bosskeano
Full Member
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2020
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- 6,290
the whole thing is probably absolute bollocks but again there is no denying his ability on the ball and he would be a great mentor and partner to Kobbie
We got KDB why do we need Rodri?!
I imagine is how it would go if we were City fans.
or!!
We can get Rodri he can be the back up (CAFS favourite words) to KDB!
Frenkie isn't a 6
But Mainoo drops deep and does defensive work, so that's balance.Can you play Frenkie de Jong as a lone #6? Erik Ten Hag in 2019: "He leaves the middle of the pitch too often for that. And if you don’t give him the freedom to go forward, you won’t get the best out of his game."
I'm conflicted as i think you're probably right there, but I do love Bruno and would be sad to see him phased out. It'll have to happen sometime I suppose, but he definitely doesn't work in a deeper 3, and I doubt he'd flourish in the front 3 unless used as a Firmino-esque false 9? Feels an awkward fit.I agree, you would need to get rid of Bruno and sign a DM, I think that would be a good idea. I really want us to move away from 4231 and go to 433.
He is, just not the destroyer type. He’s a deep lying playmaker that excelled both in controlling play with voluminous passes, or breaking through the midfield with his ball carrying ability. 99th percentile in both passes attempted and progressive passes, 97th and 96th percentile respectively in pass completion and progressive carries, 77th percentile in take ons. He’s a unicorn, that profile is pretty much unique in football.
Mainoo has played further forward in the youth set up, so a De Jong - Mainoo pairing can work perfectly well. We can pair them with a physical ball winner like Amadou Onana behind them, or a more industrious/press resistant 10 than Bruno in front (Mount?), that’s a pretty good base to build from imo. If Licha can get pass his injury issue, I’d say there’s not a better trio at building play from deep if we can get that going.
You can’t sign players that don’t want to be here, but you can sign plenty that are indifferent and persuaded by the wage or lack of offers elsewhere.Why?
I never understand why fans act like as soon as we want to sign a player who is recognised as a very good footballer, we have somehow betrayed our values. Would it help if De Jong was a bit more shit or something to make it feel a bit more ‘us’?
Ultimately, we shouldn’t be signing him if he doesn’t want to come (which is kind of impossible anyway), nor should we pay him more than we can afford to (almost similarly impossible), but provided he is happy to make the move and we are happy to have him and the numbers work, why is signing top players seen as so terrible? Or is the working theory here that we’ve been pursuing De Jong for ‘marketing reasons’ due to his good looks or something, and not because of his footballing capabilities?
I can't
Good Lad. Roll on the summer!Im right here by your side mate
We may well be doing that. Eriksen especially, he's not contributed a huge amount this season and seems well off the pace of the PL.
Seems like a very very expensive signing BUT it’ll be really hard to replace the leadership and experience those two have once they leave. Replacing Casemiro is going to be harder than I thought. Himself and Martinez are our best players. Finding someone who is as aggressive and as good at the dark arts is going to be hard. I like the look of Onana but Case, even this fading version is going to be such a hard act to follow.
Well they probably do bring leadership and a lot behind the scenes that we don't see but we've seen nothing much from Casemiro since about last Spring. It's yet to be seen if he can get back to last season's form from before the suspension. If he doesn't get back to that level with a run of games til the end of the season we should probably off-load him.
You can’t sign players that don’t want to be here, but you can sign plenty that are indifferent and persuaded by the wage or lack of offers elsewhere.
Bending over backwards to get them here and offering a ridiculous wage sets a terrible squad dynamic full of player power.
So, if this is actually true, what clubs are realistic choices? PSG perhaps
I doubt it. It’s more about Barcelona wants him gone because his salary is too high and has clause that keep increasing every year. All of these news were probably orchestrated by Barcelona so by any luck there are clubs to put a bid and hoping the player can be convinced to leave.I don't want us to bother with him again. He and his agent just using our name tj position themselves for more ar Barca or a move else where