Anthony Elanga

[Earp]

2 hours ago, Minhosa said:

That’s not an acceptable bar for a £55m signing after nearly 8 months here. 
 

He’s fucking rotten man. Utter dogshit. 

Harsh

[stozo]

1 hour ago, Lush Vlad said:

Most alarming thing today for me. Was that he didn’t look anywhere near as fast as usual. He’s been crap, but the pace has still been there. 
 

Got done for speed by Gueye and Mykolenko FFS. 
 

Not going to keep on. As it’s getting boring and we all know it. But pound for pound. He is looking like one of the worst signings we’ve ever made. In the Prem era, anyway. 
 

£55m and he barely looks worth £5m. 

I don't want to be rude but the first half of that is just nonsense. You can want Elanga to do better, but all you need to do is watch the match to realise the issue is Mykolenko spends most of the 60 mins a yard or two off him, which is enough to stop Elanga burning him for pace. It's smart, Premier League standard defending. The challenge for Elanga here remains that he needs to work out how to be a threat in tight spaces. He was OK today but without being a major threat. He's got to improve but hopefully that will come with time. 

[TwoForJoy]

It's telling that Isak didn't throw a hissy fit to leave until we signed this cunt.

[Wallsendmag]

1 hour ago, stozo said:

I don't want to be rude but the first half of that is just nonsense. You can want Elanga to do better, but all you need to do is watch the match to realise the issue is Mykolenko spends most of the 60 mins a yard or two off him, which is enough to stop Elanga burning him for pace. It's smart, Premier League standard defending. The challenge for Elanga here remains that he needs to work out how to be a threat in tight spaces. He was OK today but without being a major threat. He's got to improve but hopefully that will come with time. 

 

That's utter garbage tbf. The last thing you do as a defender is give a quick player any room to run, or accelerate, you hit him as soon as he takes the ball to totally nullify his pace. Mykolenko leaving him be was more confidence that he'd do fuck all and he got that spot on.

[The College Dropout]

18 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

That's utter garbage tbf. The last thing you do as a defender is give a quick player any room to run, or accelerate, you hit him as soon as he takes the ball to totally nullify his pace. Mykolenko leaving him be was more confidence that he'd do fuck all and he got that spot on.

for a player like Elanga you don’t want to get into a foot race so you give yourself a yard.  A player like Elanga he won’t do anything with the time and space. 
 

You don’t want to get too tight to an explosive player if you can’t match him. If he turns well, drops a shoulder or does anything you’re finished. You don’t want to him space to run into.  You want to control the space. 

[Wallsendmag]

1 minute ago, The College Dropout said:

for a player like Elanga you don’t want to get into a foot race so you give yourself a yard.  A player like Elanga he won’t do anything with the time and space. 
 

You don’t want to get too tight to an explosive player if you can’t match him. If he turns well, drops a shoulder or does anything you’re finished. You don’t want to him space to run into.  You want to control the space. 

 

You just hit him early and you hit him hard. You take any pace straight out of the equation then. That's what we tell our kids to do anyway, and it works. You give a fast player a yard and you give him the one advantage that he has over you. And that's the yard.

[The College Dropout]

Just now, Wallsendmag said:

 

You just hit him early and you hit him hard. You take any pace straight out of the equation then. That's what we tell our kids to do anyway, and it works. You give a fast player a yard and you give him the one advantage that he has over you. And that's the yard.

If he’s got any ability he’ll know you’re coming and be ready to start dancing.

With Elanga, if you give him a bit of time and space - he’ll throw it away.  
 

 

Thats pretty much our whole squad.  Sit back off us a bit. We won’t be able to hurt an opposition.  More likely to take a loose touch or pass and create a counter attacking opportunity against us. Same way they did us last season.  

[Wallsendmag]

1 minute ago, The College Dropout said:

If he’s got any ability he’ll know you’re coming and be ready to start dancing.

With Elanga, if you give him a bit of time and space - he’ll throw it away.  
 

 

Thats pretty much our whole squad.  Sit back off us a bit. We won’t be able to hurt an opposition.  More likely to take a loose touch or pass and create a counter attacking opportunity against us. Same way they did us last season.  

 

He's got one blinding asset and that his his pace. You can nullify that by hitting him as soon as the ball goes to his feet. That's how he receives the ball here as we don't put it in behind the left back for him to get on to. He's the easiest winger in the league to defend against right now. He'd be great in a Nottm Forest team I think. No good for us though. Actually I reckon Woltemade would do well for Forest.  We just don't play that way, and I'm not sure if they're good enough players to change our style for.

[Shearergol]

I’ve been watching him since he broke through at Man Utd and @Froggy thought he was shit. He is.

[Lush Vlad]

8 hours ago, stozo said:

I don't want to be rude but the first half of that is just nonsense. You can want Elanga to do better, but all you need to do is watch the match to realise the issue is Mykolenko spends most of the 60 mins a yard or two off him, which is enough to stop Elanga burning him for pace. It's smart, Premier League standard defending. The challenge for Elanga here remains that he needs to work out how to be a threat in tight spaces. He was OK today but without being a major threat. He's got to improve but hopefully that will come with time. 

Be rude all you want. But you weren’t being rude. I disagree with you though. He had a couple of times where he could have easily burned him and didn’t. He got done for speed by Gueye too. Is that arguable? 
 

He went at Mykolenko a few times, which I don’t mind. As that is his game. He did get the upper hand once or twice two. But he is also a bang average full back and he marshalled him with ease. So that’s also worrying. 
 

He had times in open space yesterday where even earlier in the season. You were seeing him go past players down the line or off the ball. I barely saw that yesterday. Bar one very good run when he came infield and then I think it was Gordon that fucked up after Elanga passed to him wide right. 

[Froggy]

6 hours ago, Shearergol said:

I’ve been watching him since he broke through at Man Utd and @Froggy thought he was shit. He is.

 

Aye, unfortunately. I really like the lad mind. Part of me does hope that Howe can turn it around for him. 

[RUHRLYASLEEVESUP]

7 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

for a player like Elanga you don’t want to get into a foot race so you give yourself a yard.  A player like Elanga he won’t do anything with the time and space. 
 

You don’t want to get too tight to an explosive player if you can’t match him. If he turns well, drops a shoulder or does anything you’re finished. You don’t want to him space to run into.  You want to control the space. 

I would just let him run past me, not as if he's going to produce anything from it 

[TRon]

10 hours ago, TwoForJoy said:

It's telling that Isak didn't throw a hissy fit to leave until we signed this cunt.

 

 

Well that's a novel take.  

[duo]

Such a strange signing as clearly Eddie saw something in him as he was the first player through the door.  But he's another one who doesn't look suited to how we play.  

[sixx]

Probably the worst premier league signing of the season. And as for his pace - I haven’t really seen any of it? Can’t fault his application or anything but he seriously hasn’t had one good game. Embarrassing stuff.

[Mikky]

1 minute ago, sixx said:

Probably the worst premier league signing of the season. And as for his pace - I haven’t really seen any of it? Can’t fault his application or anything but he seriously hasn’t had one good game. Embarrassing stuff.

To be brutally honest he offers nothing that we need/needed in our RW profile 

 

Comfortable on the ball 

Ability to beat a man 

Cut inside and shoot

Score goals 

Provide assists 

Ability to pass/switch play 

[Mikky]

Achlouche and Kang In were the profile types we needed or players with that style 

[TorchyTBB]

People go on about his pace.  I think I must be blind as I haven't seen much at all.  His acceleration from a standing start is not quick at all.  If he's as quick as he reckons he is, why doesn't he knock the ball past the defender then sprint after it?  There's been countless times when he could have done it and when he occasionally does he seems to get caught.  He might be a sprinter on a track, but on a pitch he's most certainly not imho.

[nufc123]

1 hour ago, TorchyTBB said:

People go on about his pace.  I think I must be blind as I haven't seen much at all.  His acceleration from a standing start is not quick at all.  If he's as quick as he reckons he is, why doesn't he knock the ball past the defender then sprint after it?  There's been countless times when he could have done it and when he occasionally does he seems to get caught.  He might be a sprinter on a track, but on a pitch he's most certainly not imho.

I think him and Gordon are in the top five or something in the CL for fastest sprints, but I have also seen Cucurella keeping up with him so its a strange one.

[Newcastle Fan]

On 06/12/2025 at 21:58, Newcastle Fan said:

I'm afraid his biggest problem is his footballing IQ and that's not something that the coaches can do much with, might be overly harsh but the last time i saw a player play like him for us it was Gabriel Obertan who was physically impressive but always did the wrong thing in position.

 

 

 

 

Said this about him in december and sad to see not much changed since

[TRC]

I honestly think we should just low block or mid block every game going forward. We lose most league games anyway so why not just just low block it. Build his transfer value back up then flog this summer.

[TRon]

2 hours ago, TRC said:

I honestly think we should just low block or mid block every game going forward. We lose most league games anyway so why not just just low block it. Build his transfer value back up then flog this summer.

 

Sounds like a plan to adapt our tactics to suit the players we've got instead of getting the players to adapt to the way we want to play.

 

Crazy stuff. 

[ExiledGeordie]

I hope he improves but despite a slight improvement he just doesn’t look to have the pure footballing quality needed to do so. 55m on him, damn 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

23 hours ago, TorchyTBB said:

People go on about his pace.  I think I must be blind as I haven't seen much at all.  His acceleration from a standing start is not quick at all.  If he's as quick as he reckons he is, why doesn't he knock the ball past the defender then sprint after it?  There's been countless times when he could have done it and when he occasionally does he seems to get caught.  He might be a sprinter on a track, but on a pitch he's most certainly not imho.

 

Think people just misunderstand what kind of player he is and what is realistic for a winger to do in PL football. Almost no players in the PL just push the ball and run, it's not a play that anybody will be told to do really. 

 

Said it before, if he pushed and ran every time he got the ball the fans would probably like him more despite the results being exactly the same. 

[Bellis80]

Quite a few times he’s tried to do that and kicked the ball straight out.