valengull

17 hours ago, HKP90 said:

I think everyone here wants him to find a place where he can resurrect his career, and I hope that's with you guys.

I think he'd be more open to a move than you suggest. There's nothing about his rise as a footballer that would suggest to me that he'd be content with turning up and taking a wage.

If he's fine taking a wage cut, it's just a case of Villa agreeing to cut his contract short a year or extending the loan until the end of next season. Either way, he's a great option for us with Soldado most likely retiring.

46 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

In fairness he looks happy in La Liga

The mental scars from that injury will last a lot longer than the physical damage, so playing in a slower, less physical league will certainly appeal and in turn give him more mental freedom on the pitch without worrying about some Shawcross type flying in and snapping his leg.

On 10/12/2022 at 04:26, KentVillan said:

I disagree with those like @rodders0223who say he was pure shit the entire time he was here, but in fairness to them he probably never had much of a future at Villa once we stayed up.

I’m more inclined towards @Zatman’s take that his physical size makes people expect a completely different type of player, and then when you realise what type of player he wants to be, he lacks the pace and technical quality to really play that role at the highest level.

He had his success in Belgium playing in a 3-5-2 where he could drop off a more advanced striker and link up the play. If you play him as a lone striker or as the advanced striker, his natural instinct is to drop deep, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to coach this out of him.

He likes the ball to feet and really only uses his physical strength in that context. He‘s *okay* in the air in duels, but he isn’t the type to attack crosses with his head and score bullet headers.

We did see some decent performances from him, though. The ones that stand out are Everton at home, Man Utd away and Burnley away (sadly the game where he got injured). In these games he bullied defenders, covered a lot of ground, linked up intelligently, and slotted a couple of finishes away very calmly.

I would have expected pre-injury Wesley to have caused a lot of problems in second-tier football, despite not being good enough for the Premier League, but sounds like he really is just playing for the pay cheque now after a crippling injury.

Anyway, let us know if he improves at all…!

He started the season playing off a 37 year old Soldado and he looked decent enough with an assist, but Soldado was scoring a few so by the time the coach realised he can't play two slow strikers with limited mobility up front, it was Wesley who got the chop. That manager has thankfully gone and the new one seems to like what he sees in Wesley but plays a 4-3-3 and he's just not got enough about him to play up front alone. 

On 09/12/2022 at 18:32, Mark Albrighton said:

Hello and welcome.

If you’re not familiar with the injury, here’s a picture of (at the time) Burnley defender Ben Mee carrying out research to determine the elasticity of a human leg.

Wesley wasn’t a great signing for us, even without the injury I suspect we would have cut our losses in the next year or two. As it is we’ll recoup nothing, such is football. He is probably the worst permanent signing we’ve made since returning to the premier league.

For the sake of balance, the game he got injured in is widely regarded as being his best performance for us, 6 goals in 20 or so appearances isn’t the worst return we’ve ever seen, he was new to league, playing in a side that had to be thrown together, he was away from his family in Brazil, he was just 22 when he signed (I think). None of this was ideal for him.

To summarise, he wasn’t very good for us, he was very unlucky with the injury, I bear him no ill will and would be happy if he could find his goal scoring boots for you guys.

That is absolutely horrific! Would love to see him back and scoring, and on paper he should be in the second division, but it's not looked great so far. Maybe with a run of games we will see more from him.

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

You can read through the thread but he was very divisive when he played but that was 3 years ago. He was an ok finisher and passer but is a player that doesn't play the destroyer centre forward he looks like.

His injury ruined him being a top division player and it was so bad that he probably should have retired but his story is that he has fought all his life that he won't give up. He was out for I think 16 months. Sadly for Levante this is his 3rd loan spell and hasnt been successful in all 3. He has played I think 5 minutes for us since New Years Day 2020 

Didn't know about the injury but it makes sense when you see him play. His movement is minimal and he doesn't like to get stuck in, which I guess is indicative of someone who has suffered a serious injury in the past.

Hello,

Levante season ticket holder here and wanted to discuss/get views on Wesley, who is on loan here!