benzema and even Ibra who has been injured part of the season, he's a country mile off them all. We need to simply play Rooney as the main striker and play Herrera, Di Maria and Mata around him until we figure out if Falcao can cut it here.
I don't think he'll be dropped while Rooney is out while we have a lack of real seniors in the team. I suppose Carrick could lead the team out as feck all chance of Fletcher starting.
Just seems that he's not on the same page as most of his other teammates (save Carrick) or he's just not getting along well with most people (conspiracy!). I mean I hardly saw Wilson pass to him, or for that matter Ander Herrera. The latter was our no.10 today, and he should have been making many more passes to RVP. Its probably why he started coming deeper in the second half to feel the ball at his feet.
There were at least 3 instances when he seemed pissed off with Valencia/Young/Wilson for not passing to him. I dont know, maybe he is not getting into the best of positions / maybe everyone is not on the same page as him. Something seemed amiss.
Passes completed : 18/23
There were at least 3 instances when he seemed pissed off with Valencia/Young/Wilson for not passing to him. I dont know, maybe he is not getting into the best of positions / maybe everyone is not on the same page as him. Something seemed amiss.
Passes completed : 18/23
I can't understand the criticism. RVP is not your explosive "do it alone" Aguero type, he makes runs and feeds on passes, but Herrera decided to turn back each time a pass was on, he just turned and passed to the defenders and then what was Wilson thinking, a simple pass to RVP would have been better for the team, we could have gone 3-1 up but he was very selfish there and missed that great chance. Anyone who blamed him yesterday doesn't know much about football. I like that we keep the ball better these days, but my Lord, how many chances did we create? If RVP has to perform then players like Herrera [who was poor last night] and Mata have to start taking more risk with their passes into the final third, rather than doing it "safety first" all the time.
Or instead we should question why did he never pass to Wilson?Hilarious how biased some here can be on time over their favourite players (not saying you are, I'm referring to some other posts).He wasn't bad yesterday but in no world that's a good performance.People just don't want to accept that he's regressed and rightfully so with his age.
I like this place but when it turns against a player, mob mentality sets in and all reason flies out the window.Our wingbacks and creative players need to do better for him. Either he was ignored or the delivery was abysmal.
His workrate was impressive I have to say but other than that he was mediocre. I understand that it is not easy for our strikers at the moment as we still lack quality play in the final third but I would try out Falcao and Rooney to see if that works out better
Yeah that pass should have been made to James Wilson, rather than Herrera.
With Rooney out and Falcao not fully fit he will continue to play, let's wait and see if LVG really has the balls to drop him when Rooney and Falcao are fully fit.
Coming in for a lot of stick again, but I disagree. On a lot of occasions last night RvP made a great run, and if found by the player on the ball he would have been clean through for a goal scoring opportunity.
I think I remember three times in around five minutes he was basically clean through and ignored by whoever had the ball, he went mental by the third one, understandably.
Van Persie has become a target, not sure why though. Had Herrera smashed his square ball hard and low he would've had an assist, had James Wilson squared it to Robin when they were two on one against the Stoke defence he would have scored. He put in quite a shift too, he didn't pick up a yellow card doing nothing. Van Persie tracked back a lot last night and generally made himself available when we were building attacks. I've no complaints with his performance and on merit he deserves to start at Southampton.
Yeah, I had 3 in my head (maybe 4) but couldn't be sure so I didn't post it. But you are right, I do remember his reaction. My reaction too tbh, as I couldn't for the life of me see how a player couldn't see the run?
Well one was Wilson's chance, which to be fair I think he had a right to go for as he made it for himself and you want to see a bit of confidence like that from a youngster, poor finish in the end though. Herrera had a shocker of a one though, think he moved it right to Mata instead who was in a far worse position than RvP.
I thought that yesterday he was fine.
There was another off herrera too early on, and one off mata in the second half if I remember correctly.
That seems close to Torres like level of praise at his lowest point at Chelsea when he was good at defending corners.
To me RVP shouldn't be playing really, I didn't think he was particularly brilliant against Hull but scored a great goal. The problem is you get to a point where the goal masks the performance and it can become a hindrance on the team. People seem to want to make excuses for him a lot of the time but it seems most of it is down to him, just doesn't look like he wants to be playing.
The Valencia one at the end was the worst when Stoke had everyone forward. RVP had a good 20 yards of space between himself and the defence yet Valencia waited about 10 seconds till he was well offside.
Pretty much half of Rooney's performances then? He doesn't want to be playing
How can you work that out?I mean he worked hard and it is true a couple of his runs were ignored but it was a sub-par performance again. There's no doubting that.
Pretty much half of Rooney's performances then? He doesn't want to be playing
Rooney produces far more than just goals I'd say but then Rooney seems to divide opinion a lot on hereand it tends to go round in circles forever without getting anywhere so it's probably not worth the hassle for either of us.
I'm not "working it out" it's more of a figure of speech, along the lines of "this player looks like he doesn't want to be here" well I'm sure they all want to be there picking up £100,000 a week but it's difficult for them when they know they're out of form. Seems a bit anal you'd pick up on it really, was hardly like I tried making out he's handing in a transfer request this morning or something.
Completely forgot about that one. Just switch MUTV on and seen it again. feck me it was obvious, he was in miles of space. It must be frustrating for him to make good runs throughout the game and constantly get ignored. But not only that, he then gets criticised off his own fans for apparently being shit.
Funny thing is, on a different day if our midfielders had looked up and spotted the pass, he could have easily bagged a hat trick, and everyone would be signing his praises.Oh yeah, I'd be raging if I never got that pass, heck even in a game of 5 a sides it's frustrating.Completely forgot about that one. Just switch MUTV on and seen it again. feck me it was obvious, he was in miles of space. It must be frustrating for him to make good runs throughout the game and constantly get ignored. But not only that, he then gets criticised off his own fans for apparently being shit.
Mata should have seen the run too on 63:50. Very strange he didn't pass, as it was a simple one for Mata to pull off.
Completely forgot about that one. Just switch MUTV on and seen it again. feck me it was obvious, he was in miles of space. It must be frustrating for him to make good runs throughout the game and constantly get ignored. But not only that, he then gets criticised off his own fans for apparently being shit.
The criticism he's getting is because there's more to being a world class striker than making a few decent runs, whether they're ignored or not. And he's supposed to be a world class striker. At least he was one, fairly recently.
Not that I disagree, but if he'd scored a hat trick yesterday through being found on those runs, then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
He didn't set the world on fire yesterday, but he looked much sharper and more eager. Also, did someone buy him a turbo? He looked much, much faster than I've seen him - downright fast at times.
He still dallies a bit too much on the ball, and his dribbles aren't too sharp either, but I thought that he did OK.
He still dallies a bit too much on the ball, and his dribbles aren't too sharp either, but I thought that he did OK.
Kind of. Although he scored a screamer at the weekend (after being found on one of those runs) and you still had a lot of people pointing out his overall performance wasn't great (which was fair criticism IMO)
Dunno what the feck's going on with him, to be honest. I keep expecting him to turn the corner but it's just been so long since he was anything like his best. In fact it's been so long that I think people are starting to forget how good he actually was, hence we're clinging on to stuff like a few good runs (without actually touching the ball) as evidence of an acceptable performance.
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