I’d take Winks. Just because a player doesn’t do well with a top six club, doesn’t faze me. KWP is our best player and he was a Spurs reject. Bertrand was Chelsea reject. Lingard is crap for Utd but looked like De Bruyne when he was on loan to West Ham. I bet if Ward-Prowse went to Spurs they’d complain that he’s crap within three months. Wouldn’t pay 25m for Winks though. More like 16-18m.
Yeah the top teams are so much better than the likes of us that their cast offs would look very good playing for other teams
Winks could come good elsewhere, but he's 26, and I genuinely have never been able to work out what it is that he is meant to be good at. He's not a very good passer, definitely not a goal threat, and his interception/tackle figures are prosaic to say the least if he's a DM (players who had more successful tackles per 90 minutes include such defensive stalwarts as Mo Elyounoussi and Rafinha, while his interception numbers are decent but nothing special).
We need progressive midfielders who can dictate the game, Winks is no better than Diallo who I would like to see shifted. One step forward, one step back.
Far, far better than Diallo. Was playing for England 2 years ago. The likes of Winks, Barkley, Ox-Chamberlain would probably all become our best player. Even Phil Jones at CB would probably be quality for us.
The sad thing was that Diallo was pretty progressive for approximately five matches. He moved well between the lines, played some really nice, aggressive passes, and generally moved the team forward. Hojbjerg did the same when he first joined, including some runs beyond the forwards, and stopped abruptly. Then the sideways pass brainworms got them. While we're firing longstanding members of staff, we really should give the brainworms their walking papers.
Genuinely, What aspect is far, far better than Diallo? His stats say he is almost exactly the same. Better pass% but they are mainly short passes. Not defending Diallo at all but Winks offers nothing more.
There is so much more to judging a player than looking at a few stats (especially with midfielders). As you implied yourself, passing ratio needs to take into account the type of passes they are playing and so on. And that's just the beginning. Where's the stat - for example - that tells us how many times Diallo lost the ball because he was waiting for the pass to arrive to his feet, instead of moving towards the ball to receive it? He does this three or four times every time I watch him play. There's nothing about positioning, nothing about tackling, nothing about vision, ball carrying etc. I'm not gonna sit and here and pretend to know much about Winks' ability. Maybe he is sh*t. But he was in and around the England squad for several seasons, until not too long ago. Any player of ours that reaches that level, we claim to be worth north of 50m. In other words, they're our star players. Just because he hasn't performed to the high standards of a top 6 club recently, doesn't mean he will also fail to do so at a bottom 6 club. That's like saying if a player isn't good enough for us, they also won't be good enough for a Championship club, which is obviously not going to be the case.
And yet we complain about Ralph getting us 15th. I know it’s more complex than that, but it’s worth reflecting on.
Didn’t you say we had two of the best defensive mids in the country not too long ago? Don’t think Winks gets into that category
This is true, but I think the issue is with the quoted price of £25m. No doubt he would be a good addition to the squad, but for £25m I would expect a higher calibre of player. Also, I think we have more important positions to address than CDM, so would be foolish to blow, what I assume to be, a large portion of our budget.
We do. But they are both too defensive. JWP has a shot on him for sure, but he plays too deep. Neither one of them therefore I'd consider box-to-box like say, Steven Davis. When Winks was coming through and breaking into the England team, that's what he was. It's in the last couple of seasons that he has lost his confidence and reverted to more of your typical 'sideways' type of midfielder. If Ralph could get him playing how he was previously, then he would be a far better option than Diallo, and would give us a different option to the double-DM midfield that largely struggles to create anything.
I think so much money is going to be spent this summer that the prices are going to go (even more) crazy
Tom Lawrence of Derby: https://www.teamtalk.com/derby-coun...e-leeds-southampton-fulham-bournemouth-battle
Most likely, especially as we are looking to be “very active” will mean we need to spread our cash out in lots of areas. We might spend in total a lot (for us) but still can’t see us spending massive on one player with so many issues to address How many players we can sell for something is crucial for raising some funds as well
