Moussa Dembele (Lyon) - Take Him?

He is injury prone and on that we should stay away. Remember Hargreaves? We also struggle with long layoffs when we buy players who aint injury prone, Jones Bailly Rojo etc
 
I'm bumping this since his name has popped up again. I'm not allowed to post media yet but the tweets are in the twitter thread. For me it just goes to show how desperately low on striker options we are if this is the level of player we are looking at.
 
Andrew7582 said:
I'm bumping this since his name has popped up again. I'm not allowed to post media yet but the tweets are in the twitter thread. For me it just goes to show how desperately low on striker options we are if this is the level of player we are looking at.
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Agreed, but the market seemingly has a low supply of top quality CF's i think.

Outside of Haaland (and Vlahovic who's now just joined Juve - Mbappe is more of a wide forward but seems Madrid bound) there's no real competition for the previous generation of strikers: Aguero, Lewa, Suarez, Benzema, Kane. You can sense the lack of quality in the market when City were desperate for Kane and Chelsea forked out over a 100m on Lukaku.

I'm sure I'm missing a few talents (Lautaro Martinez seems more of a support striker as well) as my broader footy knowledge ain't what it used to be, and I am sure some strikers will mature/establish themselves as elite as they develop - a lot changes in football in a year or 2.

It makes the fall and disgrace of Greenwood even more frustrating/infuriating.
 
Ish said:
Agreed, but the market seemingly has a low supply of top quality CF's i think.

Outside of Haaland (and Vlahovic who's now just joined Juve - Mbappe is more of a wide forward but seems Madrid bound) there's no real competition for the previous generation of strikers: Aguero, Lewa, Suarez, Benzema, Kane. You can sense the lack of quality in the market when City were desperate for Kane and Chelsea forked out over a 100m on Lukaku.

I'm sure I'm missing a few talents (Lautaro Martinez seems more of a support striker as well) as my broader footy knowledge ain't what it used to be, and I am sure some strikers will mature/establish themselves as elite as they develop - a lot changes in football in a year or 2.

It makes the fall and disgrace of Greenwood even more frustrating/infuriating.
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Yes I agree with you there, the club were banking on him being the long term future for us at CF. We've pretty much got nothing there now and are starting again from scratch. I would hope that the club could come up with something better than this guy though, it's totally uninspiring. Then again, it may not be as easy as it used to be convincing the better players to join the club so beggars can't be choosers I suppose.
 
He’s not good enough, but I am confident we won’t be signing him.
 
Andrew7582 said:
Yes I agree with you there, the club were banking on him being the long term future for us at CF. We've pretty much got nothing there now and are starting again from scratch. I would hope that the club could come up with something better than this guy though, it's totally uninspiring. Then again, it may not be as easy as it used to be convincing the better players to join the club so beggars can't be choosers I suppose.
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Yeah I’m also not convinced we’ll be signing him, and even if we do, maybe it’s as a backup.
 
Another thread where the OP is fun reading a couple of years later. 1) We rate our players way too high and 2) things change so incredibly quick in football. It reminds me of the season where everyone believed Martial had made it, but obviously he hadn’t and a few saw it. We of course will not be signing Dembele, he is absolutely shit.
 
Ish said:
Agreed, but the market seemingly has a low supply of top quality CF's i think.

Outside of Haaland (and Vlahovic who's now just joined Juve - Mbappe is more of a wide forward but seems Madrid bound) there's no real competition for the previous generation of strikers: Aguero, Lewa, Suarez, Benzema, Kane. You can sense the lack of quality in the market when City were desperate for Kane and Chelsea forked out over a 100m on Lukaku.

I'm sure I'm missing a few talents (Lautaro Martinez seems more of a support striker as well) as my broader footy knowledge ain't what it used to be, and I am sure some strikers will mature/establish themselves as elite as they develop - a lot changes in football in a year or 2.

It makes the fall and disgrace of Greenwood even more frustrating/infuriating.
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Agree, hard to name five top strikers who arent old. Haaland obviously, barely seen him but Sulemani is it at Red Bull looks like going toDortmund looks a talent. Still think Calvert Lewins a decent option bar probable price.

But Amine Giouri all day long for me, followed him ages and named him lots. Looked like the new Benzema at oyuth level and starting for lyon, injury...career stalls (funnily enough sure Dembele was one of the players blocking his path at Lyon when young an dback from injury_, now back to his best at Nice. Intelligent, wonderful technique, good pace and movement. Dont think he has the strength and abilty to hold the ball up and head like Benzema, so cant play the target man that is one part of many with Benzema but I still see similarities in other parts of his game. Dembele is an absolute no for me as see little more than a "decent" target man in him, doesnt sut the expected progression in system and style of our planned play from what we have seen from Ragnik at all, dont believe it at all anyway
 
jesperjaap said:
Agree, hard to name five top strikers who arent old. Haaland obviously, barely seen him but Sulemani is it at Red Bull looks like going toDortmund looks a talent. Still think Calvert Lewins a decent option bar probable price.

But Amine Giouri all day long for me, followed him ages and named him lots. Looked like the new Benzema at oyuth level and starting for lyon, injury...career stalls (funnily enough sure Dembele was one of the players blocking his path at Lyon when young an dback from injury_, now back to his best at Nice. Intelligent, wonderful technique, good pace and movement. Dont think he has the strength and abilty to hold the ball up and head like Benzema, so cant play the target man that is one part of many with Benzema but I still see similarities in other parts of his game. Dembele is an absolute no for me as see little more than a "decent" target man in him, doesnt sut the expected progression in system and style of our planned play from what we have seen from Ragnik at all, dont believe it at all anyway
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Heard about Giouri on these boards a couple of times but I’d be lying if I said I’ve seen much, if any, of him.
 


A source close to the Lyon player reiterated that Dembele would only be viewed as a squad player if he were to move to United this summer and that he'd likely be viewed as a replacement for the departing Edinson Cavani, rather than as a regular starter.
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One plus about Dembele is that he would count as home grown due to his time at Fulham as a youngster. There's a good player in there but he hasn't exactly excelled bar like one good season about 3/4 years ago. As a backup ST and for £15m or so, we could do worse. He can also play reasonably well in the wide forward positions.
 
He’s simply not good enough. A team progresses by raising its floor.

Who is going to be are starter next season then?
 
SparkedIntoLife said:
One plus about Dembele is that he would count as home grown due to his time at Fulham as a youngster. There's a good player in there but he hasn't exactly excelled bar like one good season about 3/4 years ago. As a backup ST and for £15m or so, we could do worse. He can also play reasonably well in the wide forward positions.
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Firstly, I don't think he would be awful to be a backup option but I hate your thought process there, that's not to single you out but you buy to replace your first XI, not subs bench. We can't look to buy players that aren't immediately at LEAST challenging to get into the first XI in a strong way or we are continuing this slip into mediocrity.
 
As a backup to a new #9 sure. As our new #9, a huge meh.
 
AngeloHenriquez said:
Firstly, I don't think he would be awful to be a backup option but I hate your thought process there, that's not to single you out but you buy to replace your first XI, not subs bench. We can't look to buy players that aren't immediately at LEAST challenging to get into the first XI in a strong way or we are continuing this slip into mediocrity.
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I actually don’t disagree with you in principle. I’m just being pragmatic. We realistically need 2 strikers this Summer with Cavani leaving, the Greenwood situation and Ronaldo at 37 looking like he doesn’t fit what we want to do and like he doesn’t want to be here. Trying to buy these strikers plus the much needed DM, not to mention any upgrades we might attempt in other positions (which will be difficult in terms of shifting players like Maguire, AWB and co) will cost a fortune.

Something’s got to give somewhere. My choice for our backup striker is Charles De Ketelaere who has ridiculous potential and should be around 25/30m. However, if we spend 15m on Dembele who can ‘do a job’, that allows us to invest more into better talent elsewhere such as first choice ST and DM.

We have to be realistic. We will be 2/3 strikers short next season. Can’t just replace them all with expensive megastars and expecting Charlie McNeill or someone internally to be second choice ST would be a big burden to put on someone so young.
 
SparkedIntoLife said:
I actually don’t disagree with you in principle. I’m just being pragmatic. We realistically need 2 strikers this Summer with Cavani leaving, the Greenwood situation and Ronaldo at 37 looking like he doesn’t fit what we want to do and like he doesn’t want to be here. Trying to buy these strikers plus the much needed DM, not to mention any upgrades we might attempt in other positions (which will be difficult in terms of shifting players like Maguire, AWB and co) will cost a fortune.

Something’s got to give somewhere. My choice for our backup striker is Charles De Ketelaere who has ridiculous potential and should be around 25/30m. However, if we spend 15m on Dembele who can ‘do a job’, that allows us to invest more into better talent elsewhere such as first choice ST and DM.

We have to be realistic. We will be 2/3 strikers short next season. Can’t just replace them all with expensive megastars and expecting Charlie McNeill or someone internally to be second choice ST would be a big burden to put on someone so young.
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I think if he can do a job, then the bulk of the money has to be spent on the midfield. That DM area is just shocking for us and will cost us the UCL spot.
 
If we’re targeting someone from the French league I’d much rather Jonathan David but it seems it’s Liverpool and Arsenal that are chasing him.
 
Escobar said:
We are not in a situation where we can pick whoever we want.
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While that's absolutely the case, we're better off trying to unearth gems or going established strikers with a couple of years left at this level, if the alternative is signing average players. Personally, I'd prefer buying two young strikers and rejuvenate the whole team. If we're getting a progressive coach with ideas that are beyond most in the current squad (i.e. work hard, press, maintain possession with a high tempo) going with younger players is obviously more conducive to making things work.

As it is, we've already got this level of player in the squad, in most positions. Average. But earning top class wages. We need to weed them out, not add to them.
 
Seems like a complete uninspiring signing, would be better off signing someone like neto who has more of an upside to him
 
The more I think about it the more infuriating the prospect is.
 
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