Laughable Chimp

In his case, I’m fairly sure its a complete rupture. The length of time he’s been out as well as the fact that he went for surgery to fix it suggests so.

Seems pretty random, especially for how old he is but could be interesting. He's currently tearing the Turkish league a new one with 20 goals in 18 games.

I saw that Moreno salary too and I find it really hard to believe. I dug a bit deeper and saw that he'd spent a significant portion of his early career in the Spanish second tier. Betis only got him after his old team Rayo Vallecano were relegated and I can imagine his salary being pretty tiny as a result. If he hadn't signed a new contract with Betis(which is very feasible), he would still be on that original contract when we got him. Meaning we wouldn't need to bump up his wage much for him to come to us.

Who is this Luis guy? Because based on those tweets, he sounds no different to many of the posters on here with the way he confidently asserts his own thoughts and speculations as fact. Hell, even the clear villa bias is there. Does he have like insider knowledge or something? Is he close friends with Martinez? Because that at least justifies the confidence, otherwise I’d take his opinion with as much weight as any random bloke on here.

On the one hand, yes I agree with you that they would be better value for money options for them than Emi. On the other hand, never underestimate the value of a "big name" in the market. We've seen time and time again how clubs will tend to spend big on players purely because of it regardless of other concerns.

If we do lose Martinez, I do hope we go for another keeper who was in a similar position as Martinez was. That's how we'll get the best value. That's not going to be Pickford, even if Everton do go down. He's too high profile, too experienced at the top levels.

Its 14.8 million pounds base with the potential to rise to 23 million. Again, still a good deal. But its not like we got him for practically nothing is it?

Even Duran cost like 20m. Although I still think its a good signing, at that fee its not really unearthing a gem is it? We paid that for Wesley and at the time it seemed like a massive fee.

Me after watching Leon Bailey attempt to play football 90 percent of the time.

Also, an 18 year old performing at that level really should have been attracting more interest from clubs assuming that wasn't the case in the first place. Especially for that price point. Compare it for example to the prices and track records of the hot prospects we were linked with in Jan(Moleiro, Osorio).

Huh? Zurich won the swiss super league last season.

Didn't even notice he didn't make the bench. Surely Emery can't think it would be better to have both Sinisalo and Olsen on the bench than to have Kesler if he was available.

Then get rid of him then. I don’t see the problem really, like you said his wages are and would be low if we extended his contract. If he doesn’t perform as well as we hope, I’m sure we can still sell him for 5m + addons a bit later too. If he actually does better, we can sell him for even more or maybe he even makes it into our squad. I understand your point that most won’t succeed at a pl level, I’m actually generaly a lot more critical of our youth than most people here and that’s gotten me into spata with some users. Its just in this case, it just feels a bit too soon to cut our losses with him. Being able to perform at even just a middling level at championship at thate age is already quite impressive. What’s the harm really in giving him one extra year at this stage of his career where he could still develop a lot?

Was looking through his stats to try and make the case for him. I noticed despite his limited minutes his managed to win 2 penalties for cardiff this season already. Then I go to watch the highlights of these events and the cardiff pen-taker missed both pens lol. But yeah, generally there are some very impressive dribbling/take-on stats, together with being able to win fouls in dangerous areas as those two generally go together. Very high tackling stats too which is impressive, suggesting that he has very good work rate. The biggest issue seems to be the lack of end-product. His goal return is not that bad for Championship level for a winger considering his minutes played, but still pretty mediocre at best. Having 0 assists across his 2 championship loans so far is very poor though and it doesn't seem to be a case of bad luck(although if we could the pens he won, you could argue he's had 2 assists). The underlying stats also suggest a lack of creating ability. Which is weird considering his take-on creation is very high in both loans. Then it hit me. Its because he's taking on players and then instead of releasing the ball to a better placed player, he's taking the shot on himself. Could explain his high shoots taken stats and very low shooting accuracy this season. Regardless, I do think there's something there with him it would be a bit foolish to let him go so soon. Not at 20/21 years of age where he could very well still develop some of the abilities needed to take advantage of his other assets.

Think its a bit too soon to give up on him. He's literally just turned 21(he might even still be 20, there's conflicting birthdates online). I'd try and offer him a year extension to his contract and see what he can do.

This is technically his second undisputed bad game for us btw. I can’t remember which one but I do remember him having a poor game and most of this thread agreed with it prior to this. Wolves game maybe?

About 20m probably,

I disagree. There's a time and place for that pass, and that was not it. The risk vs reward just isn't worth it.

This was probably true in the past and still is right now but as we saw with this game, other people are catching on to it. No tactic reigns supreme forever as other teams learn to counter them. Being stubbornly dogmatic to one specific football philosophy is probably the main reason why once successful football managers fall off. Just because it worked very well once doesn't mean it will work forever. Football isn't a static game.

I think we have a lot of players who can be good on their day, but almost none who are consistently good enough to be key members of the starting 11 if we're serious about pushing for Europe. In short, we have a team full of mid-table players.

He did some good things. he also did some bad things. overall, there were worse players

Think he should get the blame for the third goal. He’s way too far up the field when Kamara loses the ball. Left a massive gap for tete.

I wish Digne was good going forward nowadays

3rd goal is on Digne. He's way too high up the pitch once we lose the ball. Leaves a massive gaping hole for Tete.

Just watched the replay for the second goal, that's on Mings for me. Not that Digne isn't at fault, but his fault actually doesn't contribute to the goal. Digne should be marking Tete who is also open and shouldn't even be in the vicinity of Iheanacho. Both players have lost their man.