Laughable Chimp

Yeah, pretty much useless this game. Interesting thing I've noticed, despite the amount of fouls we've gotten in the last 2 games, I don't think a single one of those were in enough a promising position for him to unleash his left boot. Have the opposition been to be careful to not foul us too close to the box?

I'm terming all the times Mings gives me heart attack when he's on the ball, a Mings Moment. Tonight was better imo, less Mings Moments than usual. There were a couple of times there where he cleared it when I would've expected Mings to unnecesarily hold on to the ball so, improvement I guess. Still could do with removing Mings Moments completely from his game.

Looking back, I think I was quite harsh on him for the Man U game. Was quality for this one, credit where credit is due.

Hey guys, give him some slack. He did a good crossfield pass somewhere in those 90 minutes. I totally see enough potential in there to shell out 22 million

Mentioned in the Guilbert thread that Elmo has one of the highest expected assists per 90 stat in our squad and what do you know, first start he gets in a while he gets himself an assist. Really not worried at all about who we play in rb imo, both Guilbert and Elmo are good for us. Nice to have squad depth for once.

Morelos would go for cheaper than whatever Mitrovic costs I feel. But tbh, I'm starting to think we don't need to dip into the market for a forward this Jan. We're scoring goals after all and I feel we're our squad is good enough right now to avoid the drop. Funny how everyone seems to think we need a striker and a winger when we've been scoring so many goals yet there's scant mention of going for a defender when we've been conceding so many. Rather we do our research amd go for a hidden gem out there next summer instead of being forced to pay big money for reinforcements we don't really need. To be clear, I still don't think Wesley is good enough right now. I just think our forward line and our midfield contribute enough goals in spite of him that a new striker may not be our priority.

The PL average for all Forwards I believe. Edit: No wait, it just says PL average. I think its just for all players. But I don't think its relevant considering we're talking about how much Wesley is supposed to be contributing outside of his goal scoring. If he's not supposed to be mainly relied on as a goal scorer, I expect him to do much better in these other stats. And if its for all players, I think that looks even worse for Wesley since surely these averages will be dragged down by defenders, goalkeepers and defensively minded players. Edit2: I checked the PL averages for Guilbert and its changed. Yep, pretty sure this is actually the PL average for each position.

Well there's the assist stat of course, which is at 1 in 14 games, pretty self-explanatory that. The amount of big chances he's created is 1 in 14 games, according to premierleague.com. Again, pretty self explanatory His Expected Assists per 90 which I believe is essentially a measure of the quantity and quality of chances he's created from a pass of his. Aka, from tthe passes he's made, what are the expected amount of assists he should have every 90 minutes. So it should take into account all chances he's created, not just the big chances. He's 0.05 per 90 for this stat meaning he's expected to have an assist once every 20 games, well below the PL average. Understat also has other similar stats of this vein. Key passes per 90, which is purely the amount of passes he's made that leads to a shot per 90 minutes. 0.52, well below the PL average. The one stat he does average in is XGperbuildup90 which honestly I don't seem to really understand all that much but I think its supposed to measure how much a player contributes to a chance created if we don't count the key passes and the shots he himself makes. Basically a stat for someone like Grealish who has a reputation for being an assisster for the assisster over the actual assister or being the goal scorer himself, and Grealish is evidently well above the PL average. Wesley is on the PL average in this case. Edit: Clarifying that the PL average is the average for Forwards and that Grealish isn't well above the PL average if you count his entire season actually, still significantly above it though But he is well above that if you count only the times he's been playing at FWL for us, almost twice the average.

If this was one off, I'd agree. But its not. The amount of times he's been caught unnecesarily in posession is too much imo. Its been happening in other games too. Happened several times in the Newcastle game for one and we were lucky not a single one of them cost us a goal. I like the fact that we're trying to pass it out from the back, but that shouldn't by itself excuse the unnecesary mistakes Mings has made because its pretty clear to me he doesn't have the right balance of when to clear, pass or dribble yet.

Eh, sometimes that should be an option. Having a striker shoot from outside the box once in a while isn't that bad lol, I mean Wesley has had 2 shots outside the box which is more than he usually doesin the last couple of matches and I wouldn't say that's a "complete breakdown of Smith's system". If he's a false 9 as some people here say he is, he should probably have a few more shots from outside the box than other strikers. But the bigger problem which I mentioned below is that he seems to not really shoot the ball unless he's really close to the goal which leads to a higher shots on target ratio. Look at all his goals, they're tap ins or very close to being tap ins. That's not really a problem in of itself, but if you're trying to argue he's a good striker because he has a higher shot on target ratio because of it than yeah, it becomes one. If you're not gonna release a shot unless you pretty much know you're going to hit it on target, you're gonna have a lower shots per game ratio which we know is one of Wesley's problems. And if you have lower shots per game, you might not score as many goals in spite of the fact that you shoot more of what shots you do have on target. So that statistic can become meaningless.

He's allowed the touch, but once he's had the touch he should be clearing it once he realizes no pass is open, that's the point you showed in your picture. Instead he tries to be smart and holds on to it more than he should which causees him to lose the ball.

No, this is right after he receives it, https://imgur.com/a/nOqtV1b Not this

Doesn't really mean much if all his shots on target are gonna be weak shots to the keeper like the one he had at Man U. Davic McGoldrick is just a bit behind Wesley on that list and he has 0 goals to his name last I checked. Vardy is even more behind than either and is vastly superior than either forward. In short, its a shit stat list by itself. Honestly think Wesley's shots on target stat is so high because he rarely if ever shoots from outside the box and a lot of his shots happen to be tap ins or very close to the 6 yard box. Which translates to a lower SpG but a higher SpG on target ratio.

He's not receiving the pass from Grealish at this moment here, he's dribbled it into trouble here as a result of him refusing to immediately clear it. He shouldn't be looking for the pass on Douglas in the first place. There was no way Mings could've passed that ball to Luiz safely even if he had come back, after Mings had taken more than one touch on the ball. There was a small window after the first touch that he could've passed to Douglas but it would've been a risky pass even with Douglas that far up the field but he doesn't take that option. Could Grealish and Douglas have done better in making themselves options for Mings to pass to? Possibly, but I'm not seeing that much they can do reasonably in terms of movement to actually help Mings all that much. It came of to me like they were fully expecting Mings to clear the ball which they had every right to expect, and realized the danger Mings had brought himself under far too late for them to make themselves an option for him to pass towards. Here's the thing with the passing argument, or he takes risks argument. He doesn't need to take a lot of these risks. He can do these dribbles and passes when he isn't actually under a lot of pressure, not do it when the opposing attacker is breathing down his neck. If he has spaces, dribble it as much as you want, or look for the craziest passes Tyrone, I don't give a ****. But do it when you know you can do it reasonably safely. Ain't no good taking risks like that if you're gonna keep making mistakes that are gonna cost us. I hope he gets better at it over time, but as for now these are not the type of mistakes a 20 million pound plus centre back, and I think possibly our record signing for the club should be making and make no mistake, he's been allowing too many of them to happen.

But, you did? "Wesley has scored double the amount of goals in fourteen appearances in the premier league than the two goals that Davis scored in thirty-nine appearances in the championship." This seems like a knock on Davis's scoring record no matter how you read it. Its not that I disagree with it either, but still something you said against Davis.

And yet Davis has performed as well or better than Wesley whenever he's subbed in for him. Go ahead, name me one time Davis has actually looked worse than Wesley after coming on for him. Its not rocket science, player A seems to be better than player B whenever player A is subbed on for player B. Does this not imply player A may deserve a chance over player B? Because if not, then let me ask you what would be then if playing better than another player doesn't give you the right to start over that other player? Because at this point, I don't think he will ever be given a chance by some here no matter how well he plays over Wesley as long as he doesn't score a goal in those few minutes he gets every other game. Wesley's scoring rate is now 1 goal every 303 minutes, Davis has only played a fraction of that total at 64 minutes in the PL, how are supposed to know that he wouldn't actually do better than Wesley if he is never allowed the time? And again, you might go and appeal to his championship scoring record but to be frank, every time I've seen him play tis season he seems like he'd be better for the team all around and seems to be a better goal threat, certainly no worse than Wesley imo. And I think he's appearances in the PL this season are worth more as evidence of how he can do now over his appearances in the past season. Does it automatically mean that he's better than Wesley? Certainly not, but as I repeat myself again, I think he's done enough to deserve being given a genuine chance when he comes back to see how good he can actually be.

Anything can happen tbh. Maybe a crazy injury crisis, or maybe things are just refusing to click for some reason. We're a recently promoted club and as I've said before in other threads, we are not entitled to anything in this league. Is it likely? Tbh, I don't think so, but it is definitely too soon to disqualify it from the realm of reasonable possibility and a lot can change in a short amount of time.

Rodwell spent 2 seasons with Man City where barely played for them after leaving Everton. I don't think he's really comparable to Grealish at all. In fact, if you want to make that comparison, Grealish would have to go to another club, spend a couple of seasons not playing and then exit the club. I've noticed all your examples seem to be related to players leaving Man City, is it possible this is mostly a Man City thing that they can do because of the amount of money they have?

Yeah, but how many of these has happened with players the quality and reputation of Grealish? I would think this only happens if the player doesn't have many suitors who are unwilling to bite the bullet for him to have him on their squad. Grealish will be very likely be a very in demand player for a lot of clubs if it comes down to that the idea of us being forced to accept such a deal seems ludicrous to me. In demand enough to the point I believe there must be some club out there who is willing to take on his entire wage bill to secure his services.

I don't understand this. Are you thinking that clubs will try to loan Jack and only pay 40% of his wages? In the event we do go down, there will be a lot of suitors for Jack and we will have the leverage if it comes down to it. Clubs will pay top money for a top English midfielder, we don't have to be forced to accept a stupid loan deal like that.

His mistakes at Norwich, Arsenal and Man City were just poor defending, not from risk taking. Although poorly taking risks I do think is part of the problem too, 3 times this game he tried to dribble the ball out wide when under pressure and with his front towards his own goal when the pass to Heaton was available and lost the ball twice, one of which led to the corner which led to the goal. There's just no reason to do dribble the ball out wide like this, the benefit just does not outweigh the risks.

None of our other central defenders make as many mistakes as he does though. He definitely has a higher error per 90 minute ratio than either Konsa or Engels. I counted 1 obvious mistake from Konsa last game and this game, Mings has several in both games and its not happening in just these two games.

It isn't his first mistake that's led to a goal. Off the top of my head, Norwich's goal, Man City's first goal and Arsenal's second goal come to mind.

Maybe its because unlike Conor, there's also a contingent of people seemingly willing to defend and excuse Wes at every opportunity. He's a polarizing guy and the reaction from both sides of the argument drive each other. If he doesn't have a good game, one side is gonna take the opportunity to lambast him for it but when he does have a good game, the other side is 100% gonna do the same and rub it in the other's face.

So I have to wait until Dean Smith explicitly says that Wesley is supposed to be our main goal scorer before I can conclude that he is supposed to be in fact our main goal scorer? What? By the same token, I can't conclude that Jamie Vardy is Leicester's main goal scorer until Rodgers explicitly says it? Or for any forward for that matter? I'm determining it based on the fact that he's our only striker on the field and strikers are generally relied on to score goals. He's also as you said, our top goal scorer in the league so far. Add to that his assist game is poor so if he isn't relied on to score goals, why else would he be put up as our main striker then? There are things which imply certain things, you don't have to wait until the manager explicitly states something for you to make your own conclusions ffs. My point is that if Wesley was not relied on to be our main goal scorer, than I would expect more assists to his game. The absence of such assists and the fact that he's scored more goals than anyone for us so far implies to me that he is supposed to be our main goal scorer, different to someone like Firmino when you compare him to the rest of his team and the goals and assists he has.