The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wed 1st July)

Nketiah played the equivalent of 5 1/2 full games over 5 months

 

Highest goals per min player, by a long way.

 

Phil Hay confirmed that it was a season long agreement with a clause that they wanted him to complete a certain amount of game time.

Unfortunately 500 mins over 27 games (2430 mins) is unacceptable for someone of Nketiahs class

 

Nketiah was fit mid November. He was out for 4 games.

 

I'm worried by the way that in all three games since the restart, we have looked sluggish and lacking in our usual commitment, especially for the first hour. And a number of players who have been consistently good all season -- such as Phillips, Klich and White -- are looking decidedly rusty. I don't even see much evidence of the legendary fitness that has been a hallmark of the team since Bielsa's arrival.

If we don't start playing until two-thirds of the match has elapsed, by which time we are often behind, we are going to struggle to win. Having a striker who, despite his other talents, just does not look like a natural goal scorer only exacerbates the problem.

 

it was 5 mins here, 2 mins there. He played the last 3 games before going back to Arsenal by which time he has (not surprisingly) lost interest and knew he was going back).

 

Welcome to the board Eastern White.....

 

FFS Nketiah was banging in hattricks for England U21 yet could only get 3 mins game time as being kept out by Bamford.

 

U21 football playing against kids, championship football playing against brutes!

 

The thing is, you're never going to reach 50% if you have to take a month out after sticking your dick in a hoover & regretting it!

 

Yup, that;s the translation I posted, if I remember correctly. Not being fluent in Spanish, I couldn't & still can't translate.

 

sounds like the voice of experience

 

..... or a sensibilist! (as Jezza Clarkson would no doubt utter).

 

I liked the lad, as my post made clear... just not sure he was ideally suited to playing as the 1 up front in bielsaball. I don’t think bielsa bottomed our how best to utilise him either... which was maybe part of the problem.

it’s not a computer game... you don’t just chuck a ‘20 goal a year’ striker into a side ahead of a 10 goal a year striker and guarantee yourself an extra 10 goals, whilst conceding the same amount.

I think if we’d given Kemar Roofe, who did suit our game, the deal he was looking for, we’d probably be promoted now, rather than arguing about how we under utilised the expensive loanee that replaced him.

 

Yes and in those 19 games he got 663 minutts of a posible 2340 minutts. That is just over 28% gametime and far to few minutters for Arsenal to except him staying at Leeds. If he had 50-60% gametime he would posseble stayed at Leeds

 

Was never a fan of Roofe...thought we could do better.

Clearly I was wrong, even though we've tried to do better, both players signed to replace him haven't worked out. Which means we've played about 20 games without the option of bringing on a 2nd striker or dropping Bamford to the bench. Clearly this has been detrimental to our points tally as proven when Nketiah used to come on and grab late goals.

 

Valid points, but as he arrived after the start of the season and then spent a month injured the only way he would have played that amount of game time is if Bielsa had dropped Bamford for him more or less on his arrival.

Many on here will say that should have happened...the rest of us trust Bielsa's judgement to make the right decisions for the team as a whole and not just for what Arsenal and Eddie Nketiah requirements were.

 

Nketiah missed the opening game of the season (only)

He missed four games - injured and the opener against Bristol City.

Fit for 24 games = 2160 minutes

Used 500 minutes.

Meaning Bielsa benched Nketiah in favour of Bamford for 3/4 of the first half of the season.

This is the only reason why Nketiah was recalled.

Bielsa treated Nketiah like ****, and he has to take some responsibility why our forward line is so poor.

He relied time, and time, and time again on someone who we all know is not good enough.

 

You talk as if when he arrived (48hrs before the 2nd match) that he was fully match fit even though he was not part of Arsenal's plans for the season. Undoubtably he was fit enough to make a contribution from the bench but starting a player who you know cannot finish the match is unwise as it limits your options from the bench before KO.

Maybe he was just unlucky with the timing of the injury or maybe if Arsenal had not had a change of manager things would have been different. One thing I'm certain about and that is that Bielsa most certainly did not treat him like ****.