I was pretty happy with Giles before he picked up his knock. I don't think him and Jaden work well together and that prevents us from seeing the best of Giles.
Spending £4.5m on Giles without a system change would be poor business imo. His stats have shown that we don’t maximise his ability with how we play. 2021/22 - 10 assists in 32 2022/23 - 12 assists in 48 2023/24 - 1 assist in 17
Jaden doesn't do the defence work well enough to be played as a winger. He gets into the right defensive positions but too often ducks the challenge or gets beaten by his man, and we know he's fast and good with his feet, the defensive stuff just isn't in his game - which is why I don't think we'll see him leave this summer.
Yeah fair point but I guess Vinagre is a similar profile to Giles. A more defensive LB would be better for Jaden and Jacobs has probably shown that to a point but I don't believe he's a wise option for our 1st choice if we're serious about pushing on.
It’s a great point re Philogene. He slows the game down too much for an overlapping full back to get the best out of them. It’s the right style to allow the overlap but he seriously needs to stop playing for the highlights sometimes in the final third. Very wasteful considering how much time and space the way we play gives him in the final third sometimes. Giles is the right player for us profile wise imo, system just needs to accomodate a creative player like that
A great example of why stats can be misleading. He gets himself into decent defensive positions, but he has no appetite to really win the ball back, he's going through the motions.
Any of the relegated sides will pick him up, we'd have to offer him substantially more than his ability would earn him for him to seriously consider us over the likes of Sheffield United or Burnley. But with Acun in charge, you never know. Tommy Conway at Bristol City would probably cost less in wages and with him being just 21, would provide better value for money in my opinion. They're similar players in terms of ability, Szmodics just had the better season.
They're not gonna get Brereton back, he'll want to go to the PL so they'll need to fill a gap there. Archer will almost certainly go, as will Brewster, leaving McBurnie. They have got Osula who has broken into the first team, but they'll be looking for firepower this Summer.
From what I’ve heard, they’re hoping to get considerably more for Smodicz than £5m but you’ve got to bear in mind that this has been a bit of an anomaly for him this season.
yeh they can be if you allow them to paint the whole picture, but clearly the eye test isn’t painting the whole picture either.
In fairness he's not really played as striker before now. I remember when we were linked when he was at Peterborough!
You can’t overlap Philogene as he’s usually starting with the ball on the byline anyway. But the whole game stops when he gets the ball, they must work in his ability to run at defenders straight away when he gets the ball.
