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canarybubbles

What's gone wrong with Tzolis?

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As he's so young, and as he's clearly at this stage nowhere near the level required, I don't get why we're not giving him a run of U23 matches. 

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You just need to look at idah to see the plan. 
 

he’s not had a run and the opportunity to get match fitness, he will come good. Also foreign lad moving away from home will take time to settle. 
 

games will come and I think he will be fine. 

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33 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Would love to defend him but unlike our other signings I've not seen any real genuine talent, ability or potential in his performances so far.

I think he's got a quality touch, you can see he moves the ball well - definitely class there.   But he has been really ineffective and gets lost in games.  And that is super frustrating.

I think he needs to be less out wide as he needs to cut inside deeper/earlier up the pitch - he's not someone who's going to run that line - and that's why he disappears.   I'm confident that's why players like Josh, Rashica, Rowe and PP all get in ahead, it's down to suitability vs raw talent.

At this point I see him more as a stocky number 10/Attacking mid who sits behind our main striker than a wide player which we're utilising.  If we're to throw him on later in games that's how I'd like to see him used.  In the prem you need very good feet or pace in those wide positions, hence why Rashica is shining as has both.

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6 hours ago, Mr Angry said:
6 hours ago, lake district canary said:

We were told when he arrived that he was one for the future.  Patience needed to see how and when he develops - he's very young still - so it may not be this season.

Don’t see that, he’s now being overlooked in favour of a player who is a year younger but who only seems to have a fraction of Tzolis’ talent.

Everyone is different and at different stages of development and it doesn't always work depending on age.

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I’m not ready to write him off, he’s a kid. However, when we have brought him on he has struggled to have an impact, that’s not to say he won’t with time. I’m not reading too much into certain players being deemed in front of him, I suspect it’s horses for courses. My personal view of his performances is that he perhaps switches off and doesn’t have the positional awareness and discipline at this point to get the minutes ahead of Placheta (who has also had his struggles). Parma has pointed out our lack of weapons at this level numerous times and made a great point regarding we now set up as a weapon - as such - to counter not having individual potency. I think that’s where and why he is seemingly being overlooked but he is very young and will be learning all the time; I expect the jump from Greece to Prem is a Bob Beamonesque leap. 

I think , possibly, Rowe coming on against Palace was more of a case that if a chance dropped he would be more likely to finish it (based purely on what I saw of the warm up drills admittedly😂). 

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Young player from overseas, settling abroad for the first time in his life takes time to adjust and fails to impress when pitched against the best defenders in what is supposed to be best league in the world. Let's get him! It's what we do.

I feel that whilst it is valid to criticise the premise of the signing, in as much as £9m invested for the future when the need was for the now, could be construed as mis-placed, it is wrong to lay into the youngster. What gain is there from that?

Easy it was never supposed to be. Nobody said he was George Best.

He has shown enough in my book to be optimistic for the future. He seems to have at least retained some of that confidence evident from the outset, and we have to hope this remains the case.

He will come good. Very good, imo. Let us hope that that is at NCFC before, for some reason and in some way he is discouraged sufficiently so to want away.  

I am trusting in Dean Smith to handle the boy correctly in the interests of the club and the player and read nothing at all into 85th. minute substitutions, especially as Rowe showed enough in his previous brief outing to warrant another look. 

Instead of hammering Tzolis we should be lauding the young talent we seem to have in abundance waiting in the wings.

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I get why posters are saying we should have spent his fee elsewhere, but do you also think we shouldn’t be investing in the academy and Colney? We probably could have had a better chance of staying up if we’d pumped every available penny into two or three proven PL journeymen with huge wages, but the flip side would be no younger players in the pipeline for the future and a training ground that consisted of a muddy field and some Portakabins, plus the need to spend everything we have in the same way a year or two further down the line.
 

Any spend has to be a balance between immediate vs long term gain. Any transfer is a gamble. In this case, it looks like he is more of a long term bet than we may have hoped for, but that won’t mean it can’t work out in the end. However, I do agree that in the context of our overall budget, his fee does seem a lot, but that’s the call the management have had to make.

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Just now, Nuff Said said:

I get why posters are saying we should have spent his fee elsewhere, but do you also think we shouldn’t be investing in the academy and Colney? We probably could have had a better chance of staying up if we’d pumped every available penny into two or three proven PL journeymen with huge wages, but the flip side would be no younger players in the pipeline for the future and a training ground that consisted of a muddy field and some Portakabins, plus the need to spend everything we have in the same way a year or two further down the line.
 

Any spend has to be a balance between immediate vs long term gain. Any transfer is a gamble. In this case, it looks like he is more of a long term bet than we may have hoped for, but that won’t mean it can’t work out in the end. However, I do agree that in the context of our overall budget, his fee does seem a lot, but that’s the call the management have had to make.

I don't see anyone against investing in the academy etc. But that doesn't justify the proportion we've spent on Tzolis, the ~£10 million is close to 20% of our transfer budget, its a lot to spend on someone to offer absolutely nothing for the upcoming season - even more so after a promotion to the PL and having lost our 2 most important players (by far). 

As Bailey said; it feels like a signing we should've made once we had PL security in the bag with at least one season of safety to build from. 

I believe the intention would've been to throw him in a lot more readily than we have done, to be honest. The fact he's now behind Placheta and even Rowe is really not a good sign! 

I'm not writing him off for the next season, or even the one after that, though, just questioning the decision when there were clearly areas in the first-11 still in dire need of improvement.

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16 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

 

Greeks are never successful in the Premier League, so it maybe have been a bad idea to spend £16m on two of them.

Probably weren't expecting this response, but here is your proof:

greek.JPG.54ad32580258e42801b07caeca593fe5.JPG

 

Might let Giannakopoulous and Nikos Dabizas off the hook, beyond that I just see a list of expensive flops.

Zagorakis certainly wasn't a flop, and Stelios has close to legend status in Bolton - he wasn't just an off the hook sort, he thrived. Mavropanos is a bit of a harsh call as well, injuries did him.

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Talking of Placheta - can anybody seriously believe he will be here next season if we stay up ?

and talking of Idah - he’s only now getting a run of games … his development has been held up by not spending a chunk of time out on loan getting competitive football under his belt

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31 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Young player from overseas, settling abroad for the first time in his life takes time to adjust and fails to impress when pitched against the best defenders in what is supposed to be best league in the world. Let's get him! It's what we do.

I feel that whilst it is valid to criticise the premise of the signing, in as much as £9m invested for the future when the need was for the now, could be construed as mis-placed, it is wrong to lay into the youngster. What gain is there from that?

Instead of hammering Tzolis we should be lauding the young talent we seem to have in abundance waiting in the wings.

Who are you actually talking to? Can't see anyone 'getting him', 'laying into him' or 'hammering him'. I see some reasonable opinions questioning if he was the right signing to make this season.

At the moment its either 'right player, wrong time', or 'wrong player, wrong time'... 

I suppose if we do manage to stay up and then Tzolis breaks through then the signing will have been a good one - but still seems a hell of a risky move given how much the team has struggled to settle (in particular our wingers - Cantwell, Dowell, and Sargent for large chunks of the season). So the decision to spend 20% of the budget on a 19 year old, now behind our 8th choice winger from the summer and an 18 year old academy prospect in the pecking order, has unfortunately came more under the microscope. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Who are you actually talking to? Can't see anyone 'getting him', 'laying into him' or 'hammering him'. I see some reasonable opinions questioning if he was the right signing to make this season.

 

 

Well!  He's already been wrongly accused of showing "absolute zero" in this thread and we have had a detailed run down of failures based upon (his) nationality.

Admittedly most postings in the thread have been supportive of the youngster, although I think the title of it, "What's gone wrong with Tzolis?" is somewhat mis-placed when it's our expectations that have really been punctured.

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15 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Who are you actually talking to? Can't see anyone 'getting him', 'laying into him' or 'hammering him'. I see some reasonable opinions questioning if he was the right signing to make this season.

At the moment its either 'right player, wrong time', or 'wrong player, wrong time'... 

I suppose if we do manage to stay up and then Tzolis breaks through then the signing will have been a good one - but still seems a hell of a risky move given how much the team has struggled to settle (in particular our wingers - Cantwell, Dowell, and Sargent for large chunks of the season). So the decision to spend 20% of the budget on a 19 year old, now behind our 8th choice winger from the summer and an 18 year old academy prospect in the pecking order, has unfortunately came more under the microscope. 

 

How about right player at the only time we could sign him before bigger fish came calling.

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26 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

I don't see anyone against investing in the academy etc. But that doesn't justify the proportion we've spent on Tzolis, the ~£10 million is close to 20% of our transfer budget, its a lot to spend on someone to offer absolutely nothing for the upcoming season - even more so after a promotion to the PL and having lost our 2 most important players (by far). 

As Bailey said; it feels like a signing we should've made once we had PL security in the bag with at least one season of safety to build from. 

I believe the intention would've been to throw him in a lot more readily than we have done, to be honest. The fact he's now behind Placheta and even Rowe is really not a good sign! 

I'm not writing him off for the next season, or even the one after that, though, just questioning the decision when there were clearly areas in the first-11 still in dire need of improvement.

Or alternatively, it could have been retained to give us a January budget.

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Just now, Justin time said:

How about right player at the only time we could sign him before bigger fish came calling.

If we go down and he stays behind Placheta and Rowe in the pecking order for the rest of the season, then I'm not sure how he could be the right player?

As I said, even if he does come good in the future, the aim was to stay up this season - if we had spent that £10 million on that CDM we are so desperate for - then we most certainly give ourselves a much better chance of doing that. 

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3 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Well!  He's already been wrongly accused of showing "absolute zero" in this thread and we have had a detailed run down of failures based upon (his) nationality.

Scraping the barrel if that's the best you come up with from a 17 hour old 2 page thread.

Might be better off just holding your hands up and admitting you were massively exaggerating. 

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11 hours ago, Google Bot said:

I think he's got a quality touch, you can see he moves the ball well - definitely class there.   But he has been really ineffective and gets lost in games.  And that is super frustrating.

I think he needs to be less out wide as he needs to cut inside deeper/earlier up the pitch - he's not someone who's going to run that line - and that's why he disappears.   I'm confident that's why players like Josh, Rashica, Rowe and PP all get in ahead, it's down to suitability vs raw talent.

At this point I see him more as a stocky number 10/Attacking mid who sits behind our main striker than a wide player which we're utilising.  If we're to throw him on later in games that's how I'd like to see him used.  In the prem you need very good feet or pace in those wide positions, hence why Rashica is shining as has both.

I get exactly the same impression as you from what I have seen of him. For me, he looks less like an out-and-out winger than a number 10-type player who could operate somewhere between midfielder and striker. Even his body shape suggests this. When he has been used, he has looked ineffective on the extreme flank and failed to get into games, especially since he seems unsuited to the long, high diagonal ball which Smith seems so fond of. Unfortunately for Tzolis, it seems Smith's current approach has no real space for a number 10 (BTW I am not criticising Smith's formation, it's put us back into contention when we looked almost doomed). Perhaps when we move to a system that is not so based on counter-attack and we need to gain more possession, Tzolis will be better suited to it. 

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Just now, canarybubbles said:

 Perhaps when we move to a system that is not so based on counter-attack and we need to gain more possession, Tzolis will be better suited to it. 

In the Championship then basically.

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6 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Scraping the barrel if that's the best you come up with from a 17 hour old 2 page thread.

Might be better off just holding your hands up and admitting you were massively exaggerating. 

I'll admit it's a tactic often used in debate.

And, of course, you brought up the Greek player business.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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tbf the amount of players we have signed, we are going to have 1 or two that aren't up to it straight away. 

 

He does look very lightweight 

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As lot's of people have said he is very young (Only just turned 20). We forget that at times.

Also it seems three weeks ago Sargent was the target for failings in the transfer window, two goals against Watford and he's now the player who is going to save our season. Tzolis is a big talent, that was clear against Bournemouth and the Newcastle game he was unlucky with a bad VAR decision. 

I honestly don't think he's going to be a flop, scouts and Webber believe it or not know what they're doing. 

We're such a better club than we give ourselves credit for. Great Stadium, World class training ground. Fighting to stay in the best league in the world.

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Been quite surprised and disapointed by his lack of pace, as a winger in the PL that is a absolute must have. I don't think he has the technique or trickery to be a no.10 type player either so it's a weird one with him. If I was a manager I wouldn't know what to do with him 

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2 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Been quite surprised and disapointed by his lack of pace, as a winger in the PL that is a absolute must have. I don't think he has the technique or trickery to be a no.10 type player either so it's a weird one with him. If I was a manager I wouldn't know what to do with him 

Didn't seem to stop Stiepi tearing up the Champs in 18-19 as a number 10.

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23 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

I think for some of us he was potentially the most exciting signing of the summer transfer market, with lots of knowledgeable people stating he was one of the most promising youngsters in the whole of Europe, and yet he is struggling to get even ten minutes on the pitch at the end of games, with one of our own under-23s being picked in preference. 

What's gone wrong? Is he struggling to adapt to life in England? Are the Greek contingent unhappy because they feel they have moved country and been sidetracked and their careers have hit a cul-de-sac? Did the penalty episode and Farke's subsequent way of dealing with it turn everything sour? Has the bad feeling that possibly existed between Farke and some of our younger players poisoned the well? 

We paid 9-10m for him, so we not only need him to do what he is capable of on the pitch (e.g. the Bournemouth game) for the sake of our fight against relegation, but also to at least get our money back if we are forced to sell.

Personally I really want to see him given a fair crack of the whip (assuming he's trying his best in training and isn't another diva). 

Hard to shine with a handful of minutes playing time.

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Is it at all possible that language is an issue, or at least part of it? Greeks do learn English but dependent on his background he probably is nowhere near fluent. I might be being naive, but if he cannot understand the tactical briefings, what his team mates are saying, etc. etc. he's going to struggle. It might explain why he is being kept around our squad and not playing, as opposed to being pushed further out of his comfort zone and another unfamiliar club, and not back to Greece where he's back in his comfort zone.

I can remember language was always talked as an issue for foreign players in the 90s with integrating into new sides, but it's never mentioned now. Again, I might be being naive, he may be plugged into the meta-verse through Google translate lug-hole adaption kits.

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19 hours ago, Mr Angry said:

I wouldn’t say he’s shown zero so far-he played well against Bournemouth-I know it wasn’t their first XI but it wasn’t ours either-and I thought he was one of the better players against Newcastle and I was surprised that he got subbed at halftime. His last start was away at Palace and admittedly I didn’t watch that game-perhaps he was so bad that he’s going to have to wait his turn?

 

He did nothing at Newcastle. He's still so young as Lakey has said so has plenty of time and we shouldnt write him off yet, but the truth is he has shown absolutely nothing to suggest he is going to make the grade. That doesn't mean he won't, but we cant pretend 'he's looked good in patches' etc because he hasn't. 

May 2023 will be a better time to judge him.

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Several people on here have been very critical of what he has done so far, which I don't really think is fair because he hasn't been given playing time to make mistakes, to learn and to adapt to English football (unlike, for instance, Sargent).

On the other hand, I understand the argument that he doesn't suit how we are playing at the moment under Smith and that we haven't got the luxury now to give him time to adapt - every game is crucial, and since we seem much improved under the new formation and style, we shouldn't disrupt it. 

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He's only a young lad in a new country, out of his comfort zone, in a tough league. Give him time. 

We may well be lauding him and the scouting team in a couple of years. 

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