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Post by Stew on Sept 12, 2021 10:50:11 GMT
that’s just what top players do. both Ronnie and cavani score those type of goals but players like martial would be 10 yards away from the ball when the goalkeeper spilled it. This is the behaviour of players who want to score goals. You watch Ronaldo at the back post, he's like a hyper active dog waiting to receive a treat from its owner. Martials attitude is, if I score great but I'm happy if we win. Ronaldo expects to score every game and if he doesn't, you know he's going to be disappointed. An ex-pro on the Irish channel showing it said similar yesterday after the game. He said all you’ll hear is it was a tap in. But what you won’t hear is the 9 previous times he made the same run in anticipation of the mistake which didn’t come on all those occasion but he still did it again and again until the mistake finally did come. That’s the unseen stuff top goal-scorers do. Its why they score and get well paid. |
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Post by viking22 on Sept 12, 2021 11:19:19 GMT
Ronaldo has already scored half as many Premier League goals as Martial managed last year! With Mason, Bruno, Rashford and Sancho all capable of hitting double figures I don't see goals being a problem this year especially if Pogba and Sancho provide alternative creative outlets to Bruno.
Pogba was a bit more disciplined in the middle of the park. Probably helps to have super pros like Varane and Ronaldo keeping him in line. But he definitely needs a holding midfielder alongside him. That isn't Donny. We are pinning a lot of our title hopes on a Pogba-Scotty midfield. But that is infinitely better than our other options and I guess we will just have to hope that Scotty can do a job for us as a holding midfielder and Pogba stays disciplined and professional and doesn't let Scotty get completely overrun.
But 3 wins and a draw is a very good start to the season. I can see us being close to the top of the table by the year end. Just hoping that our midfield issues will become obvious even to Ole and we will buy the DM we need in January to turn a good season into a great season.
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Post by Reduntildeath on Sept 12, 2021 11:23:17 GMT
This is the behaviour of players who want to score goals. You watch Ronaldo at the back post, he's like a hyper active dog waiting to receive a treat from its owner. Martials attitude is, if I score great but I'm happy if we win. Ronaldo expects to score every game and if he doesn't, you know he's going to be disappointed. An ex-pro on the Irish channel showing it said similar yesterday after the game. He said all you’ll hear is it was a tap in. But what you won’t hear is the 9 previous times he made the same run in anticipation of the mistake which didn’t come on all those occasion but he still did it again and again until the mistake finally did come. That’s the unseen stuff top goal-scorers do. Its why they score and get well paid. Ian Wright said similar on MOTD and compared Ronnie’s anticipation and movement to that of Joelinton, it was utterly striking-NO pun intended! |
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Post by anti_social on Sept 12, 2021 11:34:46 GMT
I’m not going to link to it, but there’s a hilarious article by professional ABU Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian today trying to piss on everyone’s chips. We all know our midfield is deficient, that the Glazers are disintered leeches etc, but his angle is always so bitter towards United it’s quite frankly bizarre.
Yesterday I was grinning like a five-year old. The last few years have been frustrating but occasionally football just cheers you up, and long may that occasional moment of magic and joy continue.
Oh - and VIVA RONALDO.
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Post by RAZ on Sept 12, 2021 11:51:51 GMT
that moment when the teams walked on the pitch, cameras on ronaldo and all you can hear was viva ronaldo from the stadium...what would have i given for the chance to be right there...not 2.5k though.
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Post by Sméagol on Sept 12, 2021 15:36:00 GMT
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Post by Bestie on Sept 12, 2021 20:20:57 GMT
Wowee. Landed home from the first United weekend in what feels like a lifetime.
Atmosphere in OT was INCREDIBLE. The noise at Ronaldo's second was the loudest I have experienced at a United match possibly ever. It was perfect footballing moment, everyone seemed to see what was happening a split second before it happened so they had a chance to build an extra huge roar. I can still 'feel it' thinking about it. Voice is done today.
We might have a ceiling with the manager's (numerous) shortcomings but signing Ronaldo has definitely changed the expectation/belief level.
Varane is just different class. He's so far ahead of every other of our CBs it's vaguely ridiculous. And de Gea is seemingly back to his best form as well. The less said about shit John Terry hero lunging and costing us the equaliser, the better.
AWB now looks totally out of place in our best XI. Massively limited going forward and really not that good defensively when you add up all elements of it. We know it won't happen but Dalot should be getting a fair go. Shaw looks to have found season-to-season consistency which is useful.
I thought Matic had a solid game, and without looking up the stats, it looked like he had the most touches on our team and many in the Newcastle half. Honestly don't know what van de Beek would have detracted from our overall play if he had played instead though. Neither do I know what negative would have arisen from positioning Pogba further forward rather than in a flat 4-2-3-1. Ole needs to grow a pair particularly against the likes of a 5-4-1 Newcastle.
Why was Sancho out left? This makes zero sense to me. He looked bright however. Newcastle constantly doubled up on him but he still had some nice touches and clever interplay. I liked how direct he wanted to be.
Was great to see some proper Glazers Out chants during the match and afterwards but fear the signings and the positivity has killed real protests again.
I cannot emphasise how immensely good it felt to be back. It's a unique feeling. I've missed it.
RUNNING DOWN THE WING, HEAR UNITED SING
VIVA RONALDO!!!
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Post by dazjoe on Sept 12, 2021 21:35:17 GMT
I’m not going to link to it, but there’s a hilarious article by professional ABU Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian today trying to piss on everyone’s chips. We all know our midfield is deficient, that the Glazers are disintered leeches etc, but his angle is always so bitter towards United it’s quite frankly bizarre. Yesterday I was grinning like a five-year old. The last few years have been frustrating but occasionally football just cheers you up, and long may that occasional moment of magic and joy continue. Oh - and VIVA RONALDO. Honestly, he's embarrassed himself these last few weeks. He's written 3 articles about United recently, one being "Cristiano Ronaldo hero worship does not mask Manchester United’s flaws", another is "No surprise Leeds lost to Manchester United, just look at the wage bills", of course, no similar article when City or Chelsea win, just United. And the 3rd being "Cristiano Ronaldo held Juventus back: just what do Manchester United see in him?" Lets just ignore the fact that all season and all summer everyone was clamoring for United to sign a number 9, a top class goalscorer who could put games to bed and finish off the chances the less consistent and clinical forwards at the club missed; and suddenly when United signed that number 9 they've fucked up somehow. The fact that a new midfielder was needed is well known, but masks 2 things. 1 - When Ronaldo becomes available, you don't not sign him. That's just obvious. It's Ronaldo. And 2 - The need for a new midfielder would have been a completely moot point if Ronaldo had signed for City. Look at yesterday, imagine him making those runs when De Bruyne, Foden, Grealish, Silva, etc have the ball. He'd hit 50 goals this season, the title would be won already. Raheem Stirling is a decent forward, very good on his day. But not great. Not world class. Yet he's managed 23, 25, and 31 goals in 3 consecutive seasons. If a player like Stirling could record those numbers at City, what could Ronaldo do? United had to sign him. But best of all, just a couple of weeks before writing: "Juve had won seven scudetti in a row before Ronaldo arrived. They won it again in their first two seasons with him, but finished fourth last year. He scored 81 league goals in three seasons, but Ronaldo made Juventus a worse football team. Not only has his relative immobility, his reluctance to contribute to the press – he was in the bottom 2% of forwards in Europe’s top five leagues in terms of pressures per 90 minutes last season – held Juve back tactically, but the money spent on him has weakened the rest of the squad. There is a reason Juve were so willing to offload him now. Juve had won seven scudetti in a row before Ronaldo arrived. They won it again in their first two seasons with him, but finished fourth last year. He scored 81 league goals in three seasons, but Ronaldo made Juventus a worse football team. "Celebrity in football is the enemy of coherence and in modern football coherence is what denotes the very best from the rest. Perhaps United fans will simply be happy to be reminded of more successful days, but it is hard to see how Ronaldo takes them any closer to mounting a serious title challenge. Rather this is a whimsical signing that fits the pattern of short-term crowd-pleasing that has characterised much of the eight years since Alex Ferguson retired. Nothing has been learned and United look doomed to drift on in the shadows of their past greatness." He had written an article titled "Cristiano Ronaldo exits but does not have the look of a man whose race is run" "He may have lost a battle of fine margins with Romelu Lukaku in Seville, but at 36 Ronaldo has shown in this tournament he is still an asset to Portugal and beyond" "In fact, the picture is not straightforward at all. Ronaldo was top scorer in Serie A with 29 goals; Lukaku second with 24 (Lukaku was on the pitch for 82 minutes longer; both played just under 50 hours). There is an easy assumption that Ronaldo these days spends his time hanging around the opposing box, waiting for chances to be delivered, but it is not exactly true. He actually attempted 1,086 passes to Lukaku’s 765 last season, despite registering just two assists to Lukaku’s 11. Given he also shot roughly 50% more than Lukaku, from an average of more than 4m further out, perhaps that says nothing more than that, in Lautaro Martínez, Lukaku had a productive partner in a way that Ronaldo did not. At this tournament, though, Ronaldo’s contribution beyond his goals has far outweighed his goals: in the group stage he completed 79 of 97 passes; Lukaku 34 of 50, and effected 13 successful pressures to Lukaku’s two. The sample size, of course, is tiny, and Lukaku’s figures skewed by a tepid final group game against Finland but the indications are that Ronaldo, perhaps because of the system, is more engaged for Portugal than for Juventus." So, in a few weeks Ronaldo went from being an asset to anyone, showing how good he was last season and not just about goals either, to being responsible to Juve's dismal season and a poor signing. Wonder why? |
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Post by SAF_Legend on Sept 13, 2021 2:53:29 GMT
I’m not going to link to it, but there’s a hilarious article by professional ABU Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian today trying to piss on everyone’s chips. We all know our midfield is deficient, that the Glazers are disintered leeches etc, but his angle is always so bitter towards United it’s quite frankly bizarre. Yesterday I was grinning like a five-year old. The last few years have been frustrating but occasionally football just cheers you up, and long may that occasional moment of magic and joy continue. Oh - and VIVA RONALDO. Honestly, he's embarrassed himself these last few weeks. He's written 3 articles about United recently, one being "Cristiano Ronaldo hero worship does not mask Manchester United’s flaws", another is "No surprise Leeds lost to Manchester United, just look at the wage bills", of course, no similar article when City or Chelsea win, just United. And the 3rd being "Cristiano Ronaldo held Juventus back: just what do Manchester United see in him?" Lets just ignore the fact that all season and all summer everyone was clamoring for United to sign a number 9, a top class goalscorer who could put games to bed and finish off the chances the less consistent and clinical forwards at the club missed; and suddenly when United signed that number 9 they've fucked up somehow. The fact that a new midfielder was needed is well known, but masks 2 things. 1 - When Ronaldo becomes available, you don't not sign him. That's just obvious. It's Ronaldo. And 2 - The need for a new midfielder would have been a completely moot point if Ronaldo had signed for City. Look at yesterday, imagine him making those runs when De Bruyne, Foden, Grealish, Silva, etc have the ball. He'd hit 50 goals this season, the title would be won already. Raheem Stirling is a decent forward, very good on his day. But not great. Not world class. Yet he's managed 23, 25, and 31 goals in 3 consecutive seasons. If a player like Stirling could record those numbers at City, what could Ronaldo do? United had to sign him. But best of all, just a couple of weeks before writing: "Juve had won seven scudetti in a row before Ronaldo arrived. They won it again in their first two seasons with him, but finished fourth last year. He scored 81 league goals in three seasons, but Ronaldo made Juventus a worse football team. Not only has his relative immobility, his reluctance to contribute to the press – he was in the bottom 2% of forwards in Europe’s top five leagues in terms of pressures per 90 minutes last season – held Juve back tactically, but the money spent on him has weakened the rest of the squad. There is a reason Juve were so willing to offload him now. Juve had won seven scudetti in a row before Ronaldo arrived. They won it again in their first two seasons with him, but finished fourth last year. He scored 81 league goals in three seasons, but Ronaldo made Juventus a worse football team. "Celebrity in football is the enemy of coherence and in modern football coherence is what denotes the very best from the rest. Perhaps United fans will simply be happy to be reminded of more successful days, but it is hard to see how Ronaldo takes them any closer to mounting a serious title challenge. Rather this is a whimsical signing that fits the pattern of short-term crowd-pleasing that has characterised much of the eight years since Alex Ferguson retired. Nothing has been learned and United look doomed to drift on in the shadows of their past greatness." He had written an article titled "Cristiano Ronaldo exits but does not have the look of a man whose race is run" "He may have lost a battle of fine margins with Romelu Lukaku in Seville, but at 36 Ronaldo has shown in this tournament he is still an asset to Portugal and beyond" "In fact, the picture is not straightforward at all. Ronaldo was top scorer in Serie A with 29 goals; Lukaku second with 24 (Lukaku was on the pitch for 82 minutes longer; both played just under 50 hours). There is an easy assumption that Ronaldo these days spends his time hanging around the opposing box, waiting for chances to be delivered, but it is not exactly true. He actually attempted 1,086 passes to Lukaku’s 765 last season, despite registering just two assists to Lukaku’s 11. Given he also shot roughly 50% more than Lukaku, from an average of more than 4m further out, perhaps that says nothing more than that, in Lautaro Martínez, Lukaku had a productive partner in a way that Ronaldo did not. At this tournament, though, Ronaldo’s contribution beyond his goals has far outweighed his goals: in the group stage he completed 79 of 97 passes; Lukaku 34 of 50, and effected 13 successful pressures to Lukaku’s two. The sample size, of course, is tiny, and Lukaku’s figures skewed by a tepid final group game against Finland but the indications are that Ronaldo, perhaps because of the system, is more engaged for Portugal than for Juventus." So, in a few weeks Ronaldo went from being an asset to anyone, showing how good he was last season and not just about goals either, to being responsible to Juve's dismal season and a poor signing. Wonder why? Agree with your sentiment. Tbh, not interested in what the lad writes. Waste of time, really. Most journalists' priorities are to rake in readership / views and traffic into their articles as a KPI. He thought he saw an opportunity, and gambled to write about the downfall of a legend - and he wants to be one of those that can say "yup, predicted that". |
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Post by viking22 on Sept 13, 2021 9:39:37 GMT
I think Ronaldo will quite enjoy proving critics wrong and scoring a truckload of goals. That will certainly help our title chances especially as Martial only managed 4 Premier League goals for us last season and Cavani only really hit a purple patch in the final months of the season. Also as we saw against Newcastle even with Ronaldo as our target man it won't massively detract from the ability of other players to be able to chip in.
I think the main concern (which has nothing to do with Ronaldo) is whether against better or more organized teams we can give Ronaldo good enough service. We saw last season with Cavani that he was often left isolated. Hopefully Sancho and Pogba should provide additional creative outlets even when Bruno has a quiet day and Shaw also provides a great service. Just wish Dalot was given a proper chance. It is ridiculous how AWB keeps his place in the side after such a shit pre-season and start to the season.
Ole has made his bed by not insisting on a DM this summer and it is up to him to find a way to get the best of the options at his disposal. I think the best approach is to use Scotty to screen the defence and have Pogba further forward dictating play and providing a link with our attack. It is far from airtight but our defence will be a lot more solid with Varane and De Gea getting back to his best and if Pogba can stay focused this season his attacking contributions will more than outweigh the defensive lapses. But I fear we haven't seen the last of McFred and that probably will remain Ole's go to against the bigger teams.
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Post by aussiegraham on Sept 13, 2021 10:53:29 GMT
Just watched the Varane highlights video, bloody hell, I didn’t notice his contribution at the time. What a signing!
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Post by redcase on Sept 13, 2021 10:58:31 GMT
Just watched the Varane highlights video, bloody hell, I didn’t notice his contribution at the time. What a signing! Rolls Royces whisper quiet mate. |
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Post by Bestie on Sept 13, 2021 12:20:50 GMT
I think Ronaldo will quite enjoy proving critics wrong and scoring a truckload of goals. That will certainly help our title chances especially as Martial only managed 4 Premier League goals for us last season and Cavani only really hit a purple patch in the final months of the season. Also as we saw against Newcastle even with Ronaldo as our target man it won't massively detract from the ability of other players to be able to chip in. I think the main concern (which has nothing to do with Ronaldo) is whether against better or more organized teams we can give Ronaldo good enough service. We saw last season with Cavani that he was often left isolated. Hopefully Sancho and Pogba should provide additional creative outlets even when Bruno has a quiet day and Shaw also provides a great service. Just wish Dalot was given a proper chance. It is ridiculous how AWB keeps his place in the side after such a shit pre-season and start to the season. Ole has made his bed by not insisting on a DM this summer and it is up to him to find a way to get the best of the options at his disposal. I think the best approach is to use Scotty to screen the defence and have Pogba further forward dictating play and providing a link with our attack. It is far from airtight but our defence will be a lot more solid with Varane and De Gea getting back to his best and if Pogba can stay focused this season his attacking contributions will more than outweigh the defensive lapses. But I fear we haven't seen the last of McFred and that probably will remain Ole's go to against the bigger teams. There will absolutely be much tougher tests than Newcastle (who actually restricted us quite well and could easily have been leading before we scored). So we have to be careful of getting carried away with the result - if we're are really honest it was a gloss without being overly flattering. The manager has to use this as an opportunity to get on the front foot actively, ditch two DMs, and give us the chance to win things. |
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Post by unitedsotex on Sept 13, 2021 18:50:35 GMT
ronaldo: "we have to build up the mentality to win the premier league and even the champions league..." how fucking great is it to have this man back! This is what I was excited for when we signed him back. (obviously his scoring ability and it's our #7) His mentality, his effect that he will have on others, his teaching the very young front three that will carry us beyond his stay with his. |
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Post by Reduntildeath on Sept 14, 2021 11:28:48 GMT
BTW.Young Mason?
Undroppable.
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