Watkins or new CF?

[alreadyexists]

4 hours ago, bobzy said:

Is Ollie our most unpopular decent striker ever?

Some people (I’m looking at you @Tom13) just seem to dislike him irrespective. 

Before the internet, but I remember when I was young (11 or 12ish) and sat in the lower holte Savo Milosevic used to get pelters regularly for missing the target, but to be fair he wasn’t that bad.

Edited June 11, 2023 by alreadyexists

[Tom13]

17 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Is Ollie our most unpopular decent striker ever?

Some people (I’m looking at you @Tom13) just seem to dislike him irrespective. 

Of course I don't dislike him 

[Tom13]

9 minutes ago, alreadyexists said:

Before the internet, but I remember when I young (11 or 12ish) and sat in the lower holte Savo Milosevic used to get pelters regularly for missing the target, but to be fair he wasn’t that bad.

And I'd never boo Watkins. I just discuss my honest views of him on a forum. If people get offended by that (I'm looking at you @bobzy) then

[bobzy]

6 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

And I'd never boo Watkins. I just discuss my honest views of him on a forum. If people get offended by that (I'm looking at you @bobzy) then

I’m not offended by it at all. I just find the dislike of him as a striker a bit odd. His all round game is better than most and he’s good enough for comfortably 15 goals a season yet a third of people voting here want to sack him off.

So as I asked before, is he our most unpopular decent striker ever?

[bobzy]

18 minutes ago, alreadyexists said:

Before the internet, but I remember when I young (11 or 12ish) and sat in the lower holte Savo Milosevic used to get pelters regularly for missing the target, but to be fair he wasn’t that bad.

Savo is a decent shout. I definitely remember him being called Savo Miss-a-lot-ovic. 

[lexicon]

2 hours ago, allani said:

Not really. I was responding to your comment about him not being happy to be on the bench. My point is that if Emery wants a different CF or wants Ollie to play a different role then I don't care whether Ollie is happy or not. We might be lucky to have Ollie but we are luckier to have Emery.  I 100% think that Ollie will be starting for us next season probably at the point of a front 3.  But IF he is asked to play a slightly different role to last season then that is what he does. He's good but he isn't good enough to dictate how the rest of the team is set-up.

You're arguing something on your own here. We're talking about Watkins or a new CF, not Watkins moved out somewhere else - the implication from the question is the choice of one or the other. 

[Jbvilla909]

2 hours ago, bobzy said:

Savo is a decent shout. I definitely remember him being called Savo Miss-a-lot-ovic. 

Yeah my lasting memories of Savo are his banger against Leeds in the cup final and also that nickname. I was young mind. 

[Condimentalist]

Ollie proved last season that he can be our number 9. We're not at a level where we need to be upgrading Ollie Watkins, it would be very expensive and risky. 

If we somehow get Champions League over the next few seasons I think we might need a more ruthless finisher but who knows - he's still improving IMO and his finishing especially. 

[Delphinho123]

I’m comfortable with Watkins being our main striker next season to be honest. The position we need to get right is the player behind him. If we can get that player scoring 10-13 goals and Ollie aiming to get 15 (which I think he can) then we’ll be fine. Watkins gives you so much even if he does frustrate at times.

Like others have said. What is the alternative? Spending £50m on a Scamacca? It’s a tough position to get top, top quality for a reasonable price. We have more pressing concerns than replacing Watkins at present. 

[Villaphan04]

I did this list last year, and it's relevant to this Ollie discussion now. I would love to sign another striker to help but it will be extremely difficult (especially if 3 of the "sky 6" have the money and need for one)

Outside of the elite of the elite strikers, there's just a shortage of good to great strikers out there. Outside of Tottenham, every PL team could use an upgrade at the position (and even then, they signed Richarlison for 50m).

• Arsenal signed Gabby Jesus -- Looks like they are probably going to sell Balogun and possibly get another striker. Jesus was good for the first part then the injury turned his season upside down
• We could upgrade Ings/Watkins -- Sold Ings, discussing whether we need another striker for Ollie (signed Duran in Jan & Archer coming back into first team)
• Brentford could be needing a Tony replacement, and signed KLP -- Tony banned for 8 months, signed Schade on loan in Jan & likely will make it permanent this summer for club record fee
• Bournemouth are testing out the old Dom Solanke PL experiment again -- signed Ouattara & Semenyo in January & stayed up, 
• Brighton are apparently using their striker who was the Belgian league golden boot winner last year - already announced the club record signing of João Pedro
• Chelsea loaned Lukaku back and don't really have a replacement -- who knows what they will do but they bought Mudryk in Jan for upward 70 million. will splash on another striker this summer
• Crystal Palace have a collection of strikers who are useful but aren't a starting 9 PL quality day on day - not sure yet as who knows if Roy will continue there
• Everton - lost Richarlson and DCL gets injured a lot.  - signed Maupay at the end of last summer. DCL is continuously injured & Maupay has done the square root of zero. Might not be able to afford another striker
• Fulham - relying on Mitrovic yet again after 5 pl goals last time around - Mitrovic was excellent last season, bought Carlos Vinícius last summer who was decent
• Leeds - Bamford needs to be healthy, and yet he's not top PL quality -- Relegated , Bamford missed a ton of chances which was correlated with relegation
• Leicester - probably have the best group of strikers in the PL outside of Spurs, but Vardy is getting older and more injury prone -- Relegated, strikers were not really the problem here imo
• Liverpool & Man City both spent big on a "elite" striker this summer  --  Núñez showed some potential but was meh, signed Gakpo in Jan for 40m who was pretty good but not an out and out striker. 
• Liverpool & Man City both spent big on a "elite" striker this summer --  signed Haaland, broke many goalscoring records, won the treble. 
• Manchester United, who knows what happens with Ronaldo but they clearly have almost no depth up top after the events of the past year.  -- signed Wout Weghorst on loan, that should tell it all. Absolutely need a new striker
• Newcastle linked with Werner -- Signed Isak, and him + Wilson had good seasons. 
• Nottingham Forest -- can't say with any confidence-- Signed Dennis, Chris Wood, & Awoniyi (who was the best of the bunch) 
• Southampton -- signed Sekou, young player with potential but unproven again -- Relegated, didn't have the firepower to score a lot. Didn't sign any out and out strikers 
• West Ham- big money on Scamacca, only one prolific season in his career so far. -- Signed Ings in Jan, neither Ings or Scamacca did much (they had a combined 5 PL goals). Did win the Conference league though. 
• Wolves-- no clue what they are doing with Jimenez looking a shadow of his former self after the nasty injury. Not convinced at all by Hwang Hee-chan -- signed Gonçalo Guedes and he lasted a half season until being loaned to Portugal. Jimenez looks to be leaving as well. Signed Kalajdžić and he tore his ACL in his first match. Diego Costa had 5 yellow cards & 1 goal

 

Additions:

Tottenham: Signed Richarlison for 50m and he scored once while looking terrible. Kane might be leaving as well so they definitely need a new striker. 

Real Madrid: Benzema left, so they surely will be looking to sign a starting #9

Promoted:

Burnley: Bought Lyle Foster in Jan for 12 million. Ashley Barns is out of contract, so they will probably be signing another striker

Sheffield United: have Iliman Ndiaye, Brewster, & McBurnie. Will probably look to sign another striker as well

Luton: signed Carlton Morris & Cauley Woodrow from Barnsley, probably will look to sign another striker as the play 3-5-2 with Adebayo 

I am not saying I don't want an upgrade on Ings/Watkins, but just setting the discourse for how empty the market is for those top-level strikers at the moment. 

Just looking back over all of this, it is still that a lot of teams in the PL are going to be looking to splash the cash for a new starting #9 striker. We can probably out spend most of them, but the demand for a starting PL-quality striker is still more than the supply is. 

 

[Captain_Townsend]

2 hours ago, alreadyexists said:

Before the internet, but I remember when I young (11 or 12ish) and sat in the lower holte Savo Milosevic used to get pelters regularly for missing the target, but to be fair he wasn’t that bad.

Savo was a 10 a season striker for us in the league and was mostly our 2nd or 3rd choice behind Yorke and then Yorke and Collymore.

Watkins is our main man and has bagged 40 league goals in three years.

I don't understand the criticism he gets from villa fans. He has been a fantastic signing.

[allani]

29 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Savo was a 10 a season striker for us in the league and was mostly our 2nd or 3rd choice behind Yorke and then Yorke and Collymore.

Watkins is our main man and has bagged 40 league goals in three years.

I don't understand the criticism he gets from villa fans. He has been a fantastic signing.

Very weird way of phrasing that.  Basically you're saying that Savo would be a 30 goals in 3 seasons player and that was fine because he was our 2nd or 3rd choice striker and yet our main striker who scores just 3 goals a season should be beyond reproach.  I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your assessment - just the way that you have presented one number as a yearly figure and the other as a combined figure which (deliberately or not) makes it look like there is a much bigger difference between the two.

[gwi1890]

On 10/06/2023 at 16:32, Tom13 said:

Wilson I can see but Isak? Shocked at that. His ceiling is huge.

His ceiling is similar to Ollie nothing suggests he’s going to be regular 20+ goal a season striker.

Edited June 11, 2023 by gwi1890

[AntrimBlack]

Watkins gives you more than just goals.

His energy is phenomenal, he provides assists, pass before assist, chases and harries defences, always a willing outlet when the defence is under pressure.

Very important part of Emery's system.

Doubt he will be going anywhere, nor should he.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Before answering the question. Go to the club website and watch back all of our goals this season. 

[Tom13]

53 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

His ceiling is similar to Ollie nothing suggests he’s going to be regular 20+ goal a season striker.

Why are you only looking at goals? Isak had a lot of top clubs monitoring him from a young age for a reason. He has loads to his game.

[gwi1890]

35 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

Why are you only looking at goals? Isak had a lot of top clubs monitoring him from a young age for a reason. He has loads to his game.

I’m not this is precisely the reason why I rate Ollie his game is not all about goals.  I mean your argument in the Bertrand Traore thread who looks likely to leave in the summer is that he’s had a fantastic goalscoring record at every club so in some sense you are contradicting yourself here. I’m not suggesting Isak hasn’t got a lot to his game but he’s in a similar tier to Ollie.

Edited June 11, 2023 by gwi1890

[Tom13]

31 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

I’m not this is precisely the reason why I rate Ollie his game is not all about goals.  I mean your argument in the Bertrand Traore thread who looks likely to leave in the summer is that he’s had a fantastic goalscoring record at every club so in some sense you are contradicting yourself here. I’m not suggesting Isak hasn’t got a lot to his game but he’s in a similar tier to Ollie.

I used Traore's numbers in a debate in response to someone who said he's not effective. His goal contributions per minute wherever he's been suggest that he is very effective. So let's not twist that.

I'm not saying Ollie isn't effective either. He obviously is. But I think in some ways he limits us, just like I know Bertie has some weaknesses in his game.

A lot of my opinions on Ollie do come down to personal preference tbh. I love technical players who can do the intricate stuff. Isak can do all that, and score goals.