Lewis Hall

[ExiledGeordie]

Brilliant player. Different to Tino who’s a more elite 1v1 defender who can shut even the best wingers down but Hall is fast becoming an excellent defender in his own right. His passing and attacking ability and composure on the ball is something else though.

[Lush Vlad]

5 minutes ago, mighty__mag said:

 

All people talk about right now is Isak, understand there's still a way to go yet. 

 

https://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/pfa-player-of-the-year

 

Get your money on then.  As I think he'll only get shorter! 

[80]

2 hours ago, Lush Vlad said:

Might be talking complete nonsense here.  But I wonder if there is any correlation with him being a good cricketer and how calm he is on the pitch?  As you have to be pretty assured, calm and patient a lot of the time playing cricket.  He does just seem to have an elite mentality, so vice versa, really. 

 

Rarely looks troubled and flustered, even when he is under pressure and in a difficult spot, like HawK kind of alludes to above.  I thought he got a hospital pass from Burn quite a few times last night.  But he didn't seem arsed.  

Sean Longstaff disproves this

[Nine]

The rate that he has improved especially defensively is mental, because his overall defending was a much weaker part of his game by the end of last season although his minutes were limited. 
 

Hes essentially becoming Trippier reborn, but could be end up being better than that. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 15:10 by Nine

[black_n_white]

Wait until he’s  replaced by Burn at left back. BTW I hope this never happens!

[mondonewc]

1 hour ago, Lush Vlad said:

 

https://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/pfa-player-of-the-year

 

Get your money on then.  As I think he'll only get shorter! 

Chucked a couple quid on at 66/1 Glgl

[gjohnson]

23 hours ago, KingArthur said:

Well, this turned out to not be the case.

Have that saved or did you actually go back 9 months  looking for it?

 

Yes i was wrong.

[KingArthur]

7 hours ago, gjohnson said:

Have that saved or did you actually go back 9 months  looking for it?

 

Yes i was wrong.

Just went back for a quick look to a time everyone was having a go. 
 

just messing around mate, I have been wrong about Newcastle players hundreds of times. 

[gjohnson]

4 hours ago, KingArthur said:

Just went back for a quick look to a time everyone was having a go. 
 

just messing around mate, I have been wrong about Newcastle players hundreds of times. 

😄 did genuinely think at the time  he'd be a total flop, but happily shown wrong.

 

On the downside it shows how far ahead Chelseas academy is on almost everyone, and why they'll never get any sort of psr punishment 

[GeordieDazzler]

21 hours ago, mighty__mag said:

He's gotta be picking up PFA young player of the season.

 

He's easily ours, with Isak likely player of the season.

Is it still the case that players get nominated to both? always seems silly when you have Palmer, Haaland, Saka, Foden etc up for both awards. 

[The College Dropout]

He's fine where he is but he's so good under pressure, you do wonder if he can play at CM/DM.

 

That's the thing with the wonderful modern fullback. As good as they are - they usually lack the footballing ability to play CM. Particularly facing their own goal or under pressure. And then the appreciation of space. We've seen TAA struggle with that when inverting or playing CM where i've seen James take to it like a duck to water - a player i've always thought was a more complete footballer. Hall is not as devastating as either going forward but behind James he's one of the most complete footballers i've seen in the PL.

 

 

[The College Dropout]

56 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

😄 did genuinely think at the time  he'd be a total flop, but happily shown wrong.

 

On the downside it shows how far ahead Chelseas academy is on almost everyone, and why they'll never get any sort of psr punishment 

Genuinely one of the best academies in the world. And one of the best catchment areas too.

 

What other cities have the quality and depth of London in world football? A London active 25 squad would be tops.

[gjohnson]

15 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Genuinely one of the best academies in the world. And one of the best catchment areas too.

 

What other cities have the quality and depth of London in world football? A London active 25 squad would be tops.

Same catchment as Arsenal and Tottenham, but don't see them churning out several 20/30m players every year who barely got to to the first team squad let alone playing time. 20 years of unrestricted spending will let that happen I guess though

[gjohnson]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

He's fine where he is but he's so good under pressure, you do wonder if he can play at CM/DM.

 

That's the thing with the wonderful modern fullback. As good as they are - they usually lack the footballing ability to play CM. Particularly facing their own goal or under pressure. And then the appreciation of space. We've seen TAA struggle with that when inverting or playing CM where i've seen James take to it like a duck to water - a player i've always thought was a more complete footballer. Hall is not as devastating as either going forward but behind James he's one of the most complete footballers i've seen in the PL.

 

 

There was a moment in the Arsenal match when pressured by 2/3 players he obviously saw one coming, just did a little drag back and pause which opened space for a pass...and had them all wondering what just happened to us there?

[The College Dropout]

49 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

Same catchment as Arsenal and Tottenham, but don't see them churning out several 20/30m players every year who barely got to to the first team squad let alone playing time. 20 years of unrestricted spending will let that happen I guess though

Arsenal are literally selling academy players - actually from London - for £20-30m every year 

Just the Bukayo Saka (worth 100m imo), Emile Smith-Rowe (30m), Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock (30m), Eddie Nketiah (25m), Balogun (30m) with Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly up next. All players raised in London.

 

Spurs have a relatively weak academy given their size and catchment area - Fulham's is better. But even Spurs have produced Harry Kane, Walker-Peters and Madueke spent the bulk of his development at Spurs & Palace.

Fulham have Fabio Carvalho, Harvey Elliott, Djed Spence, Sessegnon,  Matt O'Riley. I liked Spence at Forest and thought he played well against us. Always liked Fabio Carvalho too.

 

Man City have a great academy but they are taking players from around the world and especially London (Tosin, Sancho are London boys). Chelsea can focus on London and the surrounding suburbs. Chelsea are sometimes victims themselves of losing academy players (sometimes by choice) - Olise, Rice and Musiala spent the majority of their academy days at Chelsea - lads raised in South/West London.

[gjohnson]

20 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Arsenal are literally selling academy players - actually from London - for £20-30m every year 

Just the Bukayo Saka (worth 100m imo), Emile Smith-Rowe (30m), Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock (30m), Eddie Nketiah (25m), Balogun (30m) with Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly up next. All players raised in London.

 

Spurs have a relatively weak academy given their size and catchment area - Fulham's is better. But even Spurs have produced Harry Kane, Walker-Peters and Madueke spent the bulk of his development at Spurs & Palace.

Fulham have Fabio Carvalho, Harvey Elliott, Djed Spence, Sessegnon,  Matt O'Riley. I liked Spence at Forest and thought he played well against us. Always liked Fabio Carvalho too.

 

Man City have a great academy but they are taking players from around the world and especially London (Tosin, Sancho are London boys). Chelsea can focus on London and the surrounding suburbs. Chelsea are sometimes victims themselves of losing academy players (sometimes by choice) - Olise, Rice and Musiala spent the majority of their academy days at Chelsea - lads raised in South/West London.

Difference is Chelsea flog these kids for vast amounts every season without them getting into the team...all the Arsenal guys you mention played a fair few games before being shifted, or staying in Saka's case and they certainly aren't being churned out as regularly as Chelsea or City kids. 

 

With investment we would essentially have free reign on every kid from Southern Scotland down to York/Leeds (barring the odd makem boro nut) if ours was good enough...nearly a third of the country.

 

Yes most of it is mountains and moors but it's not like we're short on kids who want to be footballers....my boy plays under 10s and was on a waiting list for a year, even with 15 suitable groups within a 10 min drive.

 

And no...being from London does not automatically make a kid better at football. There's just more of them with better choices at the moment 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by gjohnson

[The College Dropout]

28 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

Difference is Chelsea flog these kids for vast amounts every season without them getting into the team...all the Arsenal guys you mention played a fair few games before being shifted, or staying in Saka's case and they certainly aren't being churned out as regularly as Chelsea or City kids. 

 

With investment we would essentially have free reign on every kid from Southern Scotland down to York/Leeds (barring the odd makem boro nut) if ours was good enough...nearly a third of the country.

 

Yes most of it is mountains and moors but it's not like we're short on kids who want to be footballers....my boy plays under 10s and was on a waiting list for a year, even with 15 suitable groups within a 10 min drive.

 

And no...being from London does not automatically make a kid better at football. There's just more of them with better choices at the moment 

 

 

 

My point is - all the bigger London clubs have an advantage because of the tremendous depth of talent. Take the areas i've highlighted, take the current ability of the top 25 players, you could name 50 Londoners (and close) of equal ability or better. I don't know how but there's a compounding effect happening in youth football in London - I think it's the competition and density. The North-East and Scotland aren't producing nearly as much quality.

 

 

Talent to selling fee ratio for Chelsea is actually bad. They sold Livramento for £5m and Hall for £30m. Guehi played a season and a half in the Championship, £20m seemed a lot at the time but he's easily worth 2.5x now. The players they sell for bigger fees (Maatsen, Gallagher, Mount etc.) all played regular CL football.

 

Compared to London, Greater Manchester, midlands - the NE currently seems to produce far less quality players and it's a disadvantage for us. London is arguably the best city in Europe for producing talent, that's an advantage for 3 of the top 6, it has to be.- It's something i'm hoping PIF's investment can help with as investment might be an issue.