The Premier League Thread

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Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc) said:
Can't believe people still think this <laugh>

We love and rate Fernandes but his season last season probably wasn't even in JWP top three for us.

He made over 300 PL appearances for us by being average? Seriously?

One of the first names on the the team sheet for all his managers at Saints... yet still average?
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Yes. Average. Goals? Assists? Below average. Corners apparently good but we never scored any. Freekicks were his thing. He worked very hard and ran a lot. But he never looked like someone who should move to a better side.
 
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Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc) said:
Can't believe people still think this <laugh>

We love and rate Fernandes but his season last season probably wasn't even in JWP top three for us.

He made over 300 PL appearances for us by being average? Seriously?

One of the first names on the the team sheet for all his managers at Saints... yet still average?
Click to expand...

Funny things opinions init, I can't believe people still think he was anything more than that <laugh>

He only became one of the first names on the team sheet once we became ****e. He was a bit part player when we were actually decent as I recall as we had better options ahead of him.

I'll ask the same question I always do when this discussion comes up - what attributes do you think he excels at other than his set pieces and fitness/work rate?

Tackling? Creativity? Goal scoring? Aggression? Leadership? Progressive passing?

None of those for me and you need at least a couple in central midfield to be anything more than average as far as I'm concerned.
 
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Libby said:
Funny things opinions init, I can't believe people still think he was anything more than that <laugh>

He only became one of the first names on the team sheet once we became ****e. He was a bit part player when we were actually decent as I recall as we had better options ahead of him.

I'll ask the same question I always do when this discussion comes up - what attributes do you think he excels at other than his set pieces and fitness/work rate?

Tackling? Creativity? Goal scoring? Combativeness? Leadership? Progressive passing?

None of those for me and you need at least a couple in central midfield to be anything more than average as far as I'm concerned.
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Well we know loyalty isn't in his list of attributes. ****ed off as soon as we went down
 
......loading...... said:
Yes. Average. Goals? Assists? Below average. Corners apparently good but we never scored any. Freekicks were his thing. He worked very hard and ran a lot. But he never looked like someone who should move to a better side.
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I suppose the question is average what - average PL player I'd agree. But that is better than most of our squad for the past 10 years, so he was definitely not one of our average players.

As for goals, he was a CM and played pretty deep for most of his time. When he started playing in a slightly more advanced role, he scored, 8, 10, then 9 goals in those seasons.

Everyone's favourite attacking mid Dusan Tadic had 4 full seasons and returned 4, 8, 3 & 6. So purely looking at goals, if JWP isn't even average, Tadic must be crap!
 
Libby said:
Funny things opinions init, I can't believe people still think he was anything more than that <laugh>

He only became one of the first names on the team sheet once we became ****e. He was a bit part player when we were actually decent as I recall as we had better options ahead of him.

I'll ask the same question I always do when this discussion comes up - what attributes do you think he excels at other than his set pieces and fitness/work rate?

Tackling? Creativity? Goal scoring? Aggression? Leadership? Progressive passing?

None of those for me and you need at least a couple in central midfield to be anything more than average as far as I'm concerned.
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His 3 seasons in an attacking position returned 8, 10 and 9 goals, so yeah, good goal scorer from midfield. Decent tackler, if nothing special. Good pass too.

I dont think he was world class at anything (other than the obvious). But when you add very sold passing, goalsa and tackling to the best work rate in the league and an obviously fantastic set piece, you get one of our best players in recent years and a solid PL player.

Pochettino*, Koeman, Hasenhuttl and the rest of them clearly rated them as they all played him pretty much every single game.
*not every game but he clearly rated him enough to make him a starter.
 
Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc) said:
His 3 seasons in an attacking position returned 8, 10 and 9 goals, so yeah, good goal scorer from midfield. Decent tackler, if nothing special. Good pass too.

I dont think he was world class at anything (other than the obvious). But when you add very sold passing, goalsa and tackling to the best work rate in the league and an obviously fantastic set piece, you get one of our best players in recent years and a solid PL player.

Pochettino*, Koeman, Hasenhuttl and the rest of them clearly rated them as they all played him pretty much every single game.
*not every game but he clearly rated him enough to make him a starter.
Click to expand...

I don't think he was a decent tackler at all and in general lacked the aggression and physicality to be effective as a defensive midfielder.

Good passing in terms of recycling the ball and rarely misplacing 5-10 yard ones backwards and sidewards. Not very effective when it comes to progressive passing though.

Disagree about the goal scoring too as I specifically said excluding set pieces. Of his ten goals in 22/23 seven of them came from set pieces so he didn't contribute much outside of that. Can't be arsed to check other seasons.

Of his appearances under Poch in 13/14 less than half were starts. Same true of 15/16. Had more starts than sub appearances in 14/15 but still started less than half our league games.

They were our best 3 seasons so that suggests I'm right in my assertion that he only became one of the first names on the team sheet when we became ****e.

Ultimately he wasn't really suitable for any single midfield position due to his shortcomings in certain areas - not good enough defensively to play DM, not enough creativity/progressive passing to play as an AM. And couldn't progress with the ball at his feet enough to be an effective box to box alongside these other shortcomings.

So he ended up being one of those recycle the ball midfielders who offered very little elsewhere outside of his party trick (which was a pretty ****ing good party trick it has to be said).

Therefore... Bang average outside of his set pieces (well direct FK"s really).

But I sense we'll never agree here <laugh>

I'd place him 5th (or possibly even 6th) in best midfield players we had during our recent PL spell.
 
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