Wesley Moraes

[Dave-R]

Thing is we are still finding it tough to service Wesley properly, its not all Wesleys doing, i see the guy trying and thats enough for me for now. 

It wouldn't hurt to bring someone in but if we do he should be totally different to any of our three strikers. We need someone who goes chasing that ball all game, is not scared to commit to acrobatics to score that goal, I've not seen any of that for a long time from our strikers. I've seen Wesley on more than a few occasions along with Davis and kodjia when they have played completely miss goals where if they applied themselves and committed there body's to a diving header or slide that they'd of scored.

We certainly need someone who isn't afraid of abit of danger to get that goal.

A little bit of my crazy head says move Mcginn into striker, he'd most likely be a fantastic one as hes looked most likely to score nearly every game. Because Davis struggles to score move him to midfield because he can chase like Mcginn anyhow. I just feel that whenever I see Davis play I think he would actually make a better midfielder, Mcginn  though I feel you could put him anywhere midfield and more forward and he'd be fine. 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Dave-R

[villalad21]

2 hours ago, Dave-R said:

Thing is we are still finding it tough to service Wesley properly

Non sense.

Villa are 4th in chances created. Level with Arsenal in goals scored.

As of chances created from open play we rank among the top 10.

Once Davis came on he created chances almost immediately. But poor Wesley doesn't get "any" service right?

This silly excuse needs to stop.

[useless]

He's scored two goals in his last three games, he doesn't really need any excuses. In ten premier league games he's already scored twice as many goals as Davis got at championship level against weaker opposition with much more game time.

[TRO]

16 hours ago, Davkaus said:

If he's not considered good enough to get a game on Wednesday, it'd really make you wonder what they were thinking only bringing in one striker.

I think we have to be careful here and know our station as a team.....We are only hoping to stay up.

Bringing in another striker, would only hamper the development of Wes and Keinan....They need time.

I am a spectator and my skill set  is watching a game.....personally, I am in no position to tell Dean Smith or any other manager how to develop players.

We have to be careful as fans we don't venture in to area's we have limited knowledge on.

I think there are teams in this division, who would be happy to have Wes and Keinan on their books....despite their current form.

Edited October 29, 2019 by TRO

[VillaChris]

He's not ready to start week in week out in premier league, still young and learning.

Would be surprised if he's still starting from Feb onwards.

[AV82]

22 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Okay...but this is the PL. You know what, let's also recall Andre Green and Callum O'Hare and give them starts in this league to see how they've developed. I mean, we'll never know until we try right? Hell, at least they've actually been playing first team football.

Neither of those have made appearances from the bench in recent PL games and impressed whereas Davis has; hence the calls for him to be given a chance in a position we're currently struggling with.
 

On 28/10/2019 at 17:45, Keyblade said:

Davis made 28 appearances in 17/18, about 15 of them starts, and he scored a grand total of...2 goals.

Is it really that hard for you to imagine a young player improving behind the scenes over the course of 2 years ... in a new team ... under a new manager?

If you want to pull stats from your ass: Harry Kane scored 2 goals in 13 appearances for Leicester in the Championship (2012/13) 2 years before he scored 21 goals for Tottenham in the Premier League (2014/15). By your logic Spurs should've told Harry Kane to kindly f*ck off and either loaned him out or let him rot in the reserves. Ridiculous.

Edited October 29, 2019 by AV82

[Keyblade]

22 minutes ago, AV82 said:

Neither of those have made appearances from the bench in recent PL games and impressed whereas Davis has; hence the calls for him to be given a chance in a position we're currently struggling with.
 

Is it really that hard for you to imagine a young player improving behind the scenes over the course of 2 years ... in a new team ... under a new manager?

If you want to pull stats from your ass: Harry Kane scored 2 goals in 13 appearances for Leicester in the Championship (2012/13) 2 years before he scored 21 goals for Tottenham in the Premier League (2014/15). By your logic Spurs should've told Harry Kane to kindly f*ck off and either loaned him out or let him rot in the reserves. Ridiculous.

I'm not saying any of that. You're arguing against a strawman. I actually think really highly of Keinan. I'm not saying he's never going to amount to anything, but on current evidence, he's not much of a goalscorer. Of course that could very well change in the future, and I hope it does, but this isn't a psychic forum so I don't see the point in trying to predict that in a conversation about what we need right now.

As for the Harry Kane example, if you recall, it took exceptionally woeful form for a very long period of time from Roberto Soldado for Kane to find a route into the Spurs first team. He also had to impress in the cup competitions where he scored like 8 goals in 8 games in the Europa League + League Cup for him to even get a single start.

This is exactly why Keinan needs to really take chances like the Wolves cup game to force his way into the team like Hourihane and Targett already did this season. Coming on for 15-20 minutes against tired legs, typically while we're chasing games and making a nuisance of yourself but not much else is hardly enough to dislodge our young 22m striker who has 4 goals and 1 assist in 10 PL games in my opinion, and evidently that of the coaching staff.

[KenjiOgiwara]

10 hours ago, useless said:

He's scored two goals in his last three games, he doesn't really need any excuses. In ten premier league games he's already scored twice as many goals as Davis got at championship level against weaker opposition with much more game time.

Davis also got service from a much worse team with Bruceball. 

By your reasoning Wes would have scored loads under Bruce and that team, and there's absolutely zero chance for that. 

This never ending discussion really isn't hard to settle. 

Wesley has scored 4/10 and that's pretty good.

But he also missed a penalty and got 50% of those goals against the same injury hampered Norwich. He has been awful for about 70-80% of the matches he's lead the line. He lacks a lot of fundamental attacking abilities (previously pointed out in this thread). 

Davis hasn't done well when gotten the chance in the championship. He doesn't seem to have the composure or finishing ability strikers at this level need. Davis also is 2 years younger than Wes. 

But Davis has attributes that's pretty important as a lone striker, especially hold-up play. He might not score as much as some, but the 5-10 goals lost here can be regained by team play. 

So what's the solution? Just rotate. Wesley has been very poor, so he should be dropped. If Davis after 5-10 matches are equally shit, rotate back. 

Not rocket science. 

Edited October 29, 2019 by KenjiOgiwara

[useless]

Davis would have been getting service from players like McGinn, Grealish, Snodgrass, El Ghazi, Hourihane, and Adomah, all either amongst the best players in the championship or players who were constantly amongst the players with the most assists in that division. Kodjia and Abraham managed to score goals, not saying you can expect Davis to have been as good as those in the championship, but two goals in forty games is pretty damning. I actually like Davis, I just don't think he's done enough yet to take Wesley's place in the first team.

[KenjiOgiwara]

18 minutes ago, useless said:

Davis would have been getting service from players like McGinn, Grealish, Snodgrass, El Ghazi, Hourihane, and Adomah, all either amongst the best players in the championship or players who were constantly amongst the players with the most assists in that division. Kodjia and Abraham managed to score goals, not saying you can expect Davis to have been as good as those in the championship, but two goals in forty games is pretty damning. I actually like Davis, I just don't think he's done enough yet to take Wesley's place in the first team.

He wouldn't cause the matches Davis got was in 2017/2018 when McGinn wasn't signed and Grealish wasn't a fraction of the player. Unless you ment Whelan, Onomah, Gil, Bananason, Hogan etc. 

Snodgrass was alright mind. Liked him.

 

Anyway. Time to rotate. Wes out. Davis in. 

Edited October 29, 2019 by KenjiOgiwara

[useless]

It was after the 2017/2018 season that Tottenham bid £25m for Grealish, a lot of people said he was the best player in the championship, even in our first season in the championship he was a lot better than people gave him credit for and was our most productive player outside of Kodjia. That season in addition to Snodgrass we also had Hourihane and Adomah who were amongst the players with most assists in the division, Hogan would have hardy played with Davis, Bjarnasson and Whelan played as defensive midfielders, and Gil never even played for us in the championship.

[Keyblade]

23 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

He wouldn't cause the matches Davis got was in 2017/2018 when McGinn wasn't signed and Grealish wasn't a fraction of the player. Unless you ment Whelan, Onomah, Gil, Bananason, Hogan etc. 

Snodgrass was alright mind. Liked him.

 

Anyway. Time to rotate. Wes out. Davis in. 

2017/18 was Grealish's best season by far. He was unplayable in the Championship when he came back from that kidney injury that year. Hourihane and Snodgrass also got 10 assists a piece that year. We were stacked.

[KenjiOgiwara]

1 minute ago, Keyblade said:

2017/18 was Grealish's best season by far. He was unplayable in the Championship when he came back from that kidney injury that year. Hourihane and Snodgrass also got 10 assists a piece that year. We were stacked.

Can't disagree more. He's on a completely other level now. 

[Keyblade]

3 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Can't disagree more. He's on a completely other level now. 

I don't think he's quite there yet. Literally every touch/pass/move/run was perfect that year. Flawless season. He didn't quite hit those heights in 18/19 but his influence was still invaluable. This year, it took him a few games but he's very nearly back up there (that Brighton performance was the best of his career)...in the PL which I guess is impressive in itself. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Grealish was fantastic in 17/18 season but he came back near the end of December when Davis got injured. Then we signed Grabon and Davis struggled to get back in to the team. 
 

A fully fit Davis and Grealish didn’t really feature together. 

[Guest av1]

On 26/10/2019 at 19:52, villalad21 said:

So you are writing off a 21 year old?

 

Would be stupid to write off a young lad like Davis but...

On 26/10/2019 at 21:15, villalad21 said:

 

Don't rate Wesley at all. Would sell him in January if we could bring someone else in.

Instead you write off the other young striker that has been here 5mins?

 

[Keyblade]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Grealish was fantastic in 17/18 season but he came back near the end of December when Davis got injured. Then we signed Grabon and Davis struggled to get back in to the team. 
 

A fully fit Davis and Grealish didn’t really feature together. 

I think he only had 3 assists that year regardless. He was definitely playing with Snodgrass, Hourihane and Adomah who were the source of almost all of our goals until Grabban came in.

I will say though, I always thought that Keinan pretty much dragged us into the promotion race by himself that season. His hold-up play was so important and lightyears beyond Scott Hogan's that we shot up the table when he came into the side. He just never was much of a goalscorer. Nowadays we aren't as reliant on a striker to hold up the play (eg: Tammy last season) and can cut around those corners for the sake of goals.

I'm only speculating here, but I imagine the trade-off of good all-round play and bad finishing vs not-so-good hold up play but good finishing currentlyweighs in favour of the latter for Dean Smith and the team. We rely on crosses into the box. We need someone who can finish those off reliably. In that sense, Wes hasn't done too bad. Same goes for El Ghazi, and McGinn has done exceptionally.

[KentVillan]

4 hours ago, AV82 said:

If you want to pull stats from your ass: Harry Kane scored 2 goals in 13 appearances for Leicester in the Championship (2012/13) 2 years before he scored 21 goals for Tottenham in the Premier League (2014/15). By your logic Spurs should've told Harry Kane to kindly f*ck off and either loaned him out or let him rot in the reserves. Ridiculous.

Not quite - Kane already had a pretty healthy goalscoring record before that in two other loan spells.

I think what worries us about Keinan (and no, none of us are writing him off) is that he has no goalscoring record at all anywhere, except arguably in youth football.

The lad deserves a chance (and he'll get it against Wolves tomorrow) but I think there's a lot of blind belief in him at the moment, without much in the way of evidence. Ultimately, besides Jack, we are not in a position to have perfect footballers at this club yet, so we have to make trade offs. Do Keinan's intensity and explosiveness give us more than Wesley's calmer passing and more clinical finishing?

In all honesty, I don't think any of us really knows the answer to the Wesley vs Davis debate yet, but we have to trust in the coaching staff, who have never been afraid to make changes when they're required. Smith obviously sees something in Wesley that justifies him starting over Davis - maybe it's just the price tag, but I think there's more to it than that. Until we see Davis really start banging in some goals, he'll continue to be Wesley's understudy, but the competition should be good for both of them.

[A'Villan]

Big Wes has either a goal or assist every other game, correct? As long as that continues, why bring in anyone who isn't going to achieve a greater haul?

3 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Not quite - Kane already had a pretty healthy goalscoring record before that in two other loan spells.

I think what worries us about Keinan (and no, none of us are writing him off) is that he has no goalscoring record at all anywhere, except arguably in youth football.

The lad deserves a chance (and he'll get it against Wolves tomorrow) but I think there's a lot of blind belief in him at the moment, without much in the way of evidence. Ultimately, besides Jack, we are not in a position to have perfect footballers at this club yet, so we have to make trade offs. Do Keinan's intensity and explosiveness give us more than Wesley's calmer passing and more clinical finishing?

In all honesty, I don't think any of us really knows the answer to the Wesley vs Davis debate yet, but we have to trust in the coaching staff, who have never been afraid to make changes when they're required. Smith obviously sees something in Wesley that justifies him starting over Davis - maybe it's just the price tag, but I think there's more to it than that. Until we see Davis really start banging in some goals, he'll continue to be Wesley's understudy, but the competition should be good for both of them.

I think Davis has proven himself worthy to be honest, I'm not sure I'd go as far to say that there's blind belief in him.

Unfortunately for KD there's another player who was brought in with the view for higher caliber performances and preference for starting matches.

As long as Wes continues to deliver KD is going to be sitting on the pine for the most part. It's just the way it goes in sport. Starter, backup and reserves.

Will be a while before KD gets the starters role here at Villa in my view, but that's not because he doesn't have the talent or because he hasn't proven himself.

We simply went out and recruited a player we thought better and more equipped for the challenges. And those players have delivered every time to date.

[villalad21]

10 hours ago, av1 said:

Would be stupid to write off a young lad like Davis but...

Instead you write off the other young striker that has been here 5mins?

 

I'm not writing him off.

I'm simply opening the idea that Davis might be better.