The College Dropout

PL tax. The best team in the PL is the biggest, fastest and strongest with quality. Most other teams are similar to them, just inferior including us.

His pressing is really good aye.

Performances recently have been solid imo. He's not getting himself into good goalscoring opportunities or showing class when it matters which is an issue. But his crossing has been good, he's working hard and being a threat. He's not getting many opportunities like he did for his goal in the PL. Teams are being more direct. He's not the confidence or the ability to pull off goals like Barnes scored. I've been satisfied with him in recent weeks. But I never thought he was a top player.

Been putting in good crosses recently. That's been the best part of his game on the ball recently. Running at players and crossing.

Had a colleague from Azerbaijan that would use a brown hand emoji.

Was a meh signing for me at the time. Was more excited by Hall, Tino & Tonali. We needed more numbers in that window but PSR didn't allow it. The quality was brilliant.

Good spot. Barnes is THE man. Legend.

That leverkusen draw is a gut punch. Win there and we are basically through.

So was Roque Junior signing for Leeds. I couldn’t believe how bad he was. What about the others named?

Or…. He’s 18 and going through the usual ups and downs of a young and relatively inexperienced player. Brazilian wonderkids play a lot of football at a young age huh? Didn’t realise he had played so much mens football.

Of course. Estevao looks the few deal. It’s a lot easier to scout in Brazil these days.

Gabriel Jesus Martinelli Alvarez from Argentina Some back in the day examples too. Sylvinho, Gilberto Silva.

Why would it be related to this ?

Murphy's crosses are great. If your winger is wide and in a good position to cross, your strikers, other winger needs to crash the box. Nick is often nowhere to be seen. These were crosses Isak was tapping in weekly - so we know it works. Murphy is our 3rd highest in terms of expected assits too - behind Bruno G and Gordon. So it's bad finishing that has him with only 1 league assist. There's loads of other crosses that wouldn't register any expected assist data at all because Nick is chilling at the D

It was really good for sorting narrative and fact. It was largely the fbref data where it was obvious Pope would be a massive upgrade on Dubs. He beat Dubs on so many key metrics - save percentage, xgc delta, claiming crosses, and distance of defensive actions. Didn't include the pass stats but immediately - I knew Pope's strengths vs Dubs and it was night and day. It is a bit more difficult with out field players and things are more team-dependent. But still useful. Elanga over performed all of his expected data last year iirc. Not great 1v1 stats etc. But still good expected assist data but not brilliant. Fbref was the last free data point for football. Opta site is useles. Statsbomb is paywalled and super expensive. You can gleam some stuff from whoscored and footbmob(?) but not as good as fbref.

Very spoilt.

Opta have cut ties with fbref. Most of the good stats came via Opta on fbref. Big blow for desktop scouting that. Good bye ball progression stat! 😔

Badly want top 8. Seeded draw and 2 less games.

It wouldn’t be an outcry if we knew what it was from day one.

Most fans would decry signing an 18-yo for £50m who would likely sit on the bench a fair amount in the first 12 months. They did the same for Hall. That's how much I think it would take to get Nwaneri from Arsenal at this time.

Even when they don't score - Arsenal have such pressure from set pieces. And they defend them well. It's rare to see teams across the PL get sliced open in midfield all the time. There was a time City were regularly slapping the mid-pack and below 4 and 5. That rarely happens now. Think I saw a stat that thrashings are at a low of recent decades. The tactical, physical and technical gap is closer than ever. There's also not the KDBs, Aguero's, Kane, Son, Prime Salah that we used to have. This season there's Haaland... maybe Bruno F then a dozen really great players but not a deep pool of super elite players. As an FPL head only Haaland & Bruno F have justified their premium prices

TBF they are relying on defence first and foremost which is a little more common. Pep semi-initiated this general tactically trend (the 4 central defenders) and has also had to pivot to it as well getting in Donnarumma and more vertical players.

Nwaneri is a highly regarded talent and Arsenal won't sell him - at least not for a sensible price. So rather than pay over the odds now, we can get him for a fair fee and can cash in on developing him if he's good. We don't seem interested in paying a premium on potential as we did for Hall. We spent £33m on a 19-yo left back with 12 first-team appearances, think Nwaneri with no buyback would cost £45m+.

After the Isak saga best to do it in the open.

Funny some people think it’s cheap some think it’s too much. I guess it’s a fair fee. Bobb hasn’t shown much in a couple years. So for me it’s steep. Palmer had at least been good whenever he played. I would be on Nwaneri on loan with an option to buy. Even if it was a fancy buy back deal. Option for £30m buyback for £60m.