Solitude20

I don’t know about you guys, but I might be a bit ambitious. I find myself wishing for the big six to lose as I think of them as our competitors (except for Man City and Liverpool). Fucking Leicester couldn’t beat a 10 man Chelsea.

And then Spalletti benches him for like 50% of the season just like what he did to Totti in his final years. He literally drove Totti into retirement. This last week is going to be interesting as fuck.

Or he could be switching to 4-4-2 as he used to do at Bournemouth. That means we could still play with two wingers while placing Isak/Wilson at the top. Looking at how deep Isak drops, this could work pretty well.

Yep, Wilson is out for sure. We seem desperate to have him ready for Sunday match.

While we are doing our best to bring in a better player, we should keep him as we are currently showing a lack of depth in our squad. He could be a good sub for us.

he’s the deep lying forward/ false nine type, so the post above about comparing him to Firmino sounds about right. “He is a versatile forward, able to play anywhere across the front line, starting so far under Rob Edwards as the focal point of a three. “He’s best centrally in a trident with two forwards prepared to make runs behind defenders,” explains Roy Hodgson, Watford manager during the second half of last season. “Then he can drop and be a deep-lying target player.” “Give him freedom to float,” agrees Eduardo Oliviera, who oversaw Joao Pedro in the Fluminense under-17s. “He wants to be part of the game every time. He’s not only good in the box, he’s good at building the game.” Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2022/08/14/joao-pedro-watford-forward-no-one-talking-yet/ I will be honest, I never watched him much. All I saw was some Youtube videos, a few articles, and his stats breakdown. I can see that he could play as a lone striker (false nine) where he drops deep to receive the ball or attracts defenders to create space for the wingers and attacking midfielders to score. This system can be very prolific if we play him as a lone striker (false 9) and sign a winger and a midfielder who are great in front of the target (Harrison and Paqueta/Maddison for example). He can also play as a deep lying forward next to another forward, and that means Howe would go back to his beloved 4-4-2. I can understand why some folks here are worried about his low number of goals. But if his role is to become a false 9/deep lying forward, then scoring goals becomes his secondary objective. Another point is that he’s still 20 , and he played most of his career at Watford, here I am hoping he could work on his finishing and improve it if he comes here. CR7 for example improved his goals/game ratio dramatically after he turned 23 or something. Pedro isn’t CR7, but I mean he is still raw, and his ceiling might be high based on what I have read.

7 out of 10 is the highest score in that games. It isn’t bad at all. Plus, we dominated the game through teamwork rather than individual brilliance of some players. Edit: I probably need a new pair of glasses. Burn and Schar got 7.5

Those progression via carry vs progression via pass stats confirm my doubts, Willock is our weakest point in the current team, not Miggy. Sometimes you have to go back to those numbers to have a bigger picture, and I always believed adding an attacking midfielder will add more to our current team than adding a right winger since Willock doesn’t add much to the way Eddie plays. Let’s go back to the basics and ask, what does Willock offer? He can run with the ball in free spaces/ counter attacks, and he is decent in front of the goal. Since Howe came, we have been playing a possession based football, and just like against Forest, we spent the majority of the game in their half passing the ball around and looking for holes in their defense. Here the ability of Willock to run in empty spaces becomes less important. Why did Arsenal sell him when he was a graduate of their academy? Because (and the numbers show) he isn’t a great passer. He lacks the composure or technical ability to play that type of football. He might be better suited for a team that will play on counter attacks, which was the case for Newcastle before the takeover. Even his greatest strength (ball carrying) was low against Forest because we cornered them in their area and did not allow them to move forward and create those spaces. ASM on the other hand had outstanding ball carry stats because he relies on his excellent dribbling skills to carry the ball, and that was crucial against Forest in order to penetrate their defenses. But Willock generally relies on speed to carry the ball. There was no space for him to sprint. In such games, we need players who are great at passing or great at dribbling , and Willock offers niether of those things. this ,in my opinion, explains why we are in for the likes of Maddison who would add a lot more to the game had he been with us last weekend. What’s a midfielder doing if he isn’t progressing the ball through passing or carrying? Joe is a monster at winning the ball back, and that indirectly adds to our possession. Bruno is tasked to play deeper. We must add a more creative midfielder upfront. Willock can be useful in games where we are not expected to win possession for those counter attacks, he could make a great sub then.

While that is good to read, it also means if we won’t make to Champions League in a couple of years, he’s gone. He’s still young, and imagine how much he can develop under Howe or in the EPL. Other UCL teams can easily find a spot for him by then.

Actually, it didn’t look like we had a holding midfielder today (and even in friendlies when Shelvey wasn’t playing). Bruno was all around the pitch, and so were Joe and Willock of course. This backfired Big time today when all three midfielders were in and around Forest’s box and then we suddenly lost the ball, we literally had no one of Newcastle players anywhere from their box all the way to our half of the pitch, and the Forest player was just running through the center without being challenged. The center of pitch was just empty. That was dangerous but Forest just squandered that ball. This happened also once against Bilbao and resulted in a one to one against Pope, but they didn’t score. I wonder what Howe thinks of that and how we are going to fix it.

With 5 subs, I can totally see Botman come in second half.

In Leipzig he played as a second striker, and in Chelsea he was used as a conventional winger. That’s why his xG dropped.

Don’t forget how in Leipzig he used to play as a second strikers who drifts wide, and therefore he used his speed to exploit spaces and become a source of threat. In Chelsea, he played as a left winger in 4-3-3, and a forward who drifts wide is significantly different than a winger. Their responsibilities and roles are different. As a winger, you should help maintain possession and deliver crosses, so it is more of a supporting role, and that is different from his role back in Leipzig as a second striker, and he was pretty good back then. It all boils down to how Eddie would want to use him in case if we are really interested.

Shelvey is looking composed.

he’s been playing more as a wide playmaker than a conventional winger. He does not have the pace or dribbling you would expect from a winger, but he he does well with his vision, passing and playmaking. He requires a different system in order for him to play well.

The thing is he could have agreed with some other club before going public with his desire to leave, just like what Lewa did. Apparently he assumed clubs would be lining up for his service. Even if he realized now that Man United is his only option, it would be too embarrassing to just walk back to the training and be like :” Hey guys”.

Just like many others, I was wondering why the PIF isn’t splashing more cash in their negotiations to make a quicker jump in the quality of our players, then it occurred to me that the PIF is an investment fund after all. They have spent north of 150 millions in the transfer market so far in a span of 6 months, and if we count the staff appointments and the other investments in our facilities then that might be more than 200 million since the takeover. They might actually be thinking on their return of investment as well. I know sport washing and all but what if they were treating the takeover as a business that should reward a good return just like all of their other investments in an effort to diversify away from oil. Fair play regulations might not be the only factor that limits our spendings, it might be the expected return in investment on those said transfers that may not make much sense to them. It’s a business after all.

Man, Joelinton’s first touch needs some work.

Toney is similar to a fit Wilson. Makes no sense to spend so much on him while we still need strengthening in other places. We should either get someone who is clearly better than Wilson so at least it makes sense to bench him, or we should get a youngster with potential who can fill in Wilson’s shoes as he gets injured and can develop by next year into our main striker. (Someone in the profile of Ekitike, Mara etc.)

Let’s just get Isak and close this thread ffs.

Nottingham Forest has spent 70m in the window so far. They are doing some work there. Can’t say I wouldn’t be sad if they outspend us in this window

Then it means PSG won’t be getting Samacca now, right? I think we should be all over him since we had no chance earlier when PSG showed interest.

I guess it’s more of a question of his potential rather than his current abilities. The lad is 20 years old, and he can still improve a lot, or at least that’s what our scouting team might be thinking based on the news. while scoring 6 goals for Southhampton might sound low, that’s pretty much around his xG, so it’s not that bad as it seems more of a statement of Southhampton being unproductive in creating scoring opportunities rather than Broja being wasteful in front of the goal. Broja seems to be our second target after Ekitike, and it is clear we are targeting only youngsters with potential up front as Wilson still seems to be our first option for next season. in the end, 30m isn’t much for a decent striker in the current market, let alone a 20 year old with potential.

Only a Karen can reply to a Karen