Strong powerful side this season

[hogesar 9,767]

2 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I have only watched him play for Norwich. In the times I saw him play I watched him repeatedly fail to play simple passes that would/should have created goals. I've seen enough of him to believe that he won't improve on that deficiency.

I agree he's looked very poor for us but his 4 goals and 6 assists in 20 odd starts for Galatasaray suggest in the right system he can be effective. Equally 9 goals and 5 assists in two consecutive bundesliga seasons.

No idea if we can get that out of him here..

[hogesar 9,767]

2 minutes ago, Petriix said:

But the goals we did score almost exclusively involved more talented players than those remaining at the club today. 

Dowell was involved in a few. But Sargent, Sara, Nunez, McLean and even Onel were all significantly involved in most of them if you can bring yourself to watch the goals back 😀

[Dr Greenthumb 750]

2 hours ago, Petriix said:

I have only watched him play for Norwich. In the times I saw him play I watched him repeatedly fail to play simple passes that would/should have created goals. I've seen enough of him to believe that he won't improve on that deficiency.

A change of coach/style and position can change a player. I want him to come good or take in a decent fee for him

[Conrad 179]

4 hours ago, hogesar said:

I dont think we really struggled to score goals when we had a fit team under Wagner. 

Despite the awful end we scored as many goals as Luton who finished 3rd.

Looking at Wagners games up until the injury crisis...

We'd scored 19 goals in 9 games. Averaging just over 2 per game. And we played both top sides and poor sides in that 9 game period.

I do think there's been a narrative pushed that we struggled for goals all season but the reality is when we had injuries our home form was terrible and boring, but before that we were looking ok.

At last a sensible response. Whilst I don't necessarily agree at least we are having a actual debate rather than trading insults. 

When we were scoring we had Dowell in the team. Now we don't and there doesn't seem to be an adequate replacement either. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Conrad

[Fen Canary 874]

6 hours ago, Petriix said:

I'm totally open-minded and would absolutely love to be wrong. However, I've seen plenty from all three of the players you mention to lead me to the conclusion that they are significantly worse than the previous incumbents of those midfield positions who have now left the club.

I found Rashica an infuriating player to watch because he seems to never want to pass the ball, even to an unmarked teammate. For me,  passing is the single most important thing in football.

A player should almost always be looking for how to create the next pass to progress the ball, exploit the space and create an opening. If there's no opening then they should be looking to retain possession and engineer a positional mistake from the opposition.

Players like Rashica, Placheta and Hernandez all like to get their heads down and run with the ball. They tend to take far too many touches and lack awareness of the movement and spaces around them. Dribbling with the ball seems to please the crowd, but it's a very low-percentage option. It's far more productive to pass the ball and then move.

Having won the Championship twice recently by playing a passing game, followed by watching the utter dross that's followed as we've abandoned that style, you'll have to forgive me for being more than a little skeptical about how these players who weren't very good before are suddenly supposed to deliver.

To be fair that passing game during Farkes tenure could be infuriating at times. 50 passes going from side to side and going nowhere until Buendia or Pukki got on the ball and created a moment of magic out of nothing.

Without players like those two (who rarely come to a second tier side) then you have to try a different approach as most championship standard players simply don’t have the nous to unpick teams that have had chance to get everybody back behind the ball because you’ve been faffing about with it playing 20 short passes in your own half.