F365 Says: Man Utd need a world-class striker

Will Ford
Ronaldo Pieters Man Utd Burnley

Edinson Cavani was terrible and Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t been much better. Manchester United must spend big on a striker this summer…

 

Cavani will leave and it’s rumoured Ronaldo doesn’t fancy it either. The 1-1 draw at Burnley on Tuesday, as United lost ground in the race for Champions League qualification, was further evidence that they may be better off without them.

Manchester United completely dominated the first half. They scored one, would have had a second were it not for VAR, and should have had that second with VAR. Raphael Varane had his goal correctly ruled out as Harry Maguire blocked Jay Rodriguez from an offside position. But the linesman’s decision to rule out a further goal for a foul by Paul Pogba was questionable, to say the least.

65% possession, 12 shots to Burnley’s none, Bruno Fernandes and Pogba spraying passes around, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford running at and beating defenders, Luke Shaw and Diogo Dalot getting forward, Maguire and Varane dealing with Wout Weghorst. It all looked pretty good, not perfect, but pretty, pretty good. All except for the finish – a problem Ralf Rangnick laboured over this week.

“We wasted too many clear-cut chances… we should easily have been 3-0 up at HT,” Rangnick said after they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough. It was the same story on Tuesday.

He opted for Cavani from the start at Turf Moor, citing “sprinting”, “chasing” and “fighting” as reasons for Ronaldo to take a seat on the bench. Cavani didn’t do any of that.

The Uruguayan had 22 touches, by far the lowest of anyone on the pitch, and just two in the Burnley box: a shot straight at Nick Pope; a header from a ball that dropped straight to him at the back post that he inexplicably waited for rather than jumping towards and nodding into an empty net.

He was terrible, and Ronaldo, who replaced him in the 68th minute, was only a marginal improvement. He had one shot from an improbable angle blocked, and two headers that he ballooned over the bar.

There were other issues.

Maguire didn’t cover himself in glory again: turned too easily by Wout Weghorst, he then failed to get back as Jay Rodriguez ran onto Weghorst’s sublime reverse pass to score past David de Gea.

Burnley equalise vs Man Utd

Pogba will be questioned for the 457th time as to whether he can play in the two in front of the defence. After an impressive first half and a first goal in over a year as United dominated, he was missing from defensive action when needed as Burnley turned up the heat. As Weghorst hit a stinging drive from outside the box to produce a stunning save from De Gea, Pogba was barely in his own half.

It’s easy to imagine the half-time team talk from Sean Dyche – we probably shouldn’t still be in this, but we are. But Burnley’s renewed confidence after the break a) should have been knocked out of them long before, and b) should not have been allowed to surface. But United shrank and Burnley, bottom-side Burnley, one-win-all-season Burnley, were the better team in the second half.

And new man Weghorst looked a far more menacing opponent than Cavani or Ronaldo. And it’s a growing problem area for Rangnick and United: the strikers. Either Ronaldo or Cavani have started every Premier League this season, excluding the 1-1 draw away at Chelsea. They’ve scored just ten goals between them in 23 games. They were brilliant goalscorers, but surely few people, even those with red-tinted spectacles, can watch them currently and believe they’re truly helping the fluency and rhythm of United, rather than stunting them.

Faced with another summer of huge transfer spending to get them within touching distance of Liverpool and Manchester City, Rangnick and United should be prioritising a world-class striker. Because, dare I say that, they don’t have one.

F365 Says Cristiano Ronaldo

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