Part II: Why Manchester United shouldn't be looking for a striker this summer

If it feels like we've been in this position before, it's because we have

Author’s note: Stats are from Fbref unless otherwise noted. The stats do not include Manchester United’s most recent match against Nottingham Forest.

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It’s likely Ruben Amorim’s biggest priority for next season will be centered on improving Manchester United’s attack. Last week Kwest Thoughts published Part I of this article where we talked about how what Manchester United need is a goalscorer - and while that goalscorer could come in the form of a striker, it didn’t have to be a striker.

No, Manchester United don't need to sign a striker

This week we’re going to follow that up by talking about why Manchester United shouldn’t sign a striker this summer.

We can talk about money and budgets all we want. While those things are certainly important it really comes down to two things.

Environment Environment Environment

This isn’t the first time Manchester United have needed to increase their goal scoring. In fact, they’ve been in this spot many times before. Rather than diagnosing why they weren’t scoring goals they opted to just spend money on big name goal scoring strikers which kept leading them right back to the same place.

One of the biggest myths in football is that goal-scoring-strikers add goals to a team. They don’t.

Manchester United scored fewer goals in the Premier League the year they signed Robin van Persie than they did the year before. Manchester City signed Erling Haaland and scored fewer goals than the previous year. Bayern Munich signed Robert Lewandowski and saw their goal output drop sharply. Yes, when Manchester United signed Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2001 they scored more goals (87) than they did in the 2000-01 season (79), but they then scored fewer than their 00-01 total in each of the next four seasons. The scoring increased as soon as Van Nistelrooy left. The list goes on.

Top strikers are always going to get “theirs.” How potent your attack is will always be determined by how many goals the rest of the squad is scoring. Those top strikers will get you 15-25 goals a season but that merely consolidates a team’s goal scoring to one outlet. This occurs because strikers typically cannibalize all the shots at the expense of their teammates.

Strikers are finishers. They typically don’t create most of their scoring opportunities. Rather they finish the ones created by their teammates. If you have a team that is scoring about the amount of goals that would be expected of them and you wanted to add goal, adding a goal scorer isn’t going to do that. What you need to do is add more goal scoring opportunities. In order to do that you need to add players that create those opportunities.

The 2020-21 season saw Manchester United score the second most goals in the league. It still wasn’t enough. Seeking more goals to overtake Manchester City, they brought in Cristiano Ronaldo - who at this point of his career had pretty much become a (pretty lethal) traditional number 9.

What United overlooked about the year prior was that they were actually really efficient finishers. While they ranked second in goals scored, they were only sixth in shots. They didn’t need someone to come in and finish all them chances - they needed to create more chances.

At this point in his career, Ronaldo wasn’t someone who really created a lot of chances. He was beholden to what his teammates could create for him and United were surrounding him with players who didn’t offer much chance creativity.

United’s scoring dropped significantly as Ronaldo ate up all the shots, but even getting shots was difficult for Ronaldo. Take a look at his shots per game for all his seasons in the Fbref database where he played at least 10 games.

That’s a massive drop-off at Manchester United. Obviously there’s some quality of league stuff at play here but this is still shot monster Cristiano Ronaldo we’re talking about! It took until his age 39 season for him to take less than five shots per game yet at United he couldn’t even get three!

When signing a striker, the environment they’re walking into is so important. If you put a striker into a team that doesn’t create a lot of chances, he’s going to find it really difficult to score goals and be successful.

While United have the freedom to decide whether they want to go after a central striker or wide(r) goal scorer, the players they already have in the squad are really important to factor into that decision. If you want to sign a striker, you better make sure you have the players that could foster the right environment for him to succeed.

Manchester United don’t.

In the 2022-23 season Jadon Sancho had eight shot-assists to whomever was playing at striker¹. I don’t know how that stacks up against the rest of the league so I can’t tell you if that’s a lot or not but - when one of the primary jobs of a winger is to create chances for the striker - that number seems low to me.

What I can tell you is since the 2022-23 season no other Manchester United winger has even come close to providing eight shot-assists for the striker. Last season Rashford, Antony, and Alejandro Garnacho each had four, with only three of Garnacho’s and none of Antony’s going to main striker Rasmus Hojlund.

This season Garnacho has just two shot assists for Hojlund and one for Joshua Zirkzee. That’s the exact same breakdown as Amad with all three of Amad’s coming when playing at wing back.

The thing about shot-assists is that relies on the receiver to actually take a shot after receiving the pass so let’s forget about them for a second. Manchester United have a problem simply passing the ball to their strikers.

Remember this?

We rip on Dalot here but at 2.69 completed passes² to Hojlund per 90 this season, he’s far from the worst offender³.

Last season none of United’s wingers passed the ball to Hojlund more often than Marcus Rashford’s 2.31 per 90. This season that number jumped up to 3.47 in a small sample. That was by far the most of United’s attackers (including Bruno).

Rashford is no longer here so that doesn’t help us all that much. When looking at the players who may have a future with the club it only gets bleaker. Last season Alejandro Garnacho completed a grand total of 16 passes to Hojlund. Sixteen! That’s despite playing just under 18 90s on the pitch with him (0.9 per 90)! This is your left winger, one of the guys who’s supposed to be creating for the striker.

This season Garnacho is completing 1.45 passes per 90 to Hojlund. This looks like a solid improvement but if you just take a tiny peak under the lid it tells a different story. Five of Garnacho’s 12 passes to Hojlund came in one match and since Ruben Amorim took over that number is just 0.74.

Unfortunately that’s an issue across the board. Since Amorim took over everyones passes to Hojlund are down. There’s an obvious excuse here as Amorim has brought about a new system with slightly different positions for these “wingers.” In Amorim’s system the wingbacks could be even more important for creating chances for the striker than the other attackers.

Like the attackers, United’s wingbacks are not getting the job done. Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui are completing 2.27 and 2.28 passes per 90 to Hojlund respectively. Neither of them are strong players in the final third. They both complete well under 0.75 passes into the box per 90, which gives you an idea where those passes to Hojlund are coming on the pitch.

In a perfect world Dalot and Mazraoui wouldn’t be lining up as wingbacks. As of right now that would be Patrick Dorgu and Amad. Dorgu is unproven at the Premier League level while Amad was only completing 1.66 passes to Hojlund in a small sample as a wing back. Either way, only being one injury away from Dalot or Mazraoui leaves you very short in this position.

There are reasonable concerns when it comes to Hojlund and whether or not he’s doing enough himself. Hojlund has often come under fire this season for his lack of off-ball runs. However at the end of February, Opta cited Hojlund as having made the second most off-ball runs among strikers in the Premier League this season. That doesn’t mean they were the correct runs or good runs. However, if you swap out Hojlund with Joshua Zirkzee - a striker who often drops much deeper to aid in buildup - and filter for when Zirkzee is playing as a striker rather than as one of the no. 10s - the numbers are remarkably consistent. Only Lisandro Martinez and Mazraoui (when playing as a center back and not a wingback) are passing to Zirkzee more than three times per 90, indicating these are passes early on in buildup rather than in the final third.

All of this highlights Manchester United's struggles in delivering the ball to their striker—especially in dangerous areas. In this environment, even the best strikers would struggle to be effective."

But that’s not all.

Didn’t they just sign a striker?

Over the last two years Manchester United have spent roughly £100 million before add ons on strikers Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee. But we’re not talking about them.

Last summer United also spent £1m to sign 16 year old Arsenal academy product Chido Obi. Obi is highly touted and his signing from Arsenal was considered a steal. He was fast tracked to the first team which shows just how high United are on him.

In March, Obi made four appearances off the bench for United’s first team. Getting any first team minutes at 17 is indicative to how good he already is. Obi represents the future. He’s a player who could be leading United’s line for a decade.

Obi isn’t ready to be given any kind of real responsibility yet but you still have to be wary about potentially blocking his path to be United’s first choice striker. You especially don’t want to do that with a big expensive striker. The whole point of signing Obi is so that you don’t have to spend big money on strikers for the next decade.

Now, realistically - but also optimistically - when do you think Obi will be good enough to make 20ish starts in a season for United?

This was a question I posed to a United discourse thread a few weeks ago. The consensus it depends on what we see from him coming off the bench the next few months but hopefully by Christmas.

Let’s be a little more conservative and Obi will be ready to make 20ish starts by the start of the 2026-27 season. If you plan on that, you now have two full summer transfer windows to address the other areas of your team and create an environment that a striker can succeed in.

Manchester United’s limited summer budget makes signing a striker—one of the priciest positions—a major commitment. Investing heavily in one would restrict funds for other needs, likely keeping much of the current squad intact. That means any new striker would still be stuck in the same system that limits their success.

The last thing you want is for Chido to play the formative years of his career in an environment that’s dooming him to failure. You don’t have to look any further than Hojlund.

Hojlund was a better player last season than he is now. He didn’t join the best environment for a striker but that environment only became worse. Hojlund wasn’t coached well and began developing bad habits that have stuck to his game. The longer he goes without breaking those habits, the less likely he ever will.

Personally I don’t think Rasmus Hojlund is this bad but I also feel like the ship has sailed on it working out for him at Old Trafford⁴. However, the truth is we’ve never seen Hojlund play in an environment that was set up for him to succeed.

Invest in the environment and you may actually get some natural improvement in the players you already have. This would help you bide time as you wait for Chido Obi to develop. When he finally does break through he’ll be facing significantly less pressure. At that point if Chido, or any of the other strikers, still can’t get the job done, now you’re at least ready to sign that big name striker.

United’s goal should be to create the most optimum environment with the least amount of pressure for Chido when he’s ready for the first team. That means building a team that’s capable of creating chances, so all Chido needs to do is step in and start finishing chances. You don’t want him coming in off the back of another big money striker who failed because the team couldn’t get him the ball and now the fanbase is looking for a teenager to be the savior.

In a perfect world, United would go out and get a goalscorer and a bunch of creators this summer. Unfortunately don’t have that kind of money. They have the money to do one or the other, not both. If they focus on the environment, they can start to build something. If they opt for the big striker then, well, you’re likely to be reading the same newsletter two years from now.

Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

1. Whether that was Anthony Martial, Ronaldo, Wout Weghorst, or Marcus Rashford

2. Completed pass stats are from Stats Zone

3. Let’s just set the guidelines right now: We’re going to leave out Bruno Fernandes from all these numbers for two reasons: 1. Bruno Fernandes actually passes to the striker and 2. we’re focusing on the “wingers” and he’s not one of them.

We are also not focusing on Joshua Zirkzee because he’s much more of a false-9 rather than a provide service for him striker type that we’re talking about.

4. His connection with a certain YouTube channel has also been ill-advised