It's a team game at the end of the day and Middlesbrough (who finished only 10th last season) would have been outplayed by a lot of teams above them, so Azaz would see far less of the ball. Feels like a bit of a cherry picked stat to be honest.
Yeah, hardly a revelation that teams at the top of the table are harder to play against and concede less goals than those at the bottom.
I could definitely be wrong, haven’t watched too much of him. I’d agree that he’s more similar to Fernandes in that he has more to his game. I get the impression Azaz and Spertsyan are purely AM and don’t really have the all round skill set to play further back. But I still thought Rudoni was primarily an AM that can fill in at CM and at a push out wide. Whereas Fernandes is more of a CM who can fill in at AM or out wide. I certainly got the impression we were looking at Rudoni to fill the AM role that we've been trying to sign regardless of outgoings all summer. That he has more to his game would only be a benefit. Anyway, we aren’t getting him (this summer) so it doesn’t matter No Saints fan wants us to sell Fernandes because there's basically no chance we can replace his quality, but yeah, especially this late into the transfer window we'd be leaving ourselves with a lot to do. We'd then have to keep one of Aribo or Smallbone otherwise we'd have to bring in two CMs! If we sell both then we still need to bring one in anyway. Plus the two wingers. Just realised this is the Azaz thread and not the transfers one or the other transfers one. Soooo. Let's hope Azaz is done and dusted today and can feature against Watford on Saturday!
Was hoping we were going to announce this last night, but assume we might be hoping to bury the official Fernandes sale with incomings. Wonder if Fernandes and West Ham being snakes about it will have held things up at all where that's concerned as what they've done is against the rules. As we know from when Liverpool and VVD did it, nothing will really happen about it though so no point in dragging it out.
I wouldn’t be so sure, Spurs did it to Forest with Gibbs-White this summer & that’s why he’s still there. That said, I doubt the club would see it in there interest to stall this one now, unhappy player / having to start a legal case or £50million.. easy choice now they’ve sorted their targets out really
Boring media stuff to do. Suspect it'll be about midday today. Unless we do a three in one job this evening.
After all the excitement yesterday would be typical that Fernandes fails his medical, we don’t sign anyone and he throws a strop
If this guy has the same impact as our best ever signing from Middlesbrough, David Armstrong, then we have a gem. Gives fans another name issue though, with Finn and Flynn and Downs and Downes.
If we signed Nelson Weiper (and why not, he's German) we could have a Status Quo chant - Downs downs, Weiper and Downes.
Now there is an FM player I have got a lot of good memories of! I couldn’t help nicknaming him Windscreen.
