Wesley Moraes

[TheMelvillan]

27 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

And cost twice as much as Wesley.

I thought the big guy had a good game tonight.  He was playing against 3 central defenders and managed to get across the back line to pull them out of shape.  He won headers, for a change, and generally put himself about.  In a game like that - where the away team have a line of 5 across the back sitting deep, there isn't much else a striker can do.

£20m doesn't buy you much of a centre forward these days, but the lad looks ok.  He needs to improve, for sure.  But covering ground like he did tonight will help.

I'd like to see us sign a more experienced player for him to learn from.  I half-joked about bringing in Zlatan, but someone of that ilk - Mandzukic would be incredible too - would be ideal.  I'm talking about world class players here, but just someone who can do for him in training what John Terry did for Mings and Grealish.

Holup. That clown up front for Newcastle tonight cost £40m? Seriously?

[KentVillan]

24 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Nah, I just dislike the whole, "look at how so much better he is playing than "insert another player who is playing like crap"" arguments.

Fine, but the best we can do with Wesley is compare him with other new signings who are new to the PL. Comparing him with established players makes no sense, because a lot of them struggled when they first arrived.

Strikers who are genuinely new to the PL this season:

• Wesley
• Joelinton
• Neal Maupay
• Pepe
• Moise Kean
• Che Adams
• Sebastien Haller

They have all struggled. Of that bunch, I think you'd have Wesley, Haller and Maupay as the top 3 performers so far. Most of those players have cost more than Wesley.

So my conclusion is - we did okay in the transfer market there. Should we have signed another striker? Yes. But the shit people are piling on Wesley is getting a bit embarrassing. He did his job well tonight. I didn't even see much of the theatrics that everyone always whinges about. Just a good, honest, hardworking performance.

Edited November 25, 2019 by KentVillan

[gwi1890]

Goal would have really helped his confidence 

[Rightdm00]

9 minutes ago, TheMelvillan said:

Holup. That clown up front for Newcastle tonight cost £40m? Seriously?

Yep, and Sebastian Haller(4 goals) of 17th place West Ham cost £45 million.  Crazy that Benteke cost £7 million in 2012.

[mikeyp102]

Did well tonight, every time the ball was played into him it took at least 2 Newcastle defenders out the game. Just a shame he didn’t score

[villanmac]

56 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Not a number 9.

If anything he is playing like a number 10. Dropping deep to feed it to our wingers.

He's just not a premier league footballer, plain and simple..all the excuses in the world - false number 9's, numbers 10's, comparisons to shit footballers (Joelinton, Haller), great footballers (Drogba, Benteke for us) or anything else aint gonna change that.

Fair play to him, he works hard and has done amazingly well to get to the level he has with his ability but the excuses made for him are seemingly inexhaustable. We can get away with playing him against the shite ie the Norwichs, Newcastles, Everton, West hams etc. but anything above that is just pure folly. 

[PieFacE]

1 minute ago, villanmac said:

Comparisons to shit footballers (Joelinton, Haller)

 

[villanmac]

6 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

I aint even watched the bloke. Its half the people on here who call him shit in defence of Wesley.

 

[AV82]

Promising performance, did OK today and I hope he continues to improve.

One thing he needs to work on is his jumping. Holy hell. He'll jump a good 2 seconds too early and be on the way back down as the ball sails over his head.

[abdulaziz1]

He was ok today, I don't think we have a chance but to keep faith on him. I wanted Davis to have chance but he's out at the moment. Kodjia won't handle it as a lone striker especially with the fixtures coming.

Wes is getting better, I'm not sure wether he's the long term answer, but for now he'll definitely do a job. Not many strikers out there are doing well anyway.

[KentVillan]

42 minutes ago, villanmac said:

He's just not a premier league footballer, plain and simple..all the excuses in the world - false number 9's, numbers 10's, comparisons to shit footballers (Joelinton, Haller), great footballers (Drogba, Benteke for us) or anything else aint gonna change that.

Fair play to him, he works hard and has done amazingly well to get to the level he has with his ability but the excuses made for him are seemingly inexhaustable. We can get away with playing him against the shite ie the Norwichs, Newcastles, Everton, West hams etc. but anything above that is just pure folly. 

The amount of different ways of saying Wesley is a ****ing donkey are also seemingly inexhaustible.

I personally think if he's good enough to bully Norwich, Everton, Newcastle, etc. then he is a Premier League quality player. That's good enough to keep us up, even if it isn't good enough to take us to where we want to be long term.

For me, it's a 99.9% certainty that he will improve over time (barring a career ending injury). The only unknown is how much he improves, and how quickly. If he's already causing some teams problems at the moment, then he will cause more teams problems in the future. It's not his fault that we don't have more strike options on the bench to help him ease into his spell here. But this baptism of fire could be the making of him as a man.

Edited November 26, 2019 by KentVillan

[villalad21]

Playing like a number 10. Not what we need.

What we need is a proper number 9 who will be at the end of crosses like Benteke used to do for us.

[Tomaszk]

He's set such a low bar for himself, it felt like he was OK tonight.

The anti-Grealish. I judge Jack so harshly because he's a stupidly good player who I expect to be brilliant all the time. If Wes controls the ball I'm delighted because I expect everything to bounce off him.

To bring another comparison in, it's all getting a bit Andre Green to be honest... Fans are desperate for him to be good, which is great, and the way it should definitely be. But he ain't, he's bad. Hope the support inspires him to repay the faith, it'd be a remarkable turnaround from what we've seen.

He's young, he'll improve. Well, obviously he will, especially with this coaching team. Go and find any old bum from League Two, stick them with Dean Smith every day and they'll improve. I'd quite like a decent base level to be honest, not just going from absolutely rubbish every game to just quite rubbish most of the time.

Will he improve to the extent we won't be looking replacing him in January, then again in the summer. Before probably looking to move him on the summer after because he's not getting a look in? Can't see it.

[KenjiOgiwara]

5 hours ago, villanmac said:

He's just not a premier league footballer, plain and simple..all the excuses in the world - false number 9's, numbers 10's, comparisons to shit footballers (Joelinton, Haller), great footballers (Drogba, Benteke for us) or anything else aint gonna change that.

Fair play to him, he works hard and has done amazingly well to get to the level he has with his ability but the excuses made for him are seemingly inexhaustable. We can get away with playing him against the shite ie the Norwichs, Newcastles, Everton, West hams etc. but anything above that is just pure folly. 

Thank you! 

Haller I think is excellent mind. 

What really frustrates me is that people don't seem to pick up on the amount of chances we create or how good of a creative midfield we got. 

Excellent midfield, non-existant strikeforce. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by KenjiOgiwara

[Villan_of_oz]

Like I said in the match thread some of the descriptions of Wes are embarassing..... If you don't like/rate him then fine but ffs articulate your point rather than stoop to name calling that's better suited to a primary school playground...

He plays for us and has been here been here less than 6 months!!!

Edited November 26, 2019 by Villan_of_oz

[Guest av1]

I thought yet again last night that the referee gave him a hard time. All season defenders have been allowed to bear hug him and as soon as he tries to give a bit back he is deemed to have conceded a foul.

 

[KenjiOgiwara]

6 hours ago, KentVillan said:

It's not his fault that we don't have more strike options on the bench to help him ease into his spell here. 

This is correct for sure. I feel a bit sorry for him cause he obviously needs rotation. 

[Villan_of_oz]

1 minute ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

This is correct for sure. I feel a bit sorry for him cause he obviously needs rotation. 

Then cut him some slack!

[KentVillan]

19 minutes ago, av1 said:

I thought yet again last night that the referee gave him a hard time. All season defenders have been allowed to bear hug him and as soon as he tries to give a bit back he is deemed to have conceded a foul.

 

Yeah, I'd really like to hear from a referee what it is that he's doing wrong. I don't think the refs are consciously picking on him - there must be something he's doing that is allowing those decisions to go against him. From where I'm sitting, the fouls he concedes very rarely look like genuine fouls, but maybe he's not being smart enough with the way he uses his arms.

[Villan_of_oz]

Wes is backed up by;

Kodjia - has scored 9 goals in the championship in his last two seasons, due to injury and poor form.

Davis - is a kid I like but his last league goal, was again in the championship and somewhere near 2 years ago.

 

Is he playing brilliantly? NO! Is it his fault that Dean Smith picks him every week? NO, is it his fault that there is no real competition? NO.

Yet in the 87th minute, when the game looked won he was busting a nut to close the keeper down and you could see in the screen one or two Villa players jogging until they saw his effort and lifted. 

You go to when you were in your early 20's and move to a completely different country and culture. You settle in straight away. You lead the line for a newly promoted team, who had to replace over half their squad in one window.

You score 25 goals and get us top 4!

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Villan_of_oz