I've seen him play against City, Chelsea, Spurs and a cup game.
I guess you've never seen him play in a full game?
Sean Longstaff
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I guess you've never seen him play in a full game?
I mean, I believe that and I wasnt suggesting we sign Hayden either. Although I did think he had a better season from the games I saw than Longstaff.
I watched him in a couple of games but the sample is far too small for anyone to judge let alone spend 50m upon
Yes I was happy we signed Schneiderlin.
I'm sorry but if you really think United are better at analyzing data and identifying transfer targets with our transfer record in the past 5 years than some of the people on the transfer forum, you're having a laugh.
Clubs that consistently make good signings? Absolutely. Of course they are
Us? Give me a breakWe barely make a successful signing.
So you actually believe that the club are unaware of the basic stats you keep presenting from WhoScored and that we would be better at signing players if someone started using that?
We have 6 people who is dedicated to analyzing the teams we play against each week. They use both video and statistic when they analyse.
I can guarantee that we have people in our scouting system dedicated to it. But they have access to alot more numbers than you do. And they do it for a living..
First of all, nobody is spending 50m on Longstaff, in the same way nobody was going to spend 70m on AWB despite media reports to the contrary.
Second, I hear tell that scouts have a magical ability to see non-PL games too. In which case whatever we spent on him wouldn't be based on that small sample of PL games.
Then why did they not snatch him whilst in Newcastle reserves??
Silly me. Yes let's count lower division games. They prove a lot.
You mean the same scouts that gave the go ahead for Bailly, Mkhitaryan, sanchez and Fred?
I have no issues with us spending 20m on the kid. However 50m is a rip off
Delle Alli is on the phone. He wants a word
Mate from school or something?
Nah it's champions league finalist and PFA young player of the year x 2
Alli is an outlier, not the norm.
Gambling on a player that had 9 games in the top flight with the amount touted around is an unnecessary risk that our club really can't afford to take anymore. Our midfield options are paper thin, and we should be going for someone that is at least more proven than just 9 games. 9 games is a very, very small sample size. If you only look at Di Maria's first 9 games for us you would thought he is an amazing signing for us.
This is all lovely. But how is this relevant to people going nuts over longstaff?
You get it. Spot on.
If we could have got longstaff for the reasonable fees quoted a few weeks ago it could be a decent squad option.
Unfortunately it looks a very tough transfer.
Because you can be tracking a player & monitoring his potential without knowing whether he's ready to make the step up to PL level. That doesn't mean all the other games you've seen him in aren't useful in determining his potential though.
There's a big difference between using nine PL games as confirmation of the qualities you've already identified in a player and using nine PL games to form your entire opinion of the player.
We had been monitoring someone like Rooney since he was a kid too and knew he was an outstanding talent (far, far, far more so than someone like Longstaff) but we didn't sign him at a younger pre-PL age either.
As for people getting excited based on his youtube videos - I post a lot of youtube videos for players. But the videos only show certain things. If its a "Vs. insert team" individual highlights video, it will show all of the players good moments against said team. It may or may not show all of the players involvements, including mistakes and things that didnt work out. Its called individual highlights and the creator may have chosen to bin any moments that make him look a lesser player.
More often we see videos of highlight clips over the course of a season, or multiple seasons. For the most part this only shows what a player is capable of in their best moments and the style they do things in, during those best moments. For example you might see 3 great sliding tackles in a video about a midfielder based on the season. 3 tackles is nothing. If you allow yourself to think that 3 nice looking sliding tackles in a season highlights video makes you a great tackler, thats on you. Thats not what it means at all. It means that clearly the player can make a nice sliding tackle... sometimes. How often? Thats where you need actual stats.
So for example here is a video of McTominay
He looks pretty good here, but I'd say the truth is he's shown glimpses that he could be a first team starter but hasn't done enough overall to be considered one. Needs to improve on a few things which hopefully he will in the next season or two, but for all we know he could play worse
How about Fred? Same thing.
In his good moments he has looked pretty good at times, but hes also had a bunch of poor moments that wont make his highlights and maybe not his individual highlights videos either. There are clear improvements he needs to make if he wants to make it here. But you watch his youtube video and you just see his best bits and what he can do, not what hes realistically doing on a game by game basis everyweek. Again its stats that will tell you how frequently a player does these things over a match or a season, not a youtube video.
More often we see videos of highlight clips over the course of a season, or multiple seasons. For the most part this only shows what a player is capable of in their best moments and the style they do things in, during those best moments. For example you might see 3 great sliding tackles in a video about a midfielder based on the season. 3 tackles is nothing. If you allow yourself to think that 3 nice looking sliding tackles in a season highlights video makes you a great tackler, thats on you. Thats not what it means at all. It means that clearly the player can make a nice sliding tackle... sometimes. How often? Thats where you need actual stats.
So for example here is a video of McTominay
He looks pretty good here, but I'd say the truth is he's shown glimpses that he could be a first team starter but hasn't done enough overall to be considered one. Needs to improve on a few things which hopefully he will in the next season or two, but for all we know he could play worse
How about Fred? Same thing.
In his good moments he has looked pretty good at times, but hes also had a bunch of poor moments that wont make his highlights and maybe not his individual highlights videos either. There are clear improvements he needs to make if he wants to make it here. But you watch his youtube video and you just see his best bits and what he can do, not what hes realistically doing on a game by game basis everyweek. Again its stats that will tell you how frequently a player does these things over a match or a season, not a youtube video.
His Dad is a mate of mine..
No we signed him after he was perhaps the best player at the euros after multiple seasons with Everton.
So nothing like Longstaff
Right. Which has nothing to do with the point I was making.
Newcastles fee is clouding your judgement imo. He's a young player we like that we thought we could get for a reasonable fee and use him as an option to develop. 50m suddenly turns him into a risk we can't take etc etc and that's through no fault of our own and the Brexit FC memes come flying in. The player and 20 odd million was our target, not Di Maria type gamble.
Nobody has suggested we will pay anywhere near 50m yet here we are taking that valuation as gospel. Same way 70m plus the Zaha clause was gospel for a while.
I mostly agree with you mate. I was partially playing devils advocate whilst erring on the line of caution by dismissing lower league experience.
Harry Kane gained his experience in the lower leagues as did David Beckham.
The guy said you cannot count lower league games....
Then 9 top flight games in which in some he barely touched the ball, can be used to confirm what exactly?
That he's ready to play at a higher level than he has previously. Which, in conjunction with years of previous information available to you, can provide you with an assessment of his potential.
As opposed to just judging him off his PL games, which allegedly only a rare few of us have seen any of.
You can't judge a player off a handful of PL games but that doesn't mean the handful of PL games aren't useful as part of your overall assessment.
Ok great. And being able to play At a higher level than Scotland and League one.....is that the requirements to fix our suffering midfield? Shouldn't we be looking at players with champions league potential?
That explains why one of redcafe's finest posters had suddenly became unusually biased. Fair enough
In what way am I biased? I think you're being harsh there Dev..
Your point was that we had kept an eye on him as a youngster and then signed him later. Yes we did but not after 9 premier league games. It was after 31 Everton games and 10 goals, plus a EUROS where he was fantastic.
Another season or two at Newcastle and some big performances for England and I'd be extremely excited about Longstaff like I was about Rooney. We arent there.
No one player is going to fix our midfield.
Can someone like Longstaff be part of that fix by a) being PL ready and b) having potential to keep getting better? Obviously.
Presumably that's what the club sees in him.
Plus, as has been made clear at this point, we're at the beginning of a rebuild that will take several years. Players don't have to be the finished article right now to be quality signings. Nor do we have to sign a host of ready-made CL standard players to make up the five point gap to a top four place, which is this season's aim.
We tried to sign him multiple times before he made hs Everton debut
You know his family. I got in that pickle myself a couple of years ago so believe me Im not being judgemental
2 more seasons like this Chelsea,City, Liverpool, Spurs all could be in for him. He is English and will definitely go for atleast 20m in future. Its a good investment - just go for it.
Could you not say the same about Eric Dier?
This is where I'm at too, basically. I saw a tweet somewhere that said he hasn't been capped at any of the underage levels. Which suggests he's been very much under the radar. So, yeah, he may be this extraordinary talent just training on a little later, but I suspect it's just as likely that he's a player who had one short run of games at the top level, who still has far too much to prove to be spending the sort of money being talked about. People will dismiss the fee and say that it doesn't, or shouldn't matter to supporters, but if we allow ourselves to pay £40m odd for a player with very little obvious pedigree, the next time we go to buy someone like that we'll be quoted £60m.
I was responding to @Stacks asking why we didn't sign Longstaff earlier if we had been monitoring him for a long time. The fact that we didn't sign Rooney (who was immensely more talented) at a younger age either backs up my point that you can be monitoring and assessing someone for a while without signing them.
In other words the Rooney comparison specifically referred to the decision not to sign them as youngsters, not the decision to actually sign them later. At no point was I comparing Longstaff's 9 PL games to Rooney's greater experience at Everton or with England.
It's just a stylistic comparison though?? Why is that a problem? For what it's worth I can definitely see a Carrick comparison because he moves in a similar way and seems to have the same type of smooth bearing and passing range. I don't see anybody claiming with certainty that he's a great player because nobody's seen enough. All we can do at the moment is watch a few clips, read reports and try to get a rough idea.
Based on the little I've seen and heard I feel very positive the he at least has big potential. He passes the eye test for me. He looks like the type of player I like. I can't spot obvious weaknesses in him and can see that he has a terrific shot and can pass it long and short with both feet. I've also read that he has a great engine and a steely character.
But knowing how good he is is impossible right now without watching some full games. Dragging out stats from 9 appearances to try and win an argument about how good he is is pretty pointless imo.
I think most would Not bat an eyelid at 25mill valuation.
In terms of being PL ready? Yes. In terms of having the potential to be better? No. Eric Dier is an immensely limited midfielder. If Longstaff appeared to be in any way that limited, this wouldn't be a conversation.
Hopefully our best forward scores the winning goal in the second half wearing the #26..
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