One player that United could be looking at this summer is Kemar Roofe. The 29 year-old has been at Rangers since 2020, when he was signed from Anderlecht for around £4.5M.
In his 2 year spell in Scotland he’s bagged 34 goals in 72 games so far. Roofe has been linked with a loan move away from Ibrox to Derby County, according to Glasgow Live.
Roofe currently has 2 years left on his contract at Rangers, maybe United could look at a loan-to-buy deal for the forward.
Analysis on why I think United should sign Roofe:
Firstly, we need to consider the fact that Oli McBurnie and Billy Sharp haven’t kicked a ball in a pre-season game yet, and they might not get that chance to do it this week either.
That leaves Rhian Brewster, Iliman Ndiaye, Will Osula and Daniel Jebbison as our only forward options. Yes they are all good players, and we have a mixture of different skills with them, but all 4 of them are still relatively inexperienced.
Roofe is a very versatile forward. You can play the ball into him with his back to goal so he can lay it off to teammates, he’ll make intelligent runs in behind the back line and he will also drop deep into the half spaces to make something happen.
Above is an example of Kemar Roofe’s receiving quality and his vision for the game. The ball has just been fired into him as he’s made a run to the edge of the box. He knows that he has sucked a defender towards him, which means there is a gap to play into. Roofe plays a one touch pass around the corner into the space for his teammate to run onto.
Here you can see that the ball is out on the right wing, with Roofe making a run into the box towards the near post. But the ball wasn’t played into him. See below to see how the move progresses.
You can see that the space at the near post has been covered off by the defender. The defender doesn’t realise that Roofe’s run to the near post was a decoy in order for him to create space towards the penalty spot. He stops his run and drifts backwards, as he knows that’s where the space is. The ball then gets floated into him, and he places the header beyond the goalkeeper. He actually did the same move twice in this game, and got two goals from it.
Above is another example of Roofe’s awareness and intelligence. Roofe has made a run behind the defence, which has now created two options for the man on the ball. The player on the ball can either split the line between the two opposition players by threading a ball through to Roofe. Or the player can continue to drive forward with the ball, because Roofe has sucked in the defender which forces him to create a massive gap in the middle of the defence.
I’d hope that United are looking at bringing in Kemar Roofe because he’s a quality player, an experienced one and a versatile forward. With him we’d have the option of playing 2 number 10’s behind a central striker.
Nice work Jake, far from the usual click bait you have put some thought and work into that, fair play to you. Personally I think if we sign Khadra and we already have Doyle, with N’Diaye also as a 10, with Brewster upfront and Osula/Jebbo we are in very good shape upfront. Oli Mac and Billy just add to the options.
Thanks for actually putting some background to your article instead of re-hashing old rubbish with adverts.