Bali Mumba

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

1 minute ago, Google Bot said:

So because he was more hungry than Onel and PP, he's no longer here?  Not sure that sounds too good from a management perspective.

For me it's entirely about money and Bali having a cash-in value on his head.  Otherwise, (IMO) Onel and PP should've been moved on and Mumba dangled a carrot, those are the types of assurances that can be granted.

I'll tell you what doesn't sound good from a management perspective - getting 10 bookings and being suspended for 2 games - ironically one of them is against us. Not exactly coming back to haunt us is he?

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

3 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

So because he was more hungry than Onel and PP, he's no longer here?  Not sure that sounds too good from a management perspective.

For me it's entirely about money and Bali having a cash-in value on his head.  Otherwise, (IMO) Onel/PP should've been moved on and Mumba dangled a carrot, those are the types of assurances that can be granted.

Put it this way, if Reyes wanted assurances on his future here would you keep Long ahead of him?  It's a similar concept.

Where does that mean he's hungrier? By definition, if you're trying to fight your way into a position, you're hardly lacking in hunger. He wanted something that couldn't really be guaranteed, as Wagner made clear in the EDP link I put in when he said Fishers's emergence made it hard to gauge how much game time Mumba would get. Plymouth were keen, it made sense for Mumba having played well there the season before, and he got the move.

As for your last paragraph, that depends entirely on the assurances Reyes would want. Agree that the underlying concept is similar, but it all depends on what's wanted and what's feasible at that point in time.

[Google Bot 3,278]

Just now, Thirsty Lizard said:

I'll tell you what doesn't sound good from a management perspective - getting 10 bookings and being suspended for 2 games - ironically one of them is against us. Not exactly coming back to haunt us is he?

Are we ignoring the 6-2 drubbing they gave us then?

What he does at Plymouth does not echo what he could've done with us, you may disagree, but it's certainly my feelings.

[repman 635]

Mumba was sold for a variety of reasons. He wanted a shot at first team football, he had gone on loan to Plymouth and done all that had been asked of him (and maybe even exceeded expectations). As soon as pre season started he was made well aware he'd be second choice behind Stacey, which was a change from what he'd been told before. One of the other reasons was due to the EFL squad rules, as he was no longer considered an under 21 player he'd be taking a spot up on the senior list, Wagner wanted more players in and we didn't really have the spots to go around. Back up RB is the sort of position you might consider of lesser importance and Fisher was deemed to be fine enough for that role. 

[Google Bot 3,278]

6 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

As for your last paragraph, that depends entirely on the assurances Reyes would want. Agree that the underlying concept is similar, but it all depends on what's wanted and what's feasible at that point in time.

Well it's hypothetical, so like-for-like let's say Reyes comes back from loan and wants assurances that he's part of matchday squad else there's other clubs that want him as a starter.  Do you prioritise Long on the basis that he's 'fighting' for his place and take the money offered for Reyes? 

Edited March 21 by Google Bot

[shefcanary 2,410]

4 minutes ago, repman said:

One of the other reasons was due to the EFL squad rules, as he was no longer considered an under 21 player he'd be taking a spot up on the senior list, Wagner wanted more players in and we didn't really have the spots to go around.

Apologies for butting in here but if the letter of the EFL rules was taken, Norwich actually could have started the season with only a 21 man named squad. For some reason they also included 4 U21's in their named squad (Barden, Lima, Borja Sainz & Idah - yes I know Idah was 22 at start of season, but he was u21 by the EFL qualification date of 1 January 2023). I've never figured out why they did that - what if some over 21 player who was not registered with an EFL club had become available? Always struck me as a strange decision. 

Another off kilter thought. PP has started every game for Swansea since he signed for them. He's not that bad a player, just didn't fit Wagner's requirements. In the same way Mumba didn't? Like for much of the season Nunez and Borja Sainz didn't - but then they did.

Strange game football.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

Just now, Google Bot said:

Well it's hypothetical, so like-for-like let's say Reyes comes back from loan and wants assurances that he's part of matchday squad else there's other clubs that want him as a starter.  Do you prioritise Long who's 'fighting' for his place, or do you take the money offered for Reyes?

Fair question, and my answer will probably look a bit wordy due to the possible permutations.

Much of your answer to that question depends on two things, I would say:

1. The state of the number one, so if Gunn's having a shaky spell or needs a bit more time to recover from an injury and Reyes is looking strong in training, I'd hold on for a softer-looking fixture and chuck the youngster in then. Goalkeeper is a position that's so mentally pressured that exposing a youngster to that early on at a level that's potentially too high could be more injurious to his development than any other position. (Remember how nervous we all were when Barden played the FA Cup tie against Coventry?)

2. How the youngster and the back-up are comparing in training. By definition, that's not always something that can be readily determined until they've had some quality time alongside each other. And that would probably determine the answer if your number one is in strong form.

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

19 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Are we ignoring the 6-2 drubbing they gave us then?

What he does at Plymouth does not echo what he could've done with us, you may disagree, but it's certainly my feelings.

Well I wish I could have ignored it. 😂

In fact of course it supports my argument and undermines yours.

Plymouth smashed us that day. Mumba played on the left wing from the start. In a game where they hit 6 his contribution was zero goals scored, zero assists and a penalty conceded for a ludicrous lunge on Onel. (before being substituted). 

[hogesar 9,693]

7 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Apologies for butting in here but if the letter of the EFL rules was taken, Norwich actually could have started the season with only a 21 man named squad. For some reason they also included 4 U21's in their named squad (Barden, Lima, Borja Sainz & Idah - yes I know Idah was 22 at start of season, but he was u21 by the EFL qualification date of 1 January 2023). I've never figured out why they did that - what if some over 21 player who was not registered with an EFL club had become available? Always struck me as a strange decision. 

Another off kilter thought. PP has started every game for Swansea since he signed for them. He's not that bad a player, just didn't fit Wagner's requirements. In the same way Mumba didn't? Like for much of the season Nunez and Borja Sainz didn't - but then they did.

Strange game football.

Injury and fitness were the reason for those two.

[hogesar 9,693]

24 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Are we ignoring the 6-2 drubbing they gave us then?

What he does at Plymouth does not echo what he could've done with us, you may disagree, but it's certainly my feelings.

You can't tell much from pre-season but from the games I watched Mumba didn't look as good as our other options and of course, his small size for a footballer means you normally have to excel at something else to be good in the top two tiers of English football. Maybe he'll show it, but he wasn't going to show it with the bit-part role he'd have correctly had here.

[shefcanary 2,410]

16 minutes ago, hogesar said:

You can't tell much from pre-season but from the games I watched Mumba didn't look as good as our other options and of course, his small size for a footballer means you normally have to excel at something else to be good in the top two tiers of English football. Maybe he'll show it, but he wasn't going to show it with the bit-part role he'd have correctly had here.

Our ambition to be an EPL club and to have a squad of players that match up to the physical attributes of the Citeh's, LiVARpool's, Arses and ManUre's seals the deal. Look at Lungi - he has bulked up for the fight ahead, he knows what is required as a minimum.

[Google Bot 3,278]

14 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I watched Mumba didn't look as good as our other options and of course, his small size for a footballer means you normally have to excel at something else to be good in the top two tiers of English football.

We are bringing on Welch and Aboh in matches today who have less experience and equally as small.  Also it's worth noting that Plymouth have modified their gameplan vs last season where Mumba had more success.

If we flip this and say that someone was waving a mil for Onel or PP and no offers for Mumba, who do you think would still be on the books here?

[hogesar 9,693]

1 minute ago, Google Bot said:

We are bringing on Welch and Aboh in matches today who have less experience and equally as small.  Also it's worth noting that Plymouth have modified their gameplan vs last season where Mumba had more success.

If we flip this and say that someone was waving a mil for Onel or PP and no offers for Mumba, who do you think would still be on the books here?

Of course, a successful lone spell meant we had a club willing to give money for one of them and it happened to be Mumba. But as a bit-part player i'd still prefer a happy Onel rather an unhappy Mumba. 

Where, conversely due to the difference in ability, i'd rather an unhappy Idah right now over a happy SvH

[hogesar 9,693]

6 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Our ambition to be an EPL club and to have a squad of players that match up to the physical attributes of the Citeh's, LiVARpool's, Arses and ManUre's seals the deal. Look at Lungi - he has bulked up for the fight ahead, he knows what is required as a minimum.

Yeah, Sargent is a good example too, and spoke about it a bit in his Grant Holt interview. He now has the physicality to hold the ball up where he perhaps didn't when he first joined.

You can get away with it if you have exceptional talent in other areas but we rarely have a player with that level of exceptional talent at Premier League level. Emi probably the most recent, and Maddison before that.

Edited March 21 by hogesar

[Google Bot 3,278]

32 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Fair question, and my answer will probably look a bit wordy due to the possible permutations.

And you still didn't answer, really.  🙂

I'm only talking hypothetically as to what you would do, not a biggy.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

1 minute ago, Google Bot said:

And you still didn't answer, really.  🙂

I'm only talking hypothetically as to what you would do, not a biggy.

Oh, I answered. Such hypothetical cases often have so many variables that one clear, definite answer won't cover all cases. 

[Google Bot 3,278]

3 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Of course, a successful lone spell meant we had a club willing to give money for one of them and it happened to be Mumba. But as a bit-part player i'd still prefer a happy Onel rather an unhappy Mumba. 

Would you prefer a happy Springett or PP to a Mumba, though?  I think we're all a bit soft when it comes to Onel being happy. 🙂

I think it's asking that if level of happiness directly relates chances of first team football, then should we not be putting our better players in the 'happy' zones? 

 

[Segura 84]

When a player is sent out on loan it often triggers other clubs to the prospect that he may be available for permanent transfer - I assume quite a few eyes were on Bali last season.

At the end of his loan last season, in which he did very well at league one level, the only club to show an interest was (insert typical footballer's comment 'no disrespect here') Plymouth.

For me this was very telling - a club whose aspirations were probably only Championship survival bagged their man. I could understand some of the howling and growling if we'd sold Mumba to a play off rival for example, but for me this seemed a decent deal.

Plenty of time for Bali to develop of course, but personally I don't think he's one that will come back to haunt us.

[king canary 7,609]

9 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Of course, a successful lone spell meant we had a club willing to give money for one of them and it happened to be Mumba. But as a bit-part player i'd still prefer a happy Onel rather an unhappy Mumba. 

Where, conversely due to the difference in ability, i'd rather an unhappy Idah right now over a happy SvH

I guess we can never know how unhappy he'd actually have been.

As we've seen there have been plenty of minutes to go around for wide players and we don't know if Mumba could have done enough to earn more playing time.

It'll never not be odd to me, considering the model we have here, to cash out on him the first chance we really got all things considered. I'm pretty confident that when Mumba leaves Plymouth it'll be for more than they paid us.

[Gordon Bennett 786]

I've always thought the fee was a little modest but essentially coach who didn't sign player doesn't particularly fancy him so he goes to club where he was on loan and happy to get regular game time. That's football. 

[hogesar 9,693]

4 minutes ago, king canary said:

I guess we can never know how unhappy he'd actually have been.

As we've seen there have been plenty of minutes to go around for wide players and we don't know if Mumba could have done enough to earn more playing time.

It'll never not be odd to me, considering the model we have here, to cash out on him the first chance we really got all things considered. I'm pretty confident that when Mumba leaves Plymouth it'll be for more than they paid us.

Maybe, but it won't be any time soon as he isn't pulling up trees despite getting plenty of game time (I accept he's been dropped recently).

So if you're saying in 3, 4, maybe 5 years in a different market he might go for a bit more money having played a lot of football then you could well be right but ultimately it doesn't mean our cash-in this summer was the wrong option still, as he wasn't going to be a regular starter for us. 

Everything about him sort of smacks of bang-average with limited physicality which will always impact his potential future value. He's created 4 big chances all season, is underperforming on xG and if the argument is because he's in a poor team then I'd just look at Whittaker who's been terrific obviously, has created over double the amount of big chances and scored 18 goals - Ryan Hardie has scored 12 too.

Maybe he's got more than i've seen from him and you'll be proven right, or he'll have a career at the bottom of the champs / top of league one and no-one will see the £1 million + whatever sell on that we have...

[king canary 7,609]

29 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Everything about him sort of smacks of bang-average

I really struggle with this idea to be honest.

He's 22, last season he was young player of the season in League One in his first full season as a starter. The season before this happened we decided he was worth a new four year deal.

34 minutes ago, hogesar said:

He's created 4 big chances all season

Assuming this is from Sofascore, that would be more than all but 4 of our players.

 

36 minutes ago, hogesar said:

is underperforming on xG

Sure but I don't think not being a great finisher is enough to write him off as bang average.

I can see tools with him- he's quick, he's got good touch, he'll take players on and he's comfortable on the ball. That, with the addition of positional flexibility and the fact he's still less than 100 games into his career and has significant room for improvement makes him someone we should be hanging on to. Worst case scenario is he didn't kick on and we've missed out on a relatively small fee. Best case is he built on a great season in League One and we have another £10m+ player on our hands. To me that is a much more worthwhile gamble than keeping Onel for another year blind alleys or Placheta to run very fast in a straight line for no reason.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

56 minutes ago, king canary said:

I guess we can never know how unhappy he'd actually have been.

As we've seen there have been plenty of minutes to go around for wide players and we don't know if Mumba could have done enough to earn more playing time.

It'll never not be odd to me, considering the model we have here, to cash out on him the first chance we really got all things considered. I'm pretty confident that when Mumba leaves Plymouth it'll be for more than they paid us.

Conversely, you could also make the argument that we sold Aarons too late, and we definitely missed the boat re. Cantwell.

[JonnyJonnyRowe 447]

4 hours ago, hogesar said:

Because Wagner saying something to publicly placate the fans isn't exactly the evidence you seem to think it is. 😅😅

I don't know what happened in the years which have fallen in between the times when I considered you to be one of the more mature, logical, and rational and evidence-based posters on this forum when I last used to read it daily, to the version that I seem to encounter today who writes off new players after six weeks, but he has consistently made reference him seeing Mumba has a full back.

This was two months earlier, in May 2023:

Quote

He even committed to deploying Mumba as a full back rather than the wing-back position he excelled in at Home Park last season. 

"I plan with full backs," Wagner said back in May. 

"Even if I know that he played as a wingback, it's all about how quickly he can adapt to our ideas and then it's up to us to educate, help and support him so that he can adapt as soon as possible."

 

 

[repman 635]

1 hour ago, shefcanary said:

Apologies for butting in here but if the letter of the EFL rules was taken, Norwich actually could have started the season with only a 21 man named squad. For some reason they also included 4 U21's in their named squad (Barden, Lima, Borja Sainz & Idah - yes I know Idah was 22 at start of season, but he was u21 by the EFL qualification date of 1 January 2023). I've never figured out why they did that - what if some over 21 player who was not registered with an EFL club had become available? Always struck me as a strange decision. 

Another off kilter thought. PP has started every game for Swansea since he signed for them. He's not that bad a player, just didn't fit Wagner's requirements. In the same way Mumba didn't? Like for much of the season Nunez and Borja Sainz didn't - but then they did.

Strange game football.

Are you sure that's right with the u21 rule? More than happy to be corrected but from reading the EFL rules it says that an u21 player is someone born on or after 1 January 2002. Lima is the only one of those who falls into that category but as he was on loan I think he has to be part of the 25 man squad list.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

9 minutes ago, JonnyJonnyRowe said:

I don't know what happened in the years which have fallen in between the times when I considered you to be one of the more mature, logical, and rational and evidence-based posters on this forum when I last used to read it daily, to the version that I seem to encounter today who writes off new players after six weeks, but he has consistently made reference him seeing Mumba has a full back.

This was two months earlier, in May 2023:

 

 

Then in July 2023, as per the EDP link I put in, the emergence of Fisher made Wagner think Mumba was dispensable. At that point you pretty much are selling a player who may have reached his peak with us and are selling at a maximum possible price as after all, only Plymouth seemed to come in for him.

[JonnyJonnyRowe 447]

Just now, TheGunnShow said:

Then in July 2023, as per the EDP link I put in, the emergence of Fisher made Wagner think Mumba was dispensable. At that point you pretty much are selling a player who may have reached his peak with us and are selling at a maximum possible price as after all, only Plymouth seemed to come in for him.

Yes, exactly.

Although Fisher I don't think was quite as ready as Wagner might have considered him to be at that point. We think about the players we've hugely missed through injury this season, e.g. Gunn and Sargent, but we seldom think of those that we've been very fortunate to have fit for the bulk of the season, like Stacey! 

[Robert N. LiM 4,394]

It really is marvellous what we find to argue about during international breaks. 

Here's my opinion on Bali Mumba:

I have no opinion on Bali Mumba.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

1 minute ago, JonnyJonnyRowe said:

Yes, exactly.

Although Fisher I don't think was quite as ready as Wagner might have considered him to be at that point. We think about the players we've hugely missed through injury this season, e.g. Gunn and Sargent, but we seldom think of those that we've been very fortunate to have fit for the bulk of the season, like Stacey! 

Possibly, Fisher's done well but had a few schnitzers, but I would expect that from a youngster on his way up. He probably was the big winner in pre-season though, with some very accomplished performances - and I vaguely remember an EDP piece to that effect marking the players over the course of pre-season where he got an A-grade.

Stacey's been inconsistent after a very decent start, but is motoring into gear now. Outside bet for the POTY for me.

[Nuff Said 5,146]

4 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

It really is marvellous what we find to argue about during international breaks. 

Here's my opinion on Bali Mumba:

I have no opinion on Bali Mumba.

BOOOOOOO!!!!!
 

(  🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ )