Anthony Elanga

[Wallsendmag]

16 hours ago, alexf said:

Yeah very nice goal and that nutmeg on vdv was pretty sick. But then latter had some brain dead moments. 

It's like he's fine when he hasn't got time to think, but when he does he gets all confused 😅

 

Happy for other clubs to be fooled and give us our money back on him but that performance doesn't convince me he won't be just as useless next season for us, unless we become a purely counter attack team. 

 

Problem we have is that nobody has a clue what we were last season. We weren't a front foot team, a pressing team nor were we a counter attacking one. Literally had no identity whatsoever.

[Minhosa]

Desperately hope we can con some poor unsuspecting folk into thinking he can play before the end of the window.  He's fucking rancid. 

[Viana]

He's wildly inconsistent. His highs are just that but his lows are really low. That works when you're a transition team jumping on mistakes. When you need to control things it becomes a problem. 

[TheBrownBottle]

3 hours ago, Viana said:

He's wildly inconsistent. His highs are just that but his lows are really low. That works when you're a transition team jumping on mistakes. When you need to control things it becomes a problem. 

I don’t even think he’s that - that would suggest that he fluctuates wildly.  I can remember a couple of ‘highs’ last season - but his peaks were mostly not being completely and utterly shite for a bit 

[toon25]

 

55 fucking million, man

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by toon25

[Viana]

2 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

I don’t even think he’s that - that would suggest that he fluctuates wildly.  I can remember a couple of ‘highs’ last season - but his peaks were mostly not being completely and utterly shite for a bit 

That's a byproduct of confidence. 

 

It's telling he scored a great goal and ruined Van de Ven playing for Sweden where he's not feeling that pressure. 

 

It doesn't change the fact he's an average player and someone we should have been nowhere near. 

[TheBrownBottle]

39 minutes ago, Viana said:

That's a byproduct of confidence. 

 

It's telling he scored a great goal and ruined Van de Ven playing for Sweden where he's not feeling that pressure. 

 

It doesn't change the fact he's an average player and someone we should have been nowhere near. 

Yeah, agreed - I can remember watching his debut vs Villa with that first minute sitter, I was in a pub watching it and a few of us older lads started worrying about a Tomasson repeat.  Confidence can definitely be a massive factor (particularly with average players)

[Bellars]

I think he’ll be much better this season. 

[TheBrownBottle]

17 minutes ago, Bellars said:

I think he’ll be much better this season. 

I do too, but it’s low bar

[TheBrownBottle]

On 21/06/2026 at 06:01, Keggy_Keagal said:

Players have been bought off good World Cups . Liverpool got Diouf after it . We got Guivarch ......

My favourite story of a manager signing players based on WCs is Ron ‘not a racist’ Atkinson, who was invited along by ITV to be a pundit at the 1994 WC while he was Villa manager.  
 

He signed John Fashanu off the back it.  Fashanu hadn’t played of course (England didn’t qualify) but he was there as a fellow pundit.  That’s talent-spotting in action. 
 

Awooga!

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by TheBrownBottle

[Groundhog63]

6 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

My favourite story of a manager signing players based on WCs is Ron ‘not a racist’ Atkinson, who was invited along by ITV to be a pundit at the 1994 WC while he was Villa manager.  
 

He signed John Fashanu off the back it.  Fashanu hadn’t played of course (England didn’t qualify) but he was there as a fellow pundit.  That’s talent-spotting in action. 
 

Awooga!

 

 

 

My favourite is still Kinnear "signing" Ferguson.

Or Souness, Ali Dai, although the miserable cunt had to go and spoil it 😂😂

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11700/11980435/graeme-souness-reveals-untold-story-of-southampton-misfit-ali-dia-we-knew-he-was-hopeless

[kingxlnc]

It's crazy the kind of prices back then
 

We bought Guivarch, Ligue Uns top scorer two seasons in a row and Frances world cup starting striker in the year they won the world cup, in his prime years for 2.5m

 

Someone with that pedigree today would be 70-80m easy
 

It's also strange though, given in 1998 we were top 5 in the world in terms of finances, we never signed any superstars of any kind whether former, current or future. We signed solid good players, Speed, Hamann, Solano, Dabizas, Acuna, etc

 

We punched below our weight, considering. 

 

Shearer the obvious exception and later on Owen and Kluivert but they were different timings. 

 

Ginola and Asprilla were exotic but not the elite upper echelon. Even though we could have at the time.

 

 

[Optimistic Nut]

1 hour ago, kingxlnc said:

It's crazy the kind of prices back then
 

We bought Guivarch, Ligue Uns top scorer two seasons in a row and Frances world cup starting striker in the year they won the world cup, in his prime years for 2.5m

 

Someone with that pedigree today would be 70-80m easy
 

It's also strange though, given in 1998 we were top 5 in the world in terms of finances, we never signed any superstars of any kind whether former, current or future. We signed solid good players, Speed, Hamann, Solano, Dabizas, Acuna, etc

 

We punched below our weight, considering. 

 

Shearer the obvious exception and later on Owen and Kluivert but they were different timings. 

 

Ginola and Asprilla were exotic but not the elite upper echelon. Even though we could have at the time.

 

 

 

Closest we came was under Gullit when we were after Rui Costa and Boban. Settled on Maric. But yeah, even during the 99/00 season, we had the most expensively put together squad in the Premier League. 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Optimistic Nut

[TheBrownBottle]

2 hours ago, kingxlnc said:

It's crazy the kind of prices back then
 

We bought Guivarch, Ligue Uns top scorer two seasons in a row and Frances world cup starting striker in the year they won the world cup, in his prime years for 2.5m

 

Someone with that pedigree today would be 70-80m easy
 

It's also strange though, given in 1998 we were top 5 in the world in terms of finances, we never signed any superstars of any kind whether former, current or future. We signed solid good players, Speed, Hamann, Solano, Dabizas, Acuna, etc

 

We punched below our weight, considering. 

 

Shearer the obvious exception and later on Owen and Kluivert but they were different timings. 

 

Ginola and Asprilla were exotic but not the elite upper echelon. Even though we could have at the time.

 

 

English football doesn’t generally do it - since the PL breakaway in 1992, only one player has won any iteration of world player of the year (and once only at that) when playing for an English club (C Ronaldo at Man Utd).

 

English clubs don’t tend to break world record fees, have the world’s highest paid player, nor sign world players of the year.  That was usually the reserve of the egotists who run the Milans, Barcas and Reals - where prestige is being able to say any of that.  

[OverThere]

He is shite. Can only work if we move back to low block and counter and if we do that why do we have Wolte who wants to keep the ball?

[kingxlnc]

1 hour ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

Closest we came was under Gullit when we were after Rui Costa and Boban. Settled on Maric. But yeah, even during the 99/00 season, we had the most expensively put together squad in the Premier League. 

 

 

 

Yes also we were linked with Zidane during the Keegan years

 

Bobby Robson also linked with Guardiola and even R9 if I recall

 

I did not know that about us in 99/00  - that seems ridiculous. I understand Shearer but who else of note was there in that squad???

[Optimistic Nut]

1 minute ago, kingxlnc said:

Yes also we were linked with Zidane during the Keegan years

 

Bobby Robson also linked with Guardiola and even R9 if I recall

 

I did not know that about us in 99/00  - that seems ridiculous. I understand Shearer but who else of note was there in that squad???

 

Ferguson : £8m

Dyer : 6.5m

Marcelino : £6m

Speed : £5.5m

Goma, Domi, Barton, Maric all in the £4m bracket 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Optimistic Nut

[kingxlnc]

1 hour ago, TheBrownBottle said:

English football doesn’t generally do it - since the PL breakaway in 1992, only one player has won any iteration of world player of the year (and once only at that) when playing for an English club (C Ronaldo at Man Utd).

 

English clubs don’t tend to break world record fees, have the world’s highest paid player, nor sign world players of the year.  That was usually the reserve of the egotists who run the Milans, Barcas and Reals - where prestige is being able to say any of that.  

True but the PL has also seen the likes of Veron, Shevchenko, Ballack, Zola, Barthez, Van Der Sar, Overmars and Henry. Even Gullit and Vialli

 

We've not really had our share of top tier that is highly in demand until Bruno Isak and Tonali

[kingxlnc]

2 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

Ferguson : £8m

Dyer : 6.5m

Marcelino : £6m

Speed : £5.5m

Goma, Domi, Barton, Maric all in the £4m bracket 

 

 

 

Had forgotten a lot of those, a poor spend for what we got. They are hefty fees comparatively

 

Domi was pretty good, Speed and Dyer were stalwarts

 

To get it back on topic, I defo prefer Elanga over that other swede we had at the time Andreas Andersson, by far the worst swede we've had playing for us 

 

[HawK]

10 hours ago, Bellars said:

I think he’ll be much better this season. 

[Wolfcastle]

 

4 hours ago, kingxlnc said:

It's crazy the kind of prices back then
 

We bought Guivarch, Ligue Uns top scorer two seasons in a row and Frances world cup starting striker in the year they won the world cup, in his prime years for 2.5m

 

Someone with that pedigree today would be 70-80m easy
 

It's also strange though, given in 1998 we were top 5 in the world in terms of finances, we never signed any superstars of any kind whether former, current or future. We signed solid good players, Speed, Hamann, Solano, Dabizas, Acuna, etc

 

We punched below our weight, considering. 

 

Shearer the obvious exception and later on Owen and Kluivert but they were different timings. 

 

Ginola and Asprilla were exotic but not the elite upper echelon. Even though we could have at the time.

 

 

Ginola was when we bought him. Used to get Club Europe magazine and they had him in their team of the season. Man of the match performance against Barcelona in the CL Quarter Finals months earlier and in his prime. Would be near the equivalent of signing Kvara now. Tried to sign George Weah the same summer, when there was nobody hotter.

[GeordieDazzler]

5 hours ago, kingxlnc said:

It's crazy the kind of prices back then
 

We bought Guivarch, Ligue Uns top scorer two seasons in a row and Frances world cup starting striker in the year they won the world cup, in his prime years for 2.5m

 

 

Looked up the top fees for 1998 to get some context on that price. Completely forgot about Betis spending 22m on Denilson  

 

Pretty much all the other big fees are around 10-6m.