Any excuses to lump on Rashford I guess? feck are you going on about
26 is old now?
It's a comparison due to age and similar position (forward). My point is, if people have a problem with his age then that's a bit weird isn't it? Our players including Rashy are also on a similar age. And yet we still believe in them. I still believe Rashford will have his purple patch again. So Gyokeres age shouldn't be an issue.
Gyokeres who has one or both threads bumped to continue the wankfest every time he knocks in a pen against FC Arouca or Azerbaijan? Rashford who 90% of the caf probably want sold by now?
I'm sure you understand. Signing players that are on an upward trajectory should be preferable. Haaland also scored against "minnows". He could only score against teams he played against. And attempts to downplay his goalscoring stats by bringing up his age is a bit weird to be honest. Not like he's 35. If people want Rashy out, it's their opinion. I want him to succeed but obviously the best position the club can take is to not rely on him and Hojlund so much. Rashford has a history of being off form for an extended period of time and Hojlund is still young (21). We need more options, someone who has that hunger to score goals. And the criticisms towards Gyokeres have been rather silly so far. It's always about "easy goals against small teams" and age. Meanwhile Bruno is 30 and we're still relying on him.
But they are against dog and duck etc. bla bla...
They may as well be? Spending £70 million on a player because they’re scoring goals against Azerbaijan, Estonia and bottom half Portuguese teams is a massive risk. Thats pretty much undeniable.
What more could he possibly do to prove he is ready to step up then?
You see a pattern...
We overpaid for Hojlund and Anthony through poor planning and the incompetence of our executive team. The way we handled the Branthwaite transfer in the Summer will be the blueprint. Don't want to be serious on a price? OK, we'll look elsewhere...and we did, signing Yoro.
I don't think that's the point that most people are making.
This Gyökeres thing is starting to get pretty interesting because of how people are so firmly in their ''all the best players play in the big leagues'' mindset. Even though if the season ended today Gyökeres would be the ballon do'r winner by a mile but people are talking like he isn't that good because he doesn't play in a big league. Most goals in a year this century:
| Most goals in a year since 2000 | Goals |
| Lionel Messi (2012) | 91 |
| Robert Lewandowski (2021) | 69 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (2013) | 69 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (2012) | 63 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (2014) | 61 |
| Lionel Messi (2010) | 60 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (2011) | 60 |
| ---- | |
| Viktor Gyökeres (2024) | 58 (7 games left) |
You need a minute to digest and grasp Messis record from 2012. 22 assists as sugar on top of it all as well.
1) Trying to find the next Mbappé does not entail only signing young players with potential and never experienced, older players in their prime. If we did that, we would never compete.
Definitely. We’re crying out for a clinical finisher who can bag 25-30 goals a season.
The thing of waiting for three or four years to challenge is just excuses for bad recruitment. Given the chances we were creating under Ten Hag, early on in the season, why shouldn't we be in the mix if we had a prolific world class striker?
Agree with this and he is not exactly new to English football. You suspect he fixed whatever was holding him back under Amorim and will be confident that he can perform at the highest level. We just need to have our own people run the rule on him and avoid another Antony situation.
Obviously, I agree that the entire transfer strategy shouldn’t be buying expensive players in their late twenties. It needs to be a healthy mix, skewing more towards younger players. But if a special player comes along that can be gotten and potentially improve our situation drastically, it’s just worth pursuing in my opinion. And I also fundamentally don’t consider a player that has just turned 27 to be a quick fix. At that age, it’s not another Van Persie, Casemiro or Varane.
It's fine to be cautious, but there are posts which aren't doing that. They're just writing him off completely.
I’m not saying he’s not ready to step up, I’m saying the step up is absolutely giant and it’s a huge risk to spend £70 million on a player stepping up from Portugal.
You don’t think that is too narrow a scope? A striker that has us perennially competing in the CL would be worth £65m to us right now, for example, let alone competing and/or winning the big trophies.
Why do you think signing one of the most sought after strikers in Europe for £65m is a mistake?
Is there? Strikers that have been a championship level player at 25 and then suddenly become world class players for the last few years of their career?
I think the City game shows glimpses of what you can expect if he's to play in PL. And in my opinion, despite Sporting not having a lot of possession, he didn't look out of place despite carrying burden on his shoulders after fecking up the first chance. I think that's a better indicator whether a player is ready or not. And his first goal was a proper CF goal.
Maybe Vardy? granted he stayed longer than I thought he would have. Also wasn't Hojlund signed for ~60 million? I think the CF market is very competitive... even if we are to spend it on a potential, it's gonna be ~40-50 million easily. If he's a top talent. So in the end CF isn't exactly a position you'd want/can penny pinch. Unless if it's a raw talent, in which case we be better go with academy players. Normally I'd be supportive of talents like Zirkzee. Unfortunately he looks slow and we've seen it time and time again with slow players in PL.... unless if they're exceptional at everything else (touch, finishing, and positioning) then they usually struggle. Applies to both forwards and wingers.
Braga and Guimarães are pretty decent as well. But all the 3 of the top teams are way above championship-level
Possibly. I'd argue that the top 3 in Portugal are comfortably better than anything the Championship has to offer, while Braga would be one of the best sides in the Championship. The rest of the teams are debatable. However, I think it's pretty obvious that Gyokeres has gone up levels since joining Sporting. He was one of the best strikers in the Championship anyway.
