Our attackers compared to rivals

Martial might get game time in a settled team. That's it.

The rest are a perfect fright to watch. Overrated average midtable players. I'd keep Lingard as a squad player and get rid of the rest.

Always wanted the focus to be on our attack anyway. It has been the root of our problems, even more than the midfield, for 3 years.
 
MJJ said:
Why would shaw not start over Delph or Jones over otamendi? Martial over pedro seems to be a no brainer as well.
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In what universe is Jones and Martial better than Otamendi and Pedro? :wenger:
 
MJJ said:
Why would shaw not start over Delph or Jones over otamendi? Martial over pedro seems to be a no brainer as well.
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There might be marginal calls for some but we don't have anyone close to the consistent difference makers in those sides, the likes of Hazard, De Bruyne, Eriksen, Coutinho, Sanchez.
 
Bojan11 said:
Well you can hardly blame Jose for making Hazard the main man at Chelsea. Chelsea haven’t missed Mata.

He’s been average for us and he has had a lot of chances under three managers. He’s definitely not as good carrying the ball like Coutinho, Ozil or Eriksen. He can’t even put a good corner in, I’m not sure you can blame Jose for that.
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Hazard was always the main man, it's just that Jose preferred a more industrious Oscar or Shurrle - which was bizarre at the time considering Mata was their player of the year twice in row.
 
walkinhop said:
I assure you most of our guys would flourish at some of our rivals.
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Well a lot of them haven’t done much under two or three managers. None of them are real game winners. I can’t remember the last time one of our attackers won a man of the match award. That’s how bad things have gotten.
 
Leftback99 said:
There might be marginal calls for some but we don't have anyone close to the consistent difference makers in those sides, the likes of Hazard, De Bruyne, Eriksen, Coutinho, Sanchez.
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Mikhi Pogba and martial should be that player for us but all three have been managed poorly.
 
Well Jose did try to get a certain winger from Inter, someone failed to show up with the cash. You cant blame Jose for that.

But yes, its naive to rely upon Rashford and Martial as wingers. Mkhi just needs to go. I am loving Lingard's recent improvement but he is decent at best.

Rashford is the new Lingard. We just don't have the players playing their best football at the same time.

If i would create a winger out of our attackers
Brain - Mata
Finishing - Mata
Dribbling - Martial
Heading - Lukaku
Movement - Lingard
Pace - Rashford

And none of these players are true wingers.
 
Bojan11 said:
Did he? Pretty sure Oscar played in the middle. Lampard played there when Mata was there. Mata was on the left or right for Chelsea.
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Mata also played in the middle for quite a few games at Chelsea including the CL final (I think).
 
Mou has been like this for years and it's why we (Chelsea) often got called boring even when we won the title a couple of years ago. He comes in and makes any team solid at the back and in the middle of the pitch and then just allows the attacking players to improvise and sort of make it all up as they go along through a match. We would often just simply give it to Hazard and say "work your magic." It was as though José doesn't really bother working on attacking football during training sessions.

Our attacking play (movement, patters, where players are positioned, where we start attacking moves) looks light years better under Conte and yet we haven't sacrificed anything defensively.
 
MJJ said:
Mikhi Pogba and martial should be that player for us but all three have been managed poorly.
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Mkhitaryan has always blown hot and cold. He’s never been a game winner, I remember him missing chance after chance for Dortmund in a semi final against Madrid. Mentally he isn’t there to be a big player. He’d always be the player who plays well when the team plays well.

He also underperformed for the mighty Klopp. I wouldn’t base our attack on someone like him being consistent.

Martial is 21. He is always going to be inconsistent at that age. Sterling has Silva, De Bruyne and Aguero alongside him. Who do we have of that ilk?
 
The style of football our manager plays compared to our rivals...

Then maybe you can realise why our attacking players are not flourishing.
 
ZupZup said:
The style of football our manager plays compared to our rivals...

Then maybe you can realise why our attacking players are not flourishing.
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Yes because changing our manager or style is going to mean Rashford is going to be banging in 30 goals a season. Mata and Mkhitaryan will be getting 20 assists each.

Even if we get rid of Mourinho. Our attack will still be a problem and unless we sign several established game changers then nothing will really change.
 
The attack still isn’t good enough, we all know that. But we have been scoring more goals this season.

Jose shipped Rooney & Depay out and has brought Ibrahimovic & Lukaku in. No arguments from me.

Is Lukaku United standard?

I’m not convinced but there was hardly a plethora of decent quality striking options available this summer was there? And the only other one, Morata, wanted to go to Chelsea.

Only major bollock dropped so far by Jose is Mkhitaryan. But, even SAF made mistakes in the market did he not?

Jose is not going into the market in January it seems. So if I were him, I’d play Young as the right sided attacker in front of Valencia on the right and stick with Martial -not Rashford- on the left for now, with Shaw as the LB.

Lukaku up top, Mata as the 10, as he’s easily our best player in that position.

See how that goes until the summer. Then probably sign a RW and another CF
 
Orc said:
Mou has been like this for years and it's why we (Chelsea) often got called boring even when we won the title a couple of years ago. He comes in and makes any team solid at the back and in the middle of the pitch and then just allows the attacking players to improvise and sort of make it all up as they go along through a match. We would often just simply give it to Hazard and say "work your magic." It was as though José doesn't really bother working on attacking football during training sessions.

Our attacking play (movement, patters, where players are positioned, where we start attacking moves) looks light years better under Conte and yet we haven't sacrificed anything defensively.
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And all of those things are what we've got a problem with at the moment too but most of the ire is aimed at the players when they're following orders. We can't just keep spending £30M+ on players then wonder why, in a years time they end up the same as the other players we have.
 
Rashford and Martial would probably get a place in most other top 6 sides;
Lingard & Lukaku maybe,
Mata would be a squad player and Mkhitaryan? not a chance.

We really should have signed Kane last season instead of Lukaku, made Spurs an offer they couldn't refuse.
 
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Apparently Jose bought Mkhitaryan over Mane who was the club scouts choice. That sounds bad in hindsight.

Anyways if Lukaku is out for a while and Zlatan isn't fit I don't even know where the goals are going to come from. Rashford and Martial don't look remotely ready and anything we get out of Lingard or Mata is simply papering over the cracks.
 
Bojan11 said:
Yes because changing our manager or style is going to mean Rashford is going to be banging in 30 goals a season. Mata and Mkhitaryan will be getting 20 assists each.

Even if we get rid of Mourinho. Our attack will still be a problem and unless we sign several established game changers then nothing will really change.
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The way the manager has us playing is a far bigger issue than the individual quality of our players... yet your solution is to bin them off in favour of other players who you think will miraculously perform in this dismal set up?!
 
Have been saying it for years. Rashford and lingard should only be squad players for us. It was blatantly obvious we needed a top goal scoring winger last summer as well as a top left back, and we got neither. We should expect what we're seeing from the forwards we have.

Lukaku is a good signing and we missed him today, but ultimately we're 4 players away from where we need to be, at least.
 
ZupZup said:
The way the manager has us playing is a far bigger issue than the individual quality of our players... yet your solution is to bin them off in favour of other players who you think will miraculously perform in this dismal set up?!
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Some of these players have been playing the same for two managers. A new manager isn’t going to make these players clinical somehow.
 
Bojan11 said:
Some of these players have been playing the same for two managers. A new manager isn’t going to make these players clinical somehow.
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Neither manager has been a beacon of adventurous attacking football have they?
 
Minimalist said:
You don't need world class players to get more than 3 shots on target against Soton at home.
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Very true, today was about mentality and mentality alone. The players felt shackled, nobody deared to go away from instructions, Pogba was too deep, Rashford sucks.... Lingard just runs around like a headless chicken, Mata is slow and weak when the game isn’t played higher up the pitch. Matic is a good but limited player, please tell him to stop shooting from distance.
 
ZupZup said:
Neither manager has been a beacon of adventurous attacking football have they?
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Eh?

Van Gaal was one of the best attacking managers in his day. We saw at the World Cup when he had a player like Robben it made a huge difference to his set up.

Mourinho sides haven’t looked this bad generally. But Mourinho has always had difference makers in attack.
 
We could have Messi and Ronaldo, Mourinho would still have us looking disjointed. I'm fairly certain our attackers would perform much better under other managers.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
I marvel at people who magically imagine a different style of play would produce consistent top class performance from a none top class attack. We will challenge for nothing with mere potential upfront. We have to invest in proven class in attack
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Exactly.

A new manager keeping these same players is just going to repeat the same issues. None of our attackers besides Young can cross. Valencia couldn’t cross under Fergie, so he certainly isn’t improving under anyone else.

Why does Young look our most dangerous player? A lot of these players mentally just don’t have it to play for us.
 
He had a chance to strengthen them though. Spent 75m on lukaku. 25m on Mkhitaryan the same window City got Sane and Jesus in. Martial as you say depends on form, but that's also largely dependent on system as well. I don't think people can use lack of players as an excuse considering he's had the chances to rectify that and chose the wrong players. And even so, he's not getting the best out of the players he has or getting them to play a good cohesive style of football.
 
bosnian_red said:
He had a chance to strengthen them though. Spent 75m on lukaku. 25m on Mkhitaryan the same window City got Sane and Jesus in. Martial as you say depends on form, but that's also largely dependent on system as well. I don't think people can use lack of players as an excuse considering he's had the chances to rectify that and chose the wrong players. And even so, he's not getting the best out of the players he has or getting them to play a good cohesive style of football.
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I think the OP is criticizing Mourinho for not recognizing our attack is weak.

We didn't do enough this past summer to rectify it.
 
Bojan11 said:
Mkhitaryan has always blown hot and cold. He’s never been a game winner, I remember him missing chance after chance for Dortmund in a semi final against Madrid. Mentally he isn’t there to be a big player. He’d always be the player who plays well when the team plays well.

He also underperformed for the mighty Klopp. I wouldn’t base our attack on someone like him being consistent.

Martial is 21. He is always going to be inconsistent at that age. Sterling has Silva, De Bruyne and Aguero alongside him. Who do we have of that ilk?
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Our 75m striker and our 90m midfielder?
 
I agree with a lot of what Bojan is saying. It's just I can't help that it's not entirely on our personnel. We could and should be coached better. Our approach to attacking is fecking pathetic at the minute - there's no doubt about that.

You seen teams like Swansea with Martinez and Rodgers playing some really attacking football. Heck, even under Rainieri Leicester looked swashbuckling at times. Whilst, I agree some our players aren't good enough, I also think that they have the ability to play much better than what we're witnessing.
 
MJJ said:
Our 75m striker and our 90m midfielder?
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Pogba hasn’t proven he’s a match winner yet. Not sure why you need to point out their fees. We overpaid for them both.

Lukaku has been hit and miss. But he scores his goals in spurts and we knew that before he arrived. He relies on service though. If there’s no service then he’s not gonna be like Aguero or De Bruyne where they’d produce some individual brilliance.
 
Bojan11 said:
Eh?

Van Gaal was one of the best attacking managers in his day. We saw at the World Cup when he had a player like Robben it made a huge difference to his set up.

Mourinho sides haven’t looked this bad generally. But Mourinho has always had difference makers in attack.
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I don’t care what LVG did with the Netherlands. He had Man Utd playing boring football. You can’t revision that... we all endured it.

Likewise, Mourinho has us playing boring football. Plenty of fans tried to pretend like his reputation for not playing exciting football was unfair... but based on the evidence of this season so far, it’s hard to agree.

I’m just fed up of reading all this rubbish that it’s just our players who aren’t performing whereas the manager deserves some sort of free pass. The buck always stops with the manager.
 
I said in a thread a week or so ago, it's borderline criminal how negligible our squad-building has been at the front end.
When you compare the line-up of forwards/goal-threats that City have to ours, its almost like you're looking at City vs. say, Ajax. It's like night and day.

De Bruyne, Aguero, Jesus, Sane, Sterling.

Lukaku, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Martial, Rashford, Lingard. Some might say Pogba, Paul offers zero goal-threat so I won't include him.

It is frightening, absolutely frightening the difference in rosters there. Mind-blowing.
 
ZupZup said:
I don’t care what LVG did with the Netherlands. He had Man Utd playing boring football. You can’t revision that... we all endured it.

Likewise, Mourinho has us playing boring football. Plenty of fans tried to pretend like his reputation for not playing exciting football was unfair... but based on the evidence of this season so far, it’s hard to agree.

I’m just fed up of reading all this rubbish that it’s just our players who aren’t performing whereas the manager deserves some sort of free pass. The buck always stops with the manager.
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Who said it isn’t the managers fault? I said in the opening post and even in the summer Mourinho should have addressed this. Swapping Ibra for Lukaku effectively when our attack was piss poor as it is was a big mistake. He never had another plan besides Perisic.

But let’s not kid ourselves thinking a lot of these players are good enough. Only attacker I have confidence in is Martial because he can actually skip past players with ease. The others just side wards and cross.
 
walkinhop said:
I assure you most of our guys would flourish at some of our rivals.
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People keep saying that but I don't think they would.

City - Pep doesn't like lazy players so Rashford is screwed. Martial is no better than Sterling or Sane.

Liverpool - Where would any of our attackers play? Most likely on the bench. So they wouldn't flourish there.

Spurs - Kane would start over Lukaku. Rashford or Martial don't really suit Spurs system. Lingard would probably fit best as a back up for Alli. None of them would flourish.

Chelsea - Lukaku possibly over Morata. Again, the others wouldn't suit the system so much. Rashford and Martial wouldn't work as wing backs.

So, yeah I don't think your theory is correct.
 
We dont really know how good Rashford or Martial are, they've come in at a time when fans have desperate for any bit of inspiration so have been heavily overrated if anything. Neither are even regular starters for their national teams.

Mata's best season came 5 years ago. He doesn't even make the Spain squad.

Mkhitaryan had one good season for Dortmund.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
I said in a thread a week or so ago, it's borderline criminal how negligible our squad-building has been at the front end.
When you compare the line-up of forwards/goal-threats that City have to ours, its almost like you're looking at City vs. say, Ajax. It's like night and day.

De Bruyne, Aguero, Jesus, Sane, Sterling.

Lukaku, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Martial, Rashford, Lingard. Some might say Pogba, Paul offers zero goal-threat so I won't include him.

It is frightening, absolutely frightening the difference in rosters there. Mind-blowing.
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^this.



Time to stop choosing to settle for mediocrity.

Pay the feck up for top players and don’t get left behind.

Simple as that and no other way to put it.
 
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