Scored less than 4 mins into his Man Utd debut. Looking forward to seeing him play this season.,
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Scored less than 4 mins into his Man Utd debut. Looking forward to seeing him play this season.,
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Talk about an instant impact! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ZlatanTime?src=hash">#ZlatanTime</a><br><br>Switch over now to watch live on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MUTVHD?src=hash">#MUTVHD</a>. <a href="https://t.co/C8QYQI3308">https://t.co/C8QYQI3308</a></p>— Manchester United (@ManUtd) <a href="https://twitter.com/ManUtd/status/759444939365163008">July 30, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Surprised Nugent hasn't asked for this to be a sticky tbh
Mike.
Can you make this a sticky please.
Really looking forward to this season
Great player but lucky strike. Seriously, that bounced luckily into the net. Not a great goal at all. I do love that player though, I have a strong feeling he could really go mental this season!
Thought this fred was about the new Star Wars film :hehe:
I sometimes get slammed for saying this, but always found him to be quite overrated. He often disappears in the big games when it really matters. He does find the back of the net quite a lot, but if you review his performances on the whole, he often loses possession unnecessarily whilst showing off by holding on to the ball for too long. It would be interesting to see what proportion of his goals have been scored against 'big' clubs or in major tournaments; not a large amount I'd imagine.
No doubt he's a quality player but he's not at the top of the tree.
Compare his performances (or lack of) for Sweden at the euros with Bale and you'll see the problem with him. When he wants to do it he can be as good as anyone but unfortunately his attitude gets in the way. By all accounts his time at Barca was a disaster because he couldn't deal with playing second fiddle to Messi.
I'm sure he'll do well in the premier league as it's not the best quality and he's a very good player. However it'll be interesting to see how he reacts if things don't go his way. With the likes of Ibra, Mourinho, and probably the worlds most expensive player in the dressing room there'll only be room for so many egos.
In agreement with everything you say apart from this one sentence. I think he'll struggle against some very strong defences. Bottom half clubs like Everton, Watford, West Brom, Sunderland...all have strong, well organised defences that old Zlatan has never experienced whilst doing his stepovers and flip-flaps against weaker teams in the other European leagues.
He's a good player, but his stats are starting to drop from his peak, will still be an improvement for man u though.
The real star for them though will be mkhitayrian. He is utter class.
I'm looking forward to his interviews more than his football
Name the games i am sure there are many more where he performed.
2 stick in my mind, both Sweden; Italy euro 2002 (?) when they topped the group and the 2 in the recent qualifier against Denmark. He has Scored something like 1 every 2 games (or less) at some of the biggest clubs in the world. Sure he's no Henrick Larsson but people who dismiss his record do so to be hipster or as a dislike to the person rather than the achievement. Which is fine but say that rather than an old clique like flat track bully or goes missing.
At 34 lets see if he can still perform.
1) I also remember those games. He flicked the ball up in the air with his heel, in a very busy box at a set-piece and it was quite fortunate that it lobbed the defender on the line. Sweden were quite lucky to top that group and I don't think Ibrahimovic was anything special in helping them do so.
2) Ok fair enough, a big game, but hardly very difficult opponents.
3) You said it, 'at some of the biggest clubs'. Without doing any research, my guess is that PSG have the most expensive starting line-up in the world (apart from Real maybe). A very quick check on Google tells me PSG's results from last season (4-0, 6-0, 9-0...), hardly competitive is it?
4) I'm not doubting that he can score goals and I find it rather absurd that you would think anyone's opinion on a player would somehow be deemed as hipster...? What I'm saying is that he hasn't proved himself regularly in a competitive league, against a more consistent standard of defenders.
And YES, the bottom half of the Premier League has much stronger defences than AC Sicily and Bari Town FC.
...and yes, my prediction is that he will struggle to score as many in the EPL. And then all the fanboys like yourself will go 'oh, but he's too old now. If he would have been here in his prime he would have been banging them in' - highly doubt it! Struggled in La Liga and often struggles against a higher standard of defences.
Sorry, just think we are discussing 2 different players and sometimes its not worth continuing on here as i don't want to argue.
The guy played for Barce, Juve, Ajax, Inter and Milan and won league titles and scored many important goals for all those clubs, which i think are big teams and top leagues.
My point was that you just made a lazy assessment about his going missing, off the the top of my head i remembered two big games and you dismissed them with some other qualifying factors about the quality of the goal, luck and the quality of opposition. Anyway, I've done what i didn't want to do but seeing as we are here, you didn't mention the games he went missing in? :-)
Not a fan boy, I don't really like the guy but overrated isn't something i agree with.
What set of defenders are you suggesting?
1999–2001 Malmö FF 40 (16)
2001–2004 Ajax 74 (35)
2004–2006 Juventus 70 (23)
2006–2009 Internazionale 88 (57)
2009–2011 Barcelona 29 (16)
2010–2011 → Milan (loan) 29 (14)
2011–2012 Milan 32 (28)
2012–2016 Paris Saint-Germain 122 (113)
With the exception of Juventus he's scored a minimum of 1 in every 2? Even the Juventus seasons is around 1 in every 3, which isn't too bad.
Fair enough, and I agree to some extent. Amazing player when given the space and time on the ball. But statistics support some of my claims. He's only scored 7 goals in 36 knock-out Champions League games (as of Feb 2016. Think he scored another shortly after the link I've added below, but still...).
The second link I've included is someone who doesn't necessarily think Ibra is overrated, but does share my opinion that the guy disappears in big games and can therefore not be deemed as 'one of the greats'. The third link also includes specific examples of big games where he has failed to impress.
Again, these are just opinions that people base on what they see; exactly like I'm doing. But the facts are he hasn't won the Champions League, even though he's been around every big club going. He's never really shown anything special for the national side, scoring what 2 goals(?) in major tournaments. Compare that to Bale, Shevchenko and similar star players who represent smaller nations.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-a6877176.html
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2914/...s-or-overrated
http://www.givemesport.com/338241-zl...rrated-striker
13 league titles with 6 different clubs but doesnt do it in the big games.
Over 100 caps with more than a goal every 2 games for a smaller nation like Sweden but never shown anything speial at international level.
Player of the year 3 times in Serie A where defending was an art form but never met a defence like West Broms.
Dearie me.
13 league titles with 6 different clubs but doesnt do it in the big games.
What has that got to do with big games?? Try typing in to Google something like 'Zlatan anonymous or Zlatan disappears in big games'. Have a look at how many articles and examples from Champions League knock out games, big game derbies, major international tournament games. This isn't an opinion I've based on the spur of the moment. This is from years of following European football live, on TV and reading match reports.
Over 100 caps with more than a goal every 2 games for a smaller nation like Sweden but never shown anything speial at international level.
Who did he score those goals against and in what competition? I love hearing about his amazing bicycle kick from the half-way line, which it was, but in a friendly vs. Joe Hart...need I say more?
Player of the year 3 times in Serie A where defending was an art form but never met a defence like West Broms.
An art-form indeed, for clubs like Juve, Inter and Milan...
Dearie me.
It just sounds like you don't like Ibrahimovic tbh, everyone else is backing up their arguments with stats and you're just trying to debunk them using nonsense arguments.
He may not be a top tier player like Ronaldo or Messi but he wasnt far off at his peak.
Lets be fair your statement that hes never experienced organised defences such as "Watford, West Brom, and Sunderland" when hes played in Serie A and the Champions League for a large part of his careeer should have just been end of thread for you regardless of how much European football you watch, or blogs you read. Ludicrous statement.
Messi anonymous 516k
Ronaldo anonymous 421k
Zlatan anonymous 351k
Messi disappears in big games - 378k
Ronaldo disappears in big games - 948k
Zlatan disappears in big games - 277k
Phil Stant disappears in big games - 175k
:sherlock:
Stant is better than Messi. :biggrin:
I thought he was capable of 50?? I'm totally fine with people not agreeing with an opinion, but when they show total disregard for 1) the topic and 2) the evidence, then often they're disagreeing with something I've not even said. For the record I'm just acknowledging the overwhelming evidence that Ibrahimovic under-performs in big games and therefore my opinion is that the hype that surrounds him is slightly unjustified.
You're right, I could have worded that differently. I still believe West Brom f.ex. will give a striker a much tougher task than some of Serie A's bottom sides. Again, just have a look at Juve's results from last season. 4-0, 4-1, 3-0 are common. Which Prem club manages those kind of results consistently these days? Also look at the top 3 Serie A teams total goals scored last season. On average 10-15 goals more than the Prem's....(Disclaimer: these are apparently not deemed as statistics if you're called Croesy Blue.)
Zlatan didnt play in Serie A last season though so whats the point of comparing last season? He played there in a time it was a far more competitive league than it is now.
Since the bribing scandal Serie A has gone one way. Downhill. You should have known that being an expert on European Football :hehe:
It would also help if you didnt tell porkies in your stats he scored more than 2 major tournament goals and more than 7 goals im Champions League knockout stages.
The last time Zlatan played in Serie A - 2011/12 where he was top scorer with 28 in 32 the average goals conceded by a team was 48.6 compared to last season Premier League where the average was 51.3
The bottom half teams conceded 54.1 in Serie A that year compared to 59.3 in the Premier League last year.
And also in the interest of balance I compared West Brom (50) and Watford (48) to the teams who finished 13th and 14th in Serie A that season who only conceded 43 and 45 (88 total). Everton (55) and Sunderland (62) were poor examples of organised defences tomorrow.
So sorry your argument that he has never experienced organised defences, later changed to bottom half clubs, is not backed up statistically.