Anthony Elanga

[bobbydazzla]

2 minutes ago, Rafalove said:

What difference does it make?

Panic 

[nufc123]

Just now, Lush Vlad said:

Someone did. But he may have been taking the piss  Like I said. I can’t tell who is being serious out of you negative nitpicking Nellies. 

The criticism may be over the top. He had an utter poor atempt after some brilliant play from Wolte. Combined that with some poor games before, and hes an easy target. Like I said some may be over the top, others are fully justified criticism.

[Chris_R]

Weird comments on here complaining that he didn't press well enough. He was the only man up front, we sat deep in 2 banks and NOBODY pressed until the ball came into the final third. If Elanga went chasing after their defenders, he'd have been doing it on his own and they'd have just played around him and made him look ridiculous, like a dog chasing after a ball.

 

He did what he could, he didn't just stand idly by, but his job was to be available on the break if we turned possession over not to pointlessly chase their back 4 round on his own. 

 

That said when we DID turn possession over and played him in, he looked completely bereft of confidence. I'm sure there's a player in there somewhere as I trust our recruitment massively but he just seemed like his head had gone. Hopefully he gets in a good place again soon and we see some positives from him.

[joeyt]

Just now, nufc123 said:

The criticism may be over the top. He had an utter poor atempt after some brilliant play from Wolte. Combined that with some poor games before, and hes an easy target. Like I said some may be over the top, others are fully justified criticism.

 

He replaced Woltemade

[nufc123]

1 minute ago, joeyt said:

 

He replaced Woltemade

? Then I have seen completely wrong.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2025 by nufc123

[stozo]

36 minutes ago, nufc123 said:

That was totally different. Quite clueless to compare that and Elanga.

It’s exactly the same. Whether it’s 10 yards outside the box or 30 yards, if you press and get bypassed you have a potential problem. Example: Elanga presses Dias, who bypasses him and steps forward with the ball into midfield. The only way to stop him is for Bruno or Tonali to step onto him, that leaves space behind them and with a few short passes, they find the extra man and it’s a goal. That is the exact sequence of what happened against Liverpool and it’s exactly why Elanga was right not to aggressively press. 

[nufc123]

1 minute ago, stozo said:

It’s exactly the same. 

Not at all. Not even close.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2025 by nufc123

[STM]

Hes playing within himself, hes completely out of form and his heads gone.

 

Its nothing to do with attitude, and its not (entirely) to do with ability. 

 

He will come good but theres alot of work to do and just like with other players, it might take 18 months before we see a significant impact from him.

 

Im putting him on the back burner. If he comes in and does well, great, but for now hes a project for Eddie and the team... an expensive project.

[stozo]

4 minutes ago, nufc123 said:

Not at all. Not even close.

 

 

 

You’ve quoted one line of the post because you have literally no way to address the rest of it. It’s tactical basics and why you press as a team, not with one or two players.

 

Just be happy we made smart choices on how we set up defensively, which led to us winning the game. FWIW I agree Elanga has been very average so far this season, I just don’t believe in battering players who have done nothing wrong. Elanga was fine today. 

[nufc123]

1 minute ago, stozo said:

You’ve quoted one line of the post because you have literally no way to address the rest of it. 

First it was 10 against 11. Total different. Second it went wrong because three/four players pressed at the wrong time. Third the whole team was dragged all over the to the left side leaving a huge gap on our right side. Have no idea why you are comparing this to Elanga.

[Gottlob]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

He can run the 100m in 10.93 seconds 

 

Canny fucking rapid that like 

 

Think this warrants further discussion. His time of 10.93 was registered by a Brower timing system, which seems to rely on a pair of photocells and is supposed to be quite accurate. He wasn't using blocks and an elite athlete with experience coming out of the blocks could be expected to run much faster out of the blocks than from a standing start. On the other hand he wasn't reacting to a gun and was arguably benefitting from more of a rolling start as he moved through the first set of timing gates. So if anything that time of 10.93 - not remarkable at first glance - might have been quite generous.

[Fak]

Just now, Gottlob said:

 

Think this warrants further discussion. His time of 10.93 was registered by a Brower timing system, which seems to rely on a pair of photocells and is supposed to be quite accurate. He wasn't using blocks and an elite athlete with experience coming out of the blocks could be expected to run much faster out of the blocks than from a standing start. On the other hand he wasn't reacting to a gun and was arguably benefitting from more of a rolling start as he moved through the first set of timing gates. So if anything that time of 10.93 - not remarkable at first glance - might have been quite generous.

 

Anyway. Hope you've had a lovely night regardless. 

[SAK]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

Some of youse calling Elanga worse than shite need to go and have yasels a deeks in the Lewis Hall thread and compare the criticism that was lobbed at him on here in his early days to the plaudits he’s getting on here today 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair Hall had played 9 professional games before joining us so such criticism would have been unfair whereas Elanga has played 113 before joining. I wouldn’t say their situations are similar?

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

Some of youse calling Elanga worse than shite need to go and have yasels a deeks in the Lewis Hall thread and compare the criticism that was lobbed at him on here in his early days to the plaudits he’s getting on here today 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not really the same thing. 
 

Lewis Hall was 19 when he joined with a grand total of 12 professional games played. Evidently he would need time to develop as a fullback (most of the clips of him in the comps was in the youth sides playing CM), develop physically and mentally.  
 

Elanga has 150+ senior appearances and is a full international. 
 

It’s not to say Elanga isn’t going to need time. That is evident.  But he doesn’t have similar challenges to Hall due to age and experience.  The concerns with Elanga are a lot more valid than whatever people were saying about Hall. 

[The College Dropout]

6 minutes ago, SAK said:

To be fair Hall had played 9 professional games before joining us so such criticism would have been unfair whereas Elanga has played 113 before joining. I wouldn’t say their situations are similar?

Guess we’ve said the same thing with slightly different numbers 

 

The Hall thing does show a lot of fans are idiotic. I remember some ppl thinking and hoping the obligation to buy wouldn’t be activated somehow.  When it was fairly obvious it was just Howe being Howe.  
 

I do think Eddie is doing a similar thing with Elanga in that he’s going to be focussing his coaching with Elanga on understanding how we play, the intensity etc.  

 

 

Ive no issue with him today.  But generally he’s not been good off the ball in any case. 

[TaylorJ_01]

Thought he looked fairly useless again, though it was an unusual role. 

 

Worryingly he seems completely hopeless at football. At 2-1 up he had the ball down by their corner flag. Stumbles about a bit then randomly kicks it back to a Man City player, without lifting his head once. The other time he basically just fell over the ball in their box and gave them possession. Feel like I've seen him do that basically every appearance too.

[bobbydazzla]

6 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Not really the same thing. 
 

Lewis Hall was 19 when he joined with a grand total of 12 professional games played. Evidently he would need time to develop as a fullback (most of the clips of him in the comps was in the youth sides playing CM), develop physically and mentally.  
 

Elanga has 150+ senior appearances and is a full international. 
 

It’s not to say Elanga isn’t going to need time. That is evident.  But he doesn’t have similar challenges to Hall due to age and experience.  The concerns with Elanga are a lot more valid than whatever people were saying about Hall. 

Early in his NUFC career people on N-O were slagging Hall off for being shite and a waste of money.

 

Early in his NUFC career people on N-O are slagging Elanga off for being shite and a waste of money.

 

Cogito ergo sum, it’s the same. 

[HaydnNUFC]

He only come on for 10 minutes in a game we won against Man City.  No idea why his thread’s top.

 

Good old fashioned razzismo imo.

 

Spoiler

 

[bobbydazzla]

24 minutes ago, Gottlob said:

 

Think this warrants further discussion. His time of 10.93 was registered by a Brower timing system, which seems to rely on a pair of photocells and is supposed to be quite accurate. He wasn't using blocks and an elite athlete with experience coming out of the blocks could be expected to run much faster out of the blocks than from a standing start. On the other hand he wasn't reacting to a gun and was arguably benefitting from more of a rolling start as he moved through the first set of timing gates. So if anything that time of 10.93 - not remarkable at first glance - might have been quite generous.

[The College Dropout]

Just now, HaydnNUFC said:

He only come on for 10 minutes in a game we won against Man City.  No idea why his thread’s top.

 

Good old fashioned razzismo imo.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Tbf him getting so few minutes is a bigger worry for me. But I think anyone sensible recognises there’s a lot of work to be done with him.  
 

Let’s see how we setup midweek.  

[TRC]

Should start him against Marseille, I’m critical of him but I think the Everton game is more important so let him have Marseille.

[wmot]

Give him a fucking break, ffs. He's one of us, time.

[nufcjmc]

7 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Tbf him getting so few minutes is a bigger worry for me. But I think anyone sensible recognises there’s a lot of work to be done with him.  
 

Let’s see how we setup midweek.  

The lack of time with Howe and the team on the training pitch and him being a full international meaning he goes away when we do have a break definitely provides mitigation. The slow start hes had is just so frustrating based on the fee we paid. Plug and play upgrade hes not been but a work in progress which means 1. Its going to take longer to come off if it does and 2. Feels like to me at least a massive over pay. 

[Ronaldo]

30 minutes ago, bobbydazzla said:

Early in his NUFC career people on N-O were slagging Hall off for being shite and a waste of money.

 

Early in his NUFC career people on N-O are slagging Elanga off for being shite and a waste of money.

 

Cogito ergo sum, it’s the same. 

Except Hall was a clearly very talented lad bought for potential, not simply for the here and now. And I can’t remember many if any writing him off.
 

We’ve had years of seeing what Elanga is and isn’t. Eddie will make him useful to a degree but forget about him being the last / key piece of the jigsaw. 

[bobbydazzla]

9 minutes ago, Ronaldo said:

Except Hall was a clearly very talented lad bought for potential, not simply for the here and now. And I can’t remember many if any writing him off.
 

We’ve had years of seeing what Elanga is and isn’t. Eddie will make him useful to a degree but forget about him being the last / key piece of the jigsaw. 

Hall was £35m of potential and couldn’t get in the side. 

 

Go back and have a look through the Hall thread, plenty were writing him off.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2025 by bobbydazzla