Hard to say. His goals totals are actually really impressive on a per-minute basis, but most of his goals in the past two years have come in significantly less impressive situations...where his team was already up big late in matches, or against weaker opposition. Not someone I'd shell out 17.5m to get, but hey.
Yeah his stats don't look great. 43 career goals for a 26 year old is very poor. Or roughly 1 goal every 4 games in the Argentinian and French league, admittedly a lot of the games in France I'm assuming were sub appearances. His record in Argentina is 28 in 119 games, so not prolific. Does fit the target man we want though, and he played for Pellegrino in Argentina so that could explain the poor goal scoring record. I have never seen him play or even heard of him which is unusual for me as I am a bit of a football nerd.
Tosun to be unveiled later today at Everton on 4 and a half year deal worth 125k a week according to Turkish media. Good player, unsure whether he will be able to get close to his goalscoring record in Turkey in the PL but I like him as a player
When will Saints ever attach themselves with a household name and not someone who is 5 th in line to play for his current club 17.5m for someone who doesn’t play seems a cracking deal for Monaco
His history with Monaco, in short: he was brought in with the expectation that he'd be a regular starter, but failed to score in his first 14 matches. Gradually replaced by the ancient Wagner Love, shunted to the bench by the return of Falcao the following season, and hasn't started with any regularity since.
Generally, I’m not the kind of person to call for signings like a spoilt brat, but I am beyond annoyed that’s we didnt have any attacking signings lined up to come straight in. We’ve known VVD was off for months, it’s inexcusable. We could have used the Fulham game to bed them in. Really poor IMO.
The one question I have is if people are convinced that this manager is **** and our squad is actually full of half decent to good players then why would signings make any difference? Surely getting a new manager in who can motivate this squad and getting it playing to its ability will be like having 20 new signings? If we keep the manager and sign 2/3/4 players won't they just fit in with his cluelessness tactically and underperform anyway?
Your last sentence is my big concern but we're certainly in need of freshening up up top... We struggled for goals all season last year and didn't sign a single attacking player. Austin, our only player who's scoring, is now out injured. It's not a good situation no matter how you look at it.
We need both, really. And while we certainly need a striker, getting another goal-shy one without shoring up our creative options is likely going to be much of a muchness. Like Austin, Guido is apparently good in the air, so we can at least lump crosses at him, but I'd rather that we try to build a functional attack instead.
Sounds good. Sign him up. What happened to Plea? I thought that was an Actually Happening level rumour.
Over the last 4 years we've had 2 or 3 really good players and padded the team out with decent players. Unfortunately we are now just left with just the padding. Not you, the manager, the owners or the board could have stopped those good players leaving. We will never be able to afford or attract a ready made star. We have to rely on the scouts (or black box) to find the next Mane (or 3 Manes). The number of blame threads on this forum makes me think Mourinho's in charge! Looking forward to us signing a couple of unknowns this month. Mo Salah started somewhere!
True. Pelle, Wanyama, Rodriguez, Van Dijk, Mane, Tadic, Romeu etc have been really bad buys. You buy players on how they will fit into the team and play off their strengths. We can't afford a 20 goal a season ST so we have to scout well, like we did with Pelle. Still prefer getting someone like him in then Sturridge or Carroll.
There's a common trend with most of the names there: Pelle, Wanyama, VVD, Mane and Tadic were among the best players on their teams, but were available to us because they played in weaker leagues, and top teams are loathe to take a punt on players from the SPL or anyone save the creme de la creme of the Eredivisie. Could be argued that Rodriguez fits that bill, too.
More so that most have come from supposedly poorer leagues, but have stepped up when we have bought them. Large portions of the fan base complained when we bought most of them as they had "never heard of them". Being PL proven is one of the most absurd things when it comes to buying a player unless it's someone like Aguero, Hazard, De Bruyne etc.
Fine. This guy is out of favour and not getting anything like regular football... Romeu and Bertrand. Both were bench warmers and both have been brilliant signings.
