Just watching Spurs and the Hammers andBowrn is so strong hips down almost never gets knocked if the ball , If only Oscar and Slater could use their hips!! Is it too late to build them up ? Do you have to be that ‘shape’ to start with , anyone know ?
65019[/ATTACH] List of stats compared to other midfielders showing what percentile he falls into. At best he’s slightly above average. In an advanced role it’s even worse. So it’s all good comparing his creative stats compared to a team where he’s often used as a creative player but in comparison to the rest of the league he’s miles off it.
He's another one who's robustness is a big issue too. He's decent but for someone on his wages, I think we could find better elsewhere
Agree on robustness - but if he was a 40 game a season player then he wouldn't be playing for us. Time will tell but I don't think you can base a judgment on his ability on his last game and a bit after 2 months out. He's been successful in better sides than ours. 2 goals and assist in his 890 odd minutes prior is decent enough for a new signings first spell in the side.
We easily could’ve had 2 or 3 goals in the first half but the final ball, final touch or final shot were ****e. Second half, both teams were about even and neither looked like scoring even if we played until Sunday.
Possibly, but lets face it we've hardly had our more technical players in attacking areas consistently available so far. Only really been the last couple of weeks we've started to get those kinds of options available again. For any player/team to hit full potential then really you need consistency in availability and selection to start developing those understandings between players. It's been very stop-start in terms of selection so far out of necessity.
Low centre of gravity but a strong core. Raheem Sterling’s the same but he tends to go down just to win free kicks and pens. Slater’s just physically weak. If you compare Bowen in his last season with us to KLP now as an example, the differences in physicality are night and day.
To be fair to Preston though they are clean sheet specialists - have to be because they don't score many.
Yeh thats true, fingers crossed we are nearly through what was the weirdest period of injuries and square pegs Ive ever known.
Considering it's been mentioned that he's amongst our highest earners by the ITKers on here, I don't think his output has been good enough. He's only played in approximately 33% of available minutes. We could've kept Honeyman for about half what we're paying Pelkas and I'm pretty confident he'd have played more minutes and had a much greater impact too. I'm not saying Honeyman would be the answer but I think we're far too accepting of mediocrity.
New team in its infancy though - still only 8 months old and there's been all kinds of disruption which hasn't helped. Still reckon it takes time to get a team playing to full tilt - and this was always going to be a multi window project. And I still reckon that the bigger earners we've brought in generally speaking have higher ceilings than the ones we've let go as evidenced by the fact we're not in a relegation scrap and not likely to be the 20th worst side in the division come May like last year - and that's with having to replace last year's top scorer also. We are progressing. We need to keep progressing and see what this side can do, but it's too early still to be writing anyone off just yet IMHO.
I don't think it's in its infancy at all. You can maybe get away with that for the first couple of months but we're 33 games in now. Liam will have known after a month who's in his long-term plans and who isn't. Moving them on is a completely different challenge, especially in January but I expect him to be really ruthless in the summer. This squad is a long way off from being promotion contenders and the current squad won't ever do it. We're going to be looking at 8-10 more additions in the summer if we're going to seriously challenge
Is Pelkas actually not robust? He's had one injury hasn't he? A pretty bad knee injury which was the result of a 50/50 tackle. And he came back way sooner than expected, thanks apparently to his dedication to get fit again. It's not like he's constantly missing with niggles, unless I've forgotten some other spells out?
I honestly thought Simons, Tufan and even Docherty were largely great to say it was a total change around. Simons looked like the calmest head on the field, Tufan was involved in a lot of chances and made a few direct and effective runs and Doc found himself in some great advanced positions and chances too. The problems came from into the box deliveries. Crossing too far, off the pitch, straight to the keeper etc. I thought Pelkas and Longman were quite poor at this and it undid our chances almost everytime we went wide. Where we've suffered a lot recently is Christie not getting forward like he has done previously. I think he managed to get up into the oppositions box once in the last two games. He normally manages this more frequently and causes havoc whenever he does. As for Tufan, he brings us far more than just passing, however you want to rate it. He's popped up with vital goals, his defensive contribution has come on leaps and bounds, he makes runs that genuinely threaten the opposition and he seems to have so much more nous about him than people give him credit for. I think his passing stats only look questionable because he plays it so much quicker than others and in more dangerous positions when they're incomplete. I think people misjudge him. I think he chooses his moments to get more involved when he knows it'll have the most impact, as opposed to showing for the ball when he knows he can't do much with it, or running around the half way line passing it sideways or running into a dead end and losing it. He's definitely one of our better players and probably one of our smarter ones too. He's also outmuscled opposing players and come away with the ball a few times this season, strength being something I feel like we're lacking in many areas.
He has the second highest expected goal involvement in the side behind Oscar. I really don't understand the criticism he cops.
