MotoMkali

I would argue any of the top ten teams in the championship can play with any of the bottom ten teams in the prem for 60 minutes. The gap in quality isn't that high especially compared to the top 6 in the championship. In my opinion the main difference is the energy. The last 30 minutes of the game is where a prem team will beat a championship team. It is where we have lost our games. I know deano says our players have similar distance numbers in each half but I would like to know about how fast they are covering those distances. To me it looks like an inability to close down players when they have the ball in dangerous positions. This is now where I switch to what I really want to say. Kodjia will be an alright player in the prem assuming he can get his fitness levels back up to where they were when he first played for us. If he can he will likely score quite a few goals. I'd still prefer him to be a wonder sub and maybe even play one of el ghazi/mcginn/hourihane as a striker if wes us crap in the next 3 games.

Yeah but he didn't play football seriously until 16. This is like saying a 6 year old is a finished product. Give him 3 years and he will still be improving.

I'm not saying mcginn is crap or anything but people saying he is better than Grealish is baffling to me for a couple of reasons 1) Mcginn benefits from having lots of space created by teams focusing on Grealish this let's him play his game a lot easier than he otherwise would. 2) Mcginn plays on the right which has been much better offensively this year because we have guilbert compared to taylor. It will be more reasonable to compare mcginn to Grealish once targett has played more. 3) Mcginn is why we are struggling when we are in possession of the ball in our half. Instead of dropping to deep to collect the ball he is up near wesley which means to play the ball out we either have the line I.e winger and Guilbert or playing back across the pitch and giving it to taylor which as we all know forces us back again. 4) Mcginn **** our left flank. Taylor is a bad offensive player so when Grealish is out on the left with el ghazi he has 4 options. 1 attempt to take multiple players on. 2 play the ball to el ghazi and hope he can do the above. 3 pass back to taylor and restart the attack. 4 pass back to our dm or mings and restart the attack. Grealish should have a 5th option but he is on the other side of the pitch playing striker. Mcginn needs to come short and show for Grealish there so we can actually attack (yes targett will help) Down the left. Grealish comes and helps the right all the time and we often score from it. Against Everton we were at our best when mcginn was on the left and Grealish was on the right because both sides had 3 attacking players supporting the play with Grealish making himself available on both sides which mcginn just hasn't been doing. 5) A lot of the shots mcginn takes are pointless. He has had the 2nd most shots on target in the division yet only 3 goals this tells me he is hitting the target from outside the box but he doesn't score from there. Occasionally he will score a belter but if he plays a pass or takes it a 2 or 3 yards forward he is in a much better position to score which can only be a good thing for us. Also interesting take what if we do the Spain thing with him playing him upfront in the fabregas role. Nakamba and Luiz holding with Jack trez and El Ghazi as our attacking midfielders with mcginn upfront. I would also like to see hourihane upfront if wesley struggles in the next 3 games or gets injured. Edit: Numbers

If we sign another striker it won't be a target man. It will be a player who can play off wesley or be a winger. Otherwise if wesley comes good we have wasted 20m on an obsolete player.

When you take about 50 shots a season from there you are bound to score some. Mcginn can do it but often he is shooting from really far out when we would be better off with or 2 more passes to work the ball closer to the 18 yard box.

The 'D' on the edge of the 18 yard box.

As far as I can recall wesley has only taken 2 shots from outside the box. And neither one have been from past the D. He definitely needs to put more power in it which I believe he can do it is just they haven't been great positions in the first place so he hasn't been able to get a proper swing at it. My main problem is mcginn is taking to many 30 or 40 yard shots which are straight at the keeper. The only player on our team I would be OK with taking 30 yard shots regurlary is el ghazi. As to me he is the only player we have who could score 3/10 times or force a parry back into the box. I think the reason wes looks like he isn't doing much is because he rarely gets the ball to feet and our long balls end up about 20 yards away from him so he can't get into or fight for a good position. I'm not anticipating Taylor to find him with a 60 yard pass but I'm expecting mings, Engels and Heaton to at least give wesley a chance when they hit it long.

And both goals came against 2 of the better teams in the league.

I disagree wesley hasn't been in the box a huge amount and from open play the only times I really remember him being in the box were his goals and mcginns offside goal. He has obviously been in the box more times. But all of the times I have mentioned he has displayed good movement to get in front of his man and have an attempt on goal.

Whenever we have the ball mcginn essentially plays striker. He doesn't make himself available to our defenders or wingers which forces our dm to come across and Jack to drop deeper. Yes it is great mcginn is close to scoring every match but if he was deeper we wouldn't have to resort to playing crap long balls which wesley can't win. Edit: In my opinion our best game was against Everton where mcginn and Jack swapped side for most of the game this forced John to drop deeper as wesley and trezeguet were occupying the forward spaces meaning he had to drop and receive passes.

His best balls are low bouncing crosses across the face of goal like for el ghazi's shoulder against Derby.

Completely disagree with Elmo's crosses. Elmo puts in one good cross every two or 3 weeks other than that they are all floaty and shit. At least Guilbert's crosses are hit hard so if a player gets a touch on it there is a good chance they will score.

He plays number 8 because mcginn plays like a number 9. If jack isn't dropping seep to collect the ball we have no outlet except for gil and our right winger.

We could do what juve do with ronaldo and mandzukic. Where they play mandzukic out wide as a targetman I.e wesley or Davis, and have him dominate the full back physically forcing a centre half to move over and help creating space for ronaldo to run.

Everytime we knock it long it goes no where near wesley. It isn't his fault we can't find him.

We aren't playing to his strengths and the ball is never to him. We need to play the ball to his feet so he can link up play. As it stands we hoof the ball and defenders are already in a much better position so he has to fight to get in front of them and the ball pings straight off him because he isn't a good position to receive it with his feet or head. He definitely needs to be more aggressive but he has gone fewer times the last few games. Obviously the 9ne where he got clattered but there were 2 others. He needs to get up straight away if he doesn't win a free kick and go straight after the ball again.

He has been very poor in the prem and has cost us a lot of points. With poor wall placement against arsenal. Lack of aggressiveness to come for crosses and giving away an stupid penalty against bournemouth. I think steer needs a start. Shows no one is undroppable and we are thinking about what is best for the team.

Yeah. So he could be struggling. Spending long periods of time away from your family must suck. On top of that he has got to settle in a new location and play in a system with a different style

He probably misses his family as well. It must be really hard not being able to see your kids regularly and it could be affecting his confidence as well.

He really struggled when he played there last year. Yes I know it was under Steve Bruce but to make the most out of your players you have to play them in their best positions. Plus if jack isn't happy it will only hatm the morale of the team.

My view is mcginn Is way to high up. He is essentially playing as a right striker with wesley. When Jack has the ball on the left he has no options but to either play it forward to el ghazi or back to taylor. Mcginn needs to be deeper and come across so he can receive the ball when we are out wide. Against Everton we looked a lot more dangerous when John and Jack switched sides as wesley plays more on the left which forced mcginn deeper allowing him to come collect the ball instead of floating around when we are attacking. For me we also definitely need to play targett instead of Taylor. You win matches by scoring more goals than your opponents and if Taylor struggles to contain players then at least we should be attacking but we don't say targett has to come in for me. I'd also like to see a rotating front three where el ghazi trez and wesley swap positions in the match. Giving the centre half's more pace to worry about and the full backs having to contend with wesley. On top of that if we are rotating attackers it means wesley trez and El Ghazi will tire less quickly as they may not have to press or track back as much when they switch. This is important because we really need our subs in the centre not out wide.

If he is out for another three weeks. Then I'd see if we could get the deal done. Because it means we'd have Davis as our backup for 2 months but if we get another say 7-15mil which we could spend on a winger I'd be very happy.

Yeah but it also counts as a key pass. An assist is just a key pass that got finished. If they didn't count de bruyne would. Probably have fewer key passes than Grealish.

A pass that leads to a shot directly after so Grealish's pass to Luiz counts as a key pass.

An all left footed central midfield. Also Grealish has done plenty. 2 assists even if one was for luozs wonder goal. Assist disallowed. Created 14 chances and has blocked shots. Averaging 85% pass accuracy etc Hourihane defo has to come on as a sub earlier but Grealish shouldn't move because el ghazi and trez both look quite dangerous and nakamba is too good defensively to slot hourihane over him