Laughable Chimp

Traore can play striker and Dean Smith himself has mentioned that he considers him viable cover for the role(its part of why we sold Samatta).

You'd put him as MOTM at HT even above Mcginn?

Super John Mcginn is finally back.

How the hell did this handsome man who looks like a cross of Grealish and Lansbury used to look like this?

He played 25 games for us, he just wasn't very good for us.

I've been reading this several times but I'm not really sure what you mean here. xA will be accurate to what? And how huge is the volume needed?

No, actually I don't remember either being large complaints against Samatta or Davis. The biggest complaint against Davis was that the boy can't finish. Whilst Samatta was just useless in general aside from his work ethic. Perhaps one of those complaints was him not getting at the end of those crosses, but I doubt those would bias El Ghazi's xA stat so negatively that it would create a completely opposite view of his chance creation last season. Certainly not to the point where he should've gotten 10 assists instead of the 4 he got.

Sarr and Zaha aren't exactly high return players either though. Honestly those 2 might've been the most overrated player in the PL when you consider their actual stats last season. The comparisons to Zaha in particularly were already being made last season to show that El Ghazi was in fact better than people were giving him credit for, when in fact it should've been taken the other way. Its not that El Ghazi was good, its that Zaha (at least in terms of goals and assists output) was shit. Secondly, I've seen you use xG stats before I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. But if so, I think you know very well that the claim that he should've had about 10 assists if our strikers could finish is demonstrably false, at least according to xA statistics which attempt to measure the expected assists a player would get if the person who ended up in the final shot had average finishing ability. https://understat.com/player/5612 Understat shows that it should've been 2.88 instead of the 4 he actually got. Meaning the chances he created were actually worse than what his assist talley suggests, its just they were finished very well. Literally the opposite of what you suggested. Lastly, I don't think he's easily worth 12-13 million, but this is a lot more subjective. Personally, I'd put it somewhere around 8-10 million.

I believe the stat you're looking for there, is unsuccesful touches per game. Trez had 2.1 of those per game last season.

https://www.whoscored.com/Players/109807/History/Bertrand-Traoré You can check it yourself here. Basically, his average number of times disposessed stats in the league were 2017-18:1.3 times per game 2018-19:1.1 times per game 2019-20:1.2 times per game So its been fairly consistent across the seasons he's had with Lyon. That said, disposession stats can be pretty misleading by themselves. For example, Grealish was our most disposessed winger last season just by virtue of the amount of times he tried to force the issue and start an attack. So he ended up losing the ball more, but he also managed to create more attacking opportunities.

Trez got disposessed at a rate of 0.6 per game last season. Traore got disposessed at a rate of 1.1 with Lyon last season so if you're looking for him to keep the ball more often than Trez, you'd be disappointed. That said, I agree he'll probably be more effective than Trez. On another note, one thing I haven't really seen mentioned about him so far is his defensive work. It is statswise better than all our current wingers.

In all serious, I think we're amassing quite a squad here. Unlike last season, the players we've been linked with are statistically good(aside from Callum Wilson) and have played in the top 5 leagues, hence their higher prices. Its very early days, but I think I'm confident in putting my neck out and saying that Emi, Traore and Watkins will be quality for us. Whereas last season, I could barely have said that for any of our new signings. Add Barkley/Cyprien and a quality CB into the mix, and I think there's no reason that we can't finish top half. In fact, I'm putting money on the fact that we will if we sign the 2 above.(Rashica would be nice, but I think there's more pressing concerns)

Do we need an Ashley Westwood type?

Really don't get all this talk of Jack moving into the middle. I know it might seem like he's the type of player who's playstyle works best in that position but he's best work have by far all come from the left wing.

Nah, he takes a decent amount of shots actually. An average of 3 shots per 90 minutes in the PL last season. The average was something like 2.5 for a forwardr. He's just not a good finisher.

96.1% passing accuracy for this game. Highest in the game aside from Conor(who tbf, wasn't exactly in the game for very long). Edit: Nvm, 94.2% actually. Still pretty high,

He played it last season for a total of 175 minutes. Our 4th most popular formation.

Jack is already our first choice left winger. He played left wing last season more than anywhere else and he played left wing against Sheffield a couple of days ago. I think he's not really a direct replacement to anybody in the midfield. Its more that he's another option.

Took 3 corners and 8 free kicks last season in the Premier League, so yes.

I'm certainly for this move, especially as a loan. Although, there are quite a few similarities with the Drinkwater loan that make me wary. I do however have much better optimism for a guy who was able to play a bitpart role in a top 4 team last season than a guy who couldn't even get onto Burnley's bench.

I don't think Conor is a box to box midfielder in the first place. He certainly doesn't play like that for us.

I've suggested no such thing

lol what? Trezeguet gets plenty of shit on here and plenty were okay with us selling him during the summer despite how important his goals were for us whilst Mcginn gets excused a lot on the "he wasn't fully fit" excuse.

His stats were good this game. 3 key passes, joint most with Grealish and Mcginn on our team. 3 succesful tackles, more than anyone else on our team. 2 interceptions, joint most with Konsa and Cash on our team.

I feel like the idea that this guy has pace is a myth that's being perpetuated. I haven't seen a Lyon fan who's said he's fast. Pretty sure I've read in this very thread a Lyon fan denying that he has pace.