Transfer Rumours The 2015 Summer Transfer Window Thread

When is the VVD signing going to be confirmed?
Is he going to be the last man in the door?

 

Juanmi?

 

What's a second forward? Sounds like you mean someone who plays off the main forward. If thats right, then can't that person be creative? I'd have called Dennis Berkamp a second forward and he was creative.

If thats not right, sorry but can you explain as I'm genuinely unsure.
(I've only just mastered CDM)

 

I bet he hold it up better than Pelle, so let's go the whole hog and play home up front with Pelle as a CB

 

Now you're being silly

 

I'd define it as somebody who plays off the frontman. According to the Malaga/Spanish journalists Juanmi is very much an in-behind type of striker. Bergkamp, however, is the model number 10 and that is what we so sorely lack

 

Gaston?

 

Juanmi can play in the same position, but he is not that style of player. His game has always been making runs off a centre forward, or occasionally being deployed in that position himself.

And that's the issue I have with our current grouping...lots of players looking to get on the end of things, but no one in a position to find them. We've had three out-and-out forwards on the pitch together at times and looked disjointed. Clasie could make a real difference there, but we need more than one such player...absent such, we just resort to hopeful punts to Pelle or 50 yard diagonals to the flanks, and we're building little from them.

 

Oh ok. I really wasn't sure what you meant by second striker.

If this is him (and thanks Schad, you posted similar), it's an odd choice of player to have as we tend to play with our second or third attacking players, playing wide. This may explain why he hasn't had a chance yet.

Personally, if we were to change something, I'd change Pelle. Before people jump on me because I know I have given him some criticism of late (and i stand by that), but it would make the team play differently. It worked well at Chelsea and could again. Too often the defenders play it long to Pelle and that usually ends up with the other team gaining possession.

 

Moi?

 

Regarding Juanmi's fit: I wondered at the time whether it foreshadowed more 3-5-2. That's where, I suspect, he'd look most comfortable (if we're talking the unusually ambitious 3-5-2 we played last year).

No disagreement on swapping out Pelle. It's not that he's a terrible player or any such, but absent a player who can unlock defenses with their passing, or the open-field aggression that we saw early last season, we need lots and lots of movement. We need interplay between our forwards and angled runs and all those fun things that put defenders on their heels and ruin their shape. While he was dropping deep at times to receive the ball today (a rarity in general), he just isn't a striker who provides those things with regularity.

 

Oh Schad the bit about forwards and lots of movement and angled runs to pull defenders out of shape... Music to my ears. It is exactly what we need.

Premier League CBs love facing big, strong, static CFs; its meat and drink to them. Put a little whipper snapper around their feet and they become a mess. Just ask Chelsea about Aguero.

 

Completely agree. Although the example of Aguero is an anomaly. He's more than a mere whippersnapper!

 

They can handle the quick ones just as easily if we don't have a passing game. Just kick them a couple of times early and slow them down, like what Watford just did to Mane. He can expect a lot more of that treatment this season. He is a tough guy for his size, but he'll have to learn to pick his battles.

Pelle is not the reason the backs are lumping the ball forward. It's that there's no link between the midfielders and the forwards. When you play with Long, Pelle, Rodriguez and then two rather defensively-oriented midfielders the space between the lines is too big.

Only Mane is really capable of receiving the ball deep and then dribbling with it. But even then he is much better at using his pace and trickery to drive directly at people hoping to cause chaos as opposed to orchestrating an attack. Which is not really a criticism of Mane, just saying his best role is probably to play off a striker. If you give him the ball at midfield he'll just outrun all of our other attackers and then have no one to pass to.

I don't think either Davis or JWP are currently good enough to be that attacking midfield link, at least not if they're the only true midfielder in an attacking role. If we don't bring in a winger, I think we have to look at using Tadic more.

I get that Tadic slowed down a lot as the season went on, but I also think our Route 1 style of play and general ineffectiveness coincided with him not playing and us using forwards or speed merchant types like Elia. Earlier in the season, Tadic and Bertrand and Tadic and Pelle were both good partnerships, and when you have that, then you can make pretty triangle shapes and have all those angles to work off etc.

 

How old is Kevin Phillips these days, I bet he could still get a goal or two (I am joking, but we could do with that type of player, plus Kev was an awesome professional)

 

Or a medium-sized player with more pace/agility than the defender, plus enough strength to avoid getting thrown off the ball.

Think a lot of the fixation on big centre forwards comes from our success with Rickie in that role, but what made him so remarkable wasn't the big striker things he did, but how well he fused those attributes with a skillset from his days as a midfielder...his lack of mobility was still a problem at times, but his passing went a long way to offset it.

Pelle doesn't have that, because few strikers do. But absent those qualities, building around a fairly static striker in the modern era just doesn't make a tonne of sense.

 

This.

 

Excellent post sir.

 

Ron doesn't seem to like playing Tadic on the left. I think that's his best position.

 

I'd get yourself on the bench next to big Ron then lol