The College Dropout

Aye compared to Tonali it’s night and day. That’s the problem with the squad. But Miley is showing he’s getting better at it. Quickly too.

We totally outclassed them. We balled out (as we should with that strength of team). Bruno looked like a Brazilian international playmaker against a league 1 side. Gordon looked like an England international against a L1 side who doesn’t have his shooting boots on. We were levels. A lot of nice things you would hope we would see more of going forward. Quick passing through the middle.

I think you've misinterpreted my point. My point is - I don't think we have the squad to spread the goals out much further than we already do. Kanj said we've been overly reliant on our 9's. My point is that is by design, we aren't setup to spread the goals any more than we do. We look to get our strikers into great positions. Our right winger is there to get it to the main striker. A team like Arsenal is setup for a wider spread of goals. They do not look for their striker. Gyokeres will score goals but he would score more for a team that more actively looks for their striker.

We don’t have the team for spreading the goals around imo. Only Gordon/Barnes has a track record of scoring goals consistently. The squad is setup for the strike to bag goals imo. Elanga nope. Murphy nope. Bruno and Joe are good for a few.

There was one great tackle by the touch line. He looked better off the ball than he has previously these last two game imo. I don’t think he’ll be trusted as a single pivot in front of a back 4 in PL or CL games mind. But Howe has already surprised me with his willingness to rotate. But he’s doing it in different ways.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9562235/Wayne-Rooney-reveals-HATED-playing-striker-Manchester-United-saying-awful.html 'It took me seven or eight years to learn how to play there and to learn to play with your back to goal. It's the hardest position to play...I weren't enjoying it, but it was my best two years of scoring. I remember coming off the pitch and scoring two goals and saying, "I was awful. I didn't play that well today. I didn't have that many touches of the ball."'

My point is he needs to develop as a striker. He doesn’t have the experience and track record in that role as Isak did or most of our other targets. Hes 23 and not played a lot of top level football scoring goals as a striker. He needs more development in the role than Isak did.

He’s 23 and has scored 13 top flight league goals from open play in his career. 15 total. I think he would do brilliantly to score another 13 league goals from open play this season alone. Thats the reason we spent £50m on a 28 year old striker. Wissa is meant to carry the primary goal burden this season imo.

Are they so different? Similar players with Elanga having more to his game. Right footed right winger looking to feed a striker. Elanga hasn’t played with Nick W much. The assists will come when he does. Kudus is more talented and flexible but I don’t think we could’ve got him anyway. I think Kudus has the most successful take ins in the division. So far. I don’t think any of our wingers are in The top 20% for take-ons. And none of them Have a wand of a primary foot to create (Murphy might be the closest). That’s a design issue not the fault of the individual players.

I don’t remember that. Not like Osula certainly.

I don’t think it was a good idea to have him and Joe play 90 personally. KMs in the legs they don’t need. But he was having fun aye.

Not in the Bundesliga. Which is part of the reason why he’s a bit of a late bloomer. Barely scored a Bundesliga goal prior to last season. Had not played a ton of Bundesliga matches either. He’s learning.

I hope so. But I think it's difficult to teach someone how to be a killer. Kane was a killer first, then refined his wider game. People overemphasise Isak's struggles at Dortmund and Sociedad. Isak scores 10 goals in the equivalent of 18 full matches in the top Swedish division as a 17-year-old. Isak scores 13 in 16 as a 20-year-old in the Eredivisie. This is why Isak was a wonderkid from early. He showed he knew how to score goals in mens football from the very start of his career. Nick W doesn't hit double figures until 21 in the 3rd tier of German football. He's playing various roles too. They don't have similar career arcs at all. Isak was able to hit the ground running because his learning curve was less steep and his profile was plug & play into our system. I can see Nick W needs to sharpen his striker instincts and he's a way different profile to what we've ever had at striker.

I’m glad he’s way ahead of Joe Willock though. Willock is done here. Would love to sell Willock and bring in another proper CM

I think if we rotate the big 3 often with everyone fit a lot of times we’ll just play 2 with Nick W In front. The gap between him and the big 3 is so big it will cost us points. We paid a premium for Wissa and Elanga because we wanted players to hit the ground running. I don’t think we are in the Brighton model of playing players through massive development unless injuries force us. An injury crisis turned Hall’s season around.

All of our wingers need Howe magic. None of them are ballers. It will click with Arlanda eventually. I agree we do need a technician out there eventually. It’s partly why our set pieces are so bad. We don’t have many options for quality delivery.

He’s had so many head bumps and a previous concussion this year already give him a good rest man. This is a man’s life. I dunno man. If everyone was fully fit playing a cup final tomorrow. I start Burn and Schar. Burn has intangibles. Schar is better as RCB. Don’t want that back 3.

Yeh the traditional setup we have needs a 9 to score loads of goals. We haven’t seen our best front 3 available yet have we? And we won’t until Wissa is back.

I think a lot of that is in the Lower levels. In the Bundesliga he’s played 38 games at SS, AM or RW even. 29 times as striker. Off the striker isn’t a striker imo. You can see it. He doesn’t have the same movement to goal.

What do you count as trusted? I think Howe is rotating more by force and fire. So he’ll get ok minutes. But the gap between him and the big 3 is massive. Unless it’s needed to preserve them or a game is already won, I don’t see Howe choosing Miley to play much.

Ok. He hasn’t shown (in a few appearances true) that he knows how to play like a 9. He’s not played as a 9 a tremendous amount of times either. And you can see it. Your Isak’s, Etikite’s, started as 9s. You can see it in their mentality. Where you could always tell Rooney didn’t love being a 9 even when asked. But he could adapt his game to it easily. He knew the Role.

Agree that he was largely excellent, a big factor off the ball today as well which is massive. Cant ignore that when asked to play a more expansive game he dropped a couple of howlers. A season in the champ irons that out imo. I hope he gets the game time here to iron that out. He’s got the ability we can all see it. Agree he’s a better player than Anderson at this age. Anderson had 2 seasons where he made massive jumps through playing consistently.

We don’t. We are fine without him. But I do agree he’s our best CB. Wouod play him RCB on the weekend and give Schar some extra time to heal his head.

You can see why he hasn’t played as a striker throughout his career. He doesn’t look like one to me. Wants to link it a bit too much. He adds a much needed level of football to our team however. As he learns how to be a proper 9 I expect him to play with Wissa a lot this season. Exciting player overall but you can see he need a lot of development as a 9.

He played like a Brazilian international against a League 1 side. He ran the game and largely did what he wanted to do. Some have turned on him on here. Very tough on him. Which is weird because he’s our only midfielder that can find incisive passes consistently.