He is more versatile, more mobile and more team oriented, overall I would say that they are close in terms of level but different in terms of styles. I see Nkunku more as a cog than a headliner in a top club, in a way I would compare him to Wijnaldum at Newcastle. But Bruno got that little thing that makes him pop out of nowhere and he has a better striking technique.
Christopher Nkunku to Chelsea | Confirmed
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He is more versatile, more mobile and more team oriented, overall I would say that they are close in terms of level but different in terms of styles. I see Nkunku more as a cog than a headliner in a top club, in a way I would compare him to Wijnaldum at Newcastle. But Bruno got that little thing that makes him pop out of nowhere and he has a better striking technique.
Never let the wrong name get in the way of a good joke.
Damn it, shamefully edited
Nkunku never played as central midfielder for Leipzig and only rarely as central forward. He would be perfect for Chelsea as one of the two players behind their central forward. He is a mobile/roaming attacking midfielder/second striker, who likes to occupy the half-spaces behind a central striker. He is somewhat similar to players like Griezmann (when he was good during his first spell for Atletico) or Müller. He can (nominally) start out wide, but only when he has the freedom to occupy central positions (=needs a wing-back/very offensive FB). While he is really dynamic and good in tight spaces, he is not going to run past fullbacks in 1v1/1v2s.
The guy is a quality player, but I don't see how he fits into the team with Bruno and Sancho. Leipzig is usually playing 343/352 (occasionally 442/4231) and he is usually the player next to/behind the striker with the most freedom.
Imo in comparison to Bruno: Bruno is slightly flashier, a better passer and is probably able to create more on its own. Nkunku is imo more reliable, less flashy but also depends more on others players.
That is a bit harsh!
I can see us going to a back 3 if ETH wants to sign Timber. I wonder if we could move to something like our forwards being a mix of Sancho, Rashford, Elanga, Nkunku and push Bruno a bit deeper.
I don't believe a single word of that. 100% BS.
Has he? Since the turn of the year, he plays upfront next to Andre Silva? Any sites with heatmaps might help.
He has played more than one season in his career.
Too old, do not want
That’s probably your memory of him at PSG, which clearly wasn’t his best time. His best time seems to be at RB Leipzig where he plays as attacking mid or second striker most of the time. Regarding about him being playmaker or no, that’s something I’m not too sure since I rarely watch him but the times when I watched him, he reminds me of Muller or Lingard. Would you say Muller and Lingard as playmaker?
It would imply that United don't scout opposing teams or that a former PSG scout doesn't know the player that were playing for PSG. That's highly unlikely.
Obviously. But his insane G/A is propelled by current tactics. That's what's attracting everyone to him right now.
It's not just highly unlikely, it's absolute nonsense.
He looks a very special talent. I'd hate to see him end up at Chelsea, Liverpool or even Arsenal / Spurs.
Definitely the type of player I hope we are looking to bring in this summer
Definitely the type of player I hope we are looking to bring in this summer
There is more than G/A, Nkunku was an excellent prospect as a CM with PSG. The point that I'm making is that he has played deeper and perform at a high level, if people's eyes are only caught by goals and assists it's kind of their problem but if I talk about a player and what he can do, I will look beyond that especially when we talk about one being a forward and the other a playmaker.
How's he in tight spaces? Bundesliga seems to have a lot of space to counter.
It depends on when Rangnick asked for that question about Nkunku, I’m guessing it was in January, which the period of transfer window. In Rangnick‘s early era, we didn’t think we need to get attacking mid or false 9, so the scout didn’t have any report about him. This could be due to Ole assigned them to focus on other areas.
Your scouts have "reports" about all players with any modicum of talent. Of course they know all about Nkunku. That he may not have been on a "list" of immediate targets is something else, since frankly he plays in an area where you're kind of covered with Sancho and Bruno.
These tweets are just negative tripe from someone who clearly has a bone to pick.
The Ogden story initially a few weeks back was about how when discussing potential Pogba replacements Nkunku wasn’t on the list. Not that I think Ogden knows anything but that context makes a bit more sense than us just never having heard of the guy.
We played Leipzig in the CL in the last three years, there is next to no way United doesn't scout the Bundesliga or the CL. And scouting isn't as closed as you put it, you don't just scout for a position, scouts monitor competition/areas, they make reports on any remarkable players and then there is an elimination process based on actually existing reports is made by chief scouts, those reports exist whether you are interested in the player or not. An other thing is that clubs purchase reports from scouting companies.
In order to not have a report on Nkunku you would have to do it on purpose.
Only Sancho in our squad is good enough in tight spaces tbh.
We dont need a #10. Already have Bruno.
I don't know about pushing Bruno deeper. I think its possible, but it wouldn't be prudent to condition the next transfer window on this experiment. I don't think anyone can predict if this would work.
There are some similarities between Nkunku and how Firmino played for Hoffenheim, so maybe he could make a similar transition, but thats also a long-shot. Currently his best position is as mobile second striker behind a central forward in a high-intensity, high-pressing system. Thats how he racks up his goal contributions. I fully agree with the "more (as) a cog than a headliner" description.
Nkunku is a good player, who is certainly interesting for top club, but stats alone can be deceiving. Hypothetically, if ETH is going to be the new manager and if he really wants to play with a back3, I could see Nkunu and Bruno (or Sancho) playing behind a central forward. That would make sense to me.
We don’t need to scout every players in this world. The tweet says that our response was ‘’he’s not on our list’’. We didn’t even say we don’t have a basic report of him. They were aware of the player but doesn‘t mean they need to make a proper detailed report about the player if they were never being assigned to watch the player week in week out. How can our scouts know boubacar kamara but not nkunku? It was obvious what it meant by ‘’he‘s not on our list’’.
So I think that's what what we might try and implement for next season. I think the likelihood of signing a established, high scoring number 9 and implementing a new system is slim. I don't see anyone getting rid of Rashford, so I imagine he'll try and coach him into that system. If we can get Rashford scoring again and Sancho kicks on, we could have a lot of goals in them plus Nkunku alone.
I think Brunos passing and shooting could work well deeper, in a system with better protection for the counter. Wouldn't back it much against City or Liverpool, but could work well against other teams.
We've played him multiple times and he's also one of the most of productive players in european football this season, in what world would we go - "nah, let's not waste scouting resources on that, because we've got Sancho and Bruno". Scouting functions make detailed reports, regardless of anyones intention to sign them.
Again, this depends on when Rangnick asked for this. If he asked in January or in his early period in charged which very likely, then it makes sense why the club wasn’t looking for another first team attacking mid or second striker as at that time we already had Greenwood, Rashford, Sancho, Martial, Bruno, VDB. The scouts would probably assigned by Ole to scout different areas for the first team.
The list is made based on existing detailed reports, the part that you quoted shows the lunacy on the point itself, they don't create lists out of thin air. The tweet is simply extremely dumb and was only written because it is assumed that the reader is a fool. And what makes you think that our scouts know Kamara and not Nkunku, one of our scouts come from PSG and we have been linked with Nkunku before most even heard about the existence of Kamara.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...manchester-united-transfer-news-live-20324042
That's not how our scouting department works. It doesn't work at the beck and call of the manager at the time - that would be ridiculously inefficient. It would be akin to building a database - it might not be the most up to date information on there (although what would our scout based in Germany be doing if he's not covering Nkunku), but we'll have reports on him.
Not being funny but i'd imagine every professional scout in the world has heard of Nkunku. Even kids at fifa level know who he is.
Whether we are interested though, that's another thing. Does he have the skillset we are looking for etc.
I think the issue is we've changed our approach so many times in the last 5 years it's difficult to know exactly what we want.
I do hope ETH will have a decent input into players he actually wants. We can't end up with another DVB situation.
Whether we are interested though, that's another thing. Does he have the skillset we are looking for etc.
I think the issue is we've changed our approach so many times in the last 5 years it's difficult to know exactly what we want.
I do hope ETH will have a decent input into players he actually wants. We can't end up with another DVB situation.
If the next manager wants to have Nkunku and has a good idea how he fits into his plans, than the club should consider this transfer. Personally I don't really see how Nkunku, Bruno and Sancho fit into the same line-up. The danger is to buy another player who isn't quite a central forward, who isn't a winger and who also isn't a central midfielder. United had/has their fair share of players that mangers struggled to find the best position/role for. At least for me Nkunku, individual quality aside, might add to this problem.
Lets also not forget that Timo Werner produced fantastic numbers in his last season for Leipzig and struggles to do the same for Chelsea. Nkunku comes of the best season of his career in a team where he became the go-to guy and consequently he is going to be super expensive. This kind of transfer makes only sense, if you use the player in his best role. Otherwise he'll be the next Kagawa/Mkhitaryan.
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How do you know how our scouting department works? All we know is that these scouting teams are working under the football manager and DoF. I even mentioned it on the post you replied that we probably have the basic report of him but not a proper detailed one. To produce proper detailed one, you will need to scout him week in week out and clearly we hadn't done so at that time since he wasn't on the list as at that time we weren't looking for attacking for ''first team squad''. These scouts could had other priorities in scouting other players for potential first team squad or the youth signings.
''The list is made based on existing detailed reports''. So you are just repeating my point that the reason why we don't do or have a proper detailed report is because he's not in our list as he wasn't priority in comparison to other areas in first team and the youth.
I never say our scouts don't know Nkunku, I questioned your logic because clearly we know player like Kamara so it's obvious that our scouts would be well aware about player like Nkunku who is more well known in europe than Kamara. Except that we probably decided to go extensively in scouting Kamara not Nkunku (that's why we were linked in signing Kamara in January) because DM or CM were our priorities list at that time.
There are level of scouting. I highly doubt just because we were ''tracking'' someone doesn't mean we did extensive level of scouting that we needed to do it week in week out to produce a proper detailed report. I said it before in my original post we would probably have then basic report which something Rangnick probably already know about but not a proper detailed one.
Because I actually know some scouts at a low level of football - one is an opposition scout in the Isthmian league and he would do pretty detailed reports on opposition players, watching several games prior and video analysis where he can. So you can bet our opposition analysis is a hell of a lot more in depth. The other was my mates dad at championship level, who used to cover certain leagues and his key responsibility was to build up an in depth knowledge of all the players in said league. Nkunku is the most inform player in his league, so whoever is covering that league would probably have the most data on him, because he would top every concievable performance metric in these scouting tools.
The way your describing scouting operations is antiquated and for clubs who have little resource.
Incredible that we weren't even scouting him until recently if what Ogden says is true.
Yeah it's obviously nonsense. People lap it up though, as it it's somehow even possible.
I to enjoy dipping a finger or two in pie
Always two.
Yep which is why we need more such players. For example Bernardo Silva was such a clear example of a player who would add value to this squad but we never went for him.
Indeed, we were strongly linked to him too. But ultimately, as you said, we need more players like this for it to make sense, it can’t work with just one. It requires an entire ethos.
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