Mbappe plays centrally which is where Henry would play too. He was better with back to goal.Now this is where the argument starts, considering that our wingers are more type of wingers that cut inside to shoot like Salah and Mane rather than supply the ball to number 9, wouldn’t Bergkamp type of striker be better? I’m not saying I will agree to this but I can see this argument has valid point.
Secondly, Bergkamp started play in PL at 26 years old. Felix is only 22 years old now and started play in La liga at 19. Take a look at Bergkamp stats when he left Eredivise or Dutch league at 24 to when he was 28 years old in his first two years at arsenal then compare his stats to Felix when he left Portuguese league at 19, I see similar numbers there, in fact Felix played less minutes. Bergkamp was never an assist contributor when he was at Dutch league and neither he was an assist contributor when he was 24 to 28 years old. But he developed it after 28 years old.
So would you still want Bergkamp type of striker?
In this modern football that doesn’t play 442, wouldn’t Henry be a winger in front three like where Mbappe plays at?
Joao Felix / on loan to Chelsea
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Well that was his first season at Benfica.
Since then he has cost Atletico 126m, and has been a flop for 3.5 years up to now.
Imagine Sancho continue his “underwhelming” form for another 2 years, that would be Felix at current stats.
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Sometime I wonder where Mbappe would play if Real Madrid sign him last summer. Replacing Benzema or playing wide.
Loan with option seems like the move to make imo.
There is so, so much talent there. The thought of him, Rashford, Anthony, Martial, Sancho, Bruno as attacking options throughout the course of 90 minutes is very exciting.
There is so, so much talent there. The thought of him, Rashford, Anthony, Martial, Sancho, Bruno as attacking options throughout the course of 90 minutes is very exciting.
He's not a centre forward, which is what we really need. If money was no object and we could get him AND a quality striker then sure, but we can't.
The evidence would indicate he is fully capable of thriving in the Premier League, given his performances against Man United and Chelsea in the Champions League in the last couple of years.
He has not been a flop for three and a half years - his current circumstances do not reflect his entire stint at Atletico (I'm assuming his performances have dipped given he has lost his place in the side and goals have completely dried up - not seen him/ them recently). Previously he was very good, and the one player with a bit of magic in a declining, workmanlike team. Sancho has not came near Felix's earlier performance levels in a United shirt yet.
Was just gonna post this. He’s absolutely terrorised us so the evidence kinda points to him fitting into the PL rather bloody well.
Think he’d be an incredible signing for what ETH is trying to build.
Playing English teams in Europe is not equivalent to playing in the English leagues. Not commenting on Felix, but just mentioning this. The teams playing in Europe already tend to be more finesse than most English teams and the officiating in Europe is also far more tiki-tak.
Let’s not call a Simone team “finesse” now.
What a team paid for someone 3 years ago isn’t necessarily going to dictate what price they command for him when he leaves. Just look at Coutinho, went to Barca for £122m and ended up being sold for £18m.
Felix is surplus to requirements at Atletico and all doesn’t appear well with him and the manager. They won’t let him go for super cheap but he’ll be available at a reasonable price. Around the £60-80m mark would be acceptable to both teams I think.
Regardless, Felix would have no issues playing in the Premier League. This notion that the premier league is going to bulldoze players who come from abroad as if the league is full of Roy Keanes and Vinnie Jones just ain’t true. The key aspect of the EPL is the speed of the game. If a player can adapt to the pace of the game, they can fit in. Felix is sharper than most forwards in the league so I don’t see him having any issues.
Is he?
Atletico would obviously sell for the right price as they need money but there is no indication they are actively looking to offload him.
Obviously they’d like to keep him but all doesn’t appear to be well between the player and Simeone and it doesn’t look like something that will be resolved. So maybe not surplus to requirements, but I’m sure they’d be willing to sell without an irrational price.
This is the type of signing you spend your transfer budget on when you already have your other pieces in place, we dont and arguably we have where he plays covered. We need a 'proper' number 9 maybe even two depending on Martial and Ronaldo's situations in the summer...
I've no idea what is going on at Atletico with Simeone and Felix, but when your record signing is not in the first team, it would be normal to expect the manager to want to recoup some of the transfer fee / save on wages, to allow them to spend on a new first team player.
On the Totally Football Show pod Alvaro Romeo (who I quite like and is a good journalist) rates him highly, stating that he works extremely hard and in this Athletico side he does what he can and scores at a good rate but has fallen out with Simeone. Supposedly some issues off the field regarding his own motivation and attitude too. Also thinks he would suit a team where he is the sole forward with inverted wingers and a creative midfield who support him.
He reckons if Simeone stays at Madrid beyond this year they will shift Felix on and while someone else gets a hardworking forward who contributes there are other issues off field to worry about. But if Simeone goes instead (lots of chat in the Spanish press about the Athletico fans being the most pessimistic they have ever been under him) then they will keep Felix, as it was such a huge investment and would want to see it try and work under a new manager.
He reckons if Simeone stays at Madrid beyond this year they will shift Felix on and while someone else gets a hardworking forward who contributes there are other issues off field to worry about. But if Simeone goes instead (lots of chat in the Spanish press about the Athletico fans being the most pessimistic they have ever been under him) then they will keep Felix, as it was such a huge investment and would want to see it try and work under a new manager.
You're missing the point. The defining feature of Mane and Salah was not that they were inverse wingers. Almost every team plays with inverse wingers that cut inside and shoot, these days. What set them apart, was that they scored buttloads of goals and carried the attack stats wise.
Look at these stats. Look at the averages at the bottom right...
They averaged over 55 goals a season between them, over 5 seasons from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
So I ask again, the question you didn't answer before: If the #9 is to be a Bergkamp-style player that links the attack, who will be our Mane and Salah scoring all the goals? Do you think Rashford and Antony will become 55 goals a season wingers with such a player?
So just to be clear again, when you say "Bergkamp type of striker" you mean mature Bergkamp at Arsenal. Not Ajax, or Inter, Bergkamp. Because obviously Bergkamp evolved to be a different type of player over time. Like Henry or Ronaldo evolved from wingers to being strikers over time. Well in that case, what I said word for word about Felix still applies perfectly: "he’s not a Bergkamp-type player by the look of things, not at the moment anyway."
If he's going to be a Bergkamp-type player later on his career, I don't know. Maybe. But he's clearly not the kind of guy to buy now, for that job. If you want a Bergkamp-style striker, you don't want 22yo Felix for €100m. In the same way that if you want a penalty box striker, you don't want 22yo Ronaldo who tries to dribble past everyone. You want the 30yo mature Ronaldo with the lethal shooting and great movement in the box.
Still no, for the reasons mentioned above.
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I've noticed that when it's muppet time people don't care for functionality.
The team as currently constructed lacks goals. Felix might have made sense if we have 15-20 goals each coming from the 3 positions behind our striker with Felix contributing around the same but that is very unlikely.
Other than Rasford I don't see any of our forwards as a banker to hit that mark, due to poor finishing or fitness.
I don't even think we necessarily need a 40 goal a season striker but we certainly need someone who contributes more in the goal scoring department than Felix that's for sure.
Nah, I think Griezmann would've been absolute class for us.
Not really. It's more a case of football not being so simplistic as checking Wiki stats and seeing 'scored 12 goals so that's his limit'.
I'm a huge fan of Felix, and my full expectation would be for him to score 20 if he were in a team that suits him. It's about looking at a player and his qualities. There is no reason why he cannot score more goals. He is a very good finisher and also good at heading. Logically, I would think that if presented with more opportunities to do so, he will score more goals. It's like Wenger looking at Henry playing wide and seeing the qualities of a top striker, or watching Gakpo playing wide and seeing a striker. In fact, the same was said about Mason Greenwood from the very beginning. Despite him playing wide, and scoring an average of about 12 goals - anyone who actually watches him and looks at his qualities would likely say that they expected him to become a centre forward and a prolific one at that.
We should also nick his brother too if we can sign him.
You're missing the point. The defining feature of Mane and Salah was not that they were inverse wingers. Almost every team plays with inverse wingers that cut inside and shoot, these days. What set them apart, was that they scored buttloads of goals and carried the attack stats wise.
Look at these stats. Look at the averages at the bottom right...
They averaged over 55 goals a season between them, over 5 seasons from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
So I ask again, the question you didn't answer before: If the #9 is to be a Bergkamp-style player that links the attack, who will be our Mane and Salah scoring all the goals? Do you think Rashford and Antony will become 55 goals a season wingers with such a player?
So just to be clear again, when you say "Bergkamp type of striker" you mean mature Bergkamp at Arsenal. Not Ajax, or Inter, Bergkamp. Because obviously Bergkamp evolved to be a different type of player over time. Like Henry or Ronaldo evolved from wingers to being strikers over time. Well in that case, what I said word for word about Felix still applies perfectly: "he’s not a Bergkamp-type player by the look of things, not at the moment anyway."
If he's going to be a Bergkamp-type player later on his career, I don't know. Maybe. But he's clearly not the kind of guy to buy now, for that job. If you want a Bergkamp-style striker, you don't want 22yo Felix for €100m. In the same way that if you want a penalty box striker, you don't want 22yo Ronaldo who tries to dribble past everyone. You want the 30yo mature Ronaldo with the lethal shooting and great movement in the box.
Still no, for the reasons mentioned above.
Your point is pretty much the same thing as my point that by specifically pointing Mane and Salah’s goals and mentioning 55 goals per season, you are telling me that Mane and Salah are more goals provider than assist provider. And this is where my point is align because I also think Rashford and Antony more goal provider than assist provider, thus, that’s where I see the valid argument of getting Bergkamp-type player if we want to get the best out of our current wide players (Not like I agree with this but I see it as valid argument).
Or do you think Rashford and Antony have better chance to become assist provider than goal provider?
When I say Bergkamp type of striker means strikers who don’t score lot of goals but still offer creativity (Shown the screenshots I showed you). I see that creativity aspect and talent in Joao Felix; hence I can see him being evolved the same way as Bergkamp, if he is developed correctly. Joao Felix is still much younger than Bergkamp was at arsenal. Is the answer still no now after I explained it to you?
I agree felix I similar to martial that they are not penalty box strikers and they thrive in using the players around them. Both Antony and Rashford seem to want to be an the end of moves. We can try to replicate the front 3 of Rashford, Martial and greenwood in 19/20.
I don’t see Antony as more a finisher than creator at all personally. He is almost like a 10 that plays wide. In fact, if he were right footed, he might not be a winger at all. He struggles to stretch play, take players on and make penetrating runs so almost by definition, I wouldn’t say he’s a natural forward player.
Rashford certainly is a 20 goal wide man, and is weaker the further away from goal he gets.
Different players. Rashford is clearly more of a forward than Antony from what I’ve seen of the latter so far. Jury on the latter still out obviously.
Rashford is more direct and more of a goal threat. He has also played as striker in his career. Rashford is a 20+ goals a season player when on good form. Last season was an aberration, but he hit 20+ in 19/20 and 20/21. His stats also skew heavily towards goal than assists.
In Antony’s two seasons at Ajax, he averaged 10.5 goals and 10 assists. Pretty even stats and not particularly convincing that he can be as effective a wide forward as Rashford, yet. Compare him with Gakpo in the same league who got 20+ goals last season and skewed heavily towards goals. That guy is more of a forward than a winger. I see more of a tendency from Antony to stay wide and curl crosses, than enter the penalty box like Rashford does on the other flank.
But remember, Rashford and Antony aren’t the only ones here. There’s also Sancho, another high profile wide midfielder/winger who isn’t really a forward in terms of style and goal productivity. Greenwood was a forward with huge potential, but sadly..
Overall, I only see Rashford from our current wide players capable of hitting 20+, so we need the CF to heavily contributed in goals in order to help.
Again, what you see in Felix might take years to develop, might not happen at all and he would not be a cheap purchase to boot. Too much of a risk in the move, considering the other pieces (high scoring wingers on both sides) are not there. So it’s a pretty clear no from me.
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Reminder that Bruno Fernandes scored 40 goals in a season and a half before everything went wrong last season. He can easily be a player that provides 20/25 goals a season. And with what you paid for Antony, you better hope he turns into a 20+ goals player
So is there concrete movement in this or what? Need to decide where to set up camp for the Jan window.
He was a flop considering the size of his fee. And I don’t think he was has been very good previously, maybe a few good games here and there, and mostly inconsistent and unreliable in front of goals, he’s basically a Sancho for us. He was very good at Benfica though, but that was over 3.5 years ago. ETH may make him good again, but he would be costly gamble.
No one will pay that amount, except maybe PSG to replace Mbappe.
I'm actually a fan of Felix also and love his style of play but in this current setup I just don't see how he's the type of forward to potentially spend a large sum of money on.
Felix can score more goals but the real question is will he reach 20 goals instantly for us. Its a massive gamble to sign a player without the pedigree of being a goal scorer and expecting him to become one.
Yes in your example you've used players who had potential to be strikers, players with excellent striking technique but also the physique. I could add RVP to that list too. Felix is not that type of player. As I said he can play in that role but with our current collection of forwards it wouldn't be a smart purchase.
Whoever we bring in has to be a player we expect to be our main goal scorer. Rashford, Antony, Sancho and Bruno is a good collection of forwards but it needs a scorer to make it complete. If only a younger Cavani was available, that would be perfect both on and off the ball.
So the loan idea is maybe realistic. We should at the very least float it with them.
So basically you try and buy everyone.
It's very unfair to come into conclusion about this argument by using Antony's Ajax stats, because Antony at Ajax played with Haller, and Haller's is not the type of striker that offers creativity. His Ajax stats will look different if he plays with someone like Bergkamp's type of striker.
In this world, lot of high reward is usually come from high risk anyway. Felix was regarded as world class potential at Benfica. I don't know about you, but before we hired ten Hag, I am one of the poster in here who has been highlighting that developing players is one of ten Hag's main assets; hence why if there is a person I will put my faith in for that kind of ''too much of risk'' for such a talented player that could be developed into Bergkamp or some world class forward, it will be ten Hag not Ole nor Mourinho. Would you still not put the same level faith in ten Hag?
Yeah I think there's some subsidence behind it.
First off, no. It doesn’t strike me as particularly unfair on Antony at all. Unfair on Rashford, maybe.
Rashford has played seasons with Ibrahimovic, Lukaku and Cavani upfront (pls don’t tell me any one of them was Bergkamp style) often playing RW to accommodate Pogba or Martial on the left, in a team struggling for top 4 most seasons and in a much tougher league. Yet his scoring stats are still better than Antony’s playing in the Dutch league, with Ajax. So, please…
And you’re also ignoring what I said, about not basing it purely on stats but in seeing both play. Rashford on the left plays more like forward on the wing. Antony plays more like a winger. You’re also ignoring what I said about this not being a final conclusion, players do evolve, but this is certainly what I’m seeing for now.
No, that’s very clearly a wrong opinion. £15m for Dan James and £80m for Antony are clearly transfers of a different risk. Dan James didn’t work out yet we made profit. If Antony doesn’t work out (touch wood) both the financial and opportunity costs are much higher. It’s clearly higher risk.
And it isn’t just more money = more risk. Haaland had a release clause and only cost £60-odd million. Yet clearly at that money he was a lower risk compared to paying £20m for Amad for example, who had barely played top flight football when signed.
First off you don’t even know if Ten Hag wants that type of player or Felix in particular. He is the one who signed Haller (he had coached him previously at Utretcht) at Ajax and as you noted he isn’t exactly Bergkamp-style. You’re saying to put my faith in Ten Hag with such (potential) signing as if it’s Ten Hag’s choice to bring such a player. It isn’t, it’s yours. If Ten Hag chooses him, then we can talk about that.
Secondly, developing young players is one thing. But it’s better to develop them in low pressure environments without placing all your expectations on them or setting them up to fail. The Netherlands were such an environment. Felix already seems to not be coping too well with the level of expectation and price tag at Madrid. The coach might be trying to play different football here than Simeone is playing there, but the pressure and expectation… it won’t be too much different here at United. In fact it’s likely to be worse given how much of a fiercer competition for top spots the EPL is.
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Benfica is a huge club and extremely high pressure for the record.
I don't really have a opinion on Felix, because I haven't really seen him play often. But is there cause for concern with Felix if we take into account what the tweets below from a regular observer of La Liga is saying?
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