I agree, I wouldn’t take Hackney either but the point I was making is they wouldn’t swap him - meaning he’s not a stand out player. Fans will stay loyal to their own but if someone is considerably better they’d have them. Neil is not better than Cullen or Souza like it’s just blind loyalty to Sunderland to even suggest he is. We could put Mowatt, Knight or even Grimes in his position and we’d be no worse off IMO - will they be as good as Neil potentially? Nope.. but they’ve all played as holding midfielders all of their career. They are not worse than he is in that role he’s played for half a season currently.
I love Neil. Think he's a top class player at this level with great potential to go on to good things at a higher level. I think he's a 6 in the modern game with the ability to play as an 8 as well. I would accept anything above £20m though, now or the summer. If Samed is as good as he's meant to be then there's your replacement for the rest of the season with money to improve the squad in other areas. Lets say Neil left and we were able to bring in a forward, midfielder and fullback with some of the money and then were able to secure Cirkin and others on longer deals then I think it would be worth it. Very tough decision though.
to be clear - I'm only talking about the impact of him going and how mitigated it is. Not denying how good he is or how much I'd like to keep him. My absolutely ideal scenario is he and the club can agree on a wage that doesn't overextend us.
Maybe it's a conversation for the summer when (hopefully) we are a PL side and money is less of an issue.
I do think Souza is better than him, I think he's the best in the league in that role tbh Cullen has been poor this season, yes he was class last time they were in the league but neil has been better than him this season Grimes is a good championship cm but that's it, neil is a lot better than him I get you dont rate him that highly and that's your opinion I watch a lot of championship football (just football non stop tbh) and Neil is quality at what he does and is not easily replaced with where we want to go as a club
Neil’s class, bloke behind me slates him for anything he does but praises others for losing it because they’re trying. Don’t know what some people don’t see. losing DN and jobe in the summer will hurt mind if we don’t go up, recruitment going to have a fair whack to play with
Not sure what he’s measuring the players on. It’s hard to look at statistics for 6s because every team plays different but the eye test says neil is top 3. Id only swap him for Vinicius and tanaka
That's what makes recruitment so tough eh, 100% we could strengthen in other areas and maybe Samed comes good 2nd half of the season. We could then go up and it looks great business. The flip is also true, we spend thr money, those players don't settle and we don't go up Keeping Neil doesn't determine whether we go up or not but keeping him massively helps
Personally I wouldn't sell Dan Neil unless we got a very large offer or if we really feel there's a genuine risk he will leave on a free when his deal is up, he has been one of our most important players since he broke in the team under Lee Johnson. That said I think there is some conflict around his best position, my thinking is that his best position is an 8, with a bit more freedom to go forward and affect the attack, he is one of a few players we have that can find that real killer pass, the counter argument I suppose is that he doesn't have a lot of goals or assists on his record to suggest he would thrive in that role more than others.
But the fee has to be 20m plus if going to prem side, closer to 10 is a disaster. and based on our league position money must be spent to reinforce this window otherwise we might aswell just wait to sell in the summer. he'd be a massive miss but if there was money available for players this month, its an arguable discussion.
I do rate him mate I think he’s a very good championship midfielder - I just think the opinion some fans hold on him is far higher than it should be. I’m sure you’re going to point to WyScout and say there’s metrics that have him as being much better and I know match ratings don’t mean much because data can interpreted differently but just out of curiosity I went and had a look on whoscored to see where Neil was rated this season and he’s not even in the top 100 overall, with all of the players above being higher than him as well as the likes of Charles, Brannigan, Adams, Field, Sheaf etc.. there must be about 15 DM’s who have a higher rating than him this season. So what is he doing in games for people to rate him so highly compared to everyone else?
Yeah it's extremely tough to get right. I only think he'll go if he kicks up a fuss which I don't think he will.
It's all about opinions and what people see in my opinion. Data doesn't determine what player is better, data can always been used to back up your argument whatever the point being made is Football is all about opinions, be boring if we saw it the same Anyway I said I wasn't going to get anymore involved in the debate so def bowing out this time lol
The 2 big hitters in that list are Neil and Jobe. They're the heartbeat of this team. There's an argument that Ballard has already been replaced as first choice. Rigg isn't one of our best 3 midfielders based on ability at this point into time. I wouldn't take anything but a ridiculous fee for him in January as we're far less likely to be promoted without him.
No point explaining if you haven't seen it yourself as you'll just argue any point i make. I hold him in high regards because of what I see him consistently do, I trust my eye test on players and I go on that rather than data. I don't go on what other fans say, I only judge a player on what I see and compare them to others based on what I see There isn't actually much between Jobe and Neil in terms of stats this season, think Neil's metrics are better but doesn't have as much goal involvements so Jobe scores higher than him on data sites
Exactly my point, you’re ignoring the metrics and you think he’s better cos “you said so with the eye test” but you watch Neil every week and watch the others once a blue moon. Data is going to be skewed because players for worse teams are obviously going to get more Interceptions, tackles etc so you can’t really judge too much off that because he’s obviously going to below some of the others but even his overall rating this season is below 10-15 other DM’s. His passing accuracy at 84% is also shocking for a DM.
Promotion is always the best outcome mate. I’d also see us losing a couple of stars as the opportunity for the subs and injured players to stake their claim, which is what I see as our transfer tactics. Succession with a smattering of ready to go first teamers. I love the way things are at the moment but not without promotion this or next season. We’ll do it in my opinion.
Passing accuracy is flawed, someone could play every single pass backwards and have 100% accuracy but that's rubbish for a CDM Your point about not watching others as much could be used to argue your point tho, you are only seeing a small sample of those players The eye test is how you judge players nit on data - when I'm scouting players i dint reccomend players to my club based on stats, I base it on the eye test on what I've seen God I keep getting roped into this debate lol
No I get that but if someone is going to ask what metric I’m judging him on to say that as if I’ve plucked it out of my arse then say their metric is the eye test.. I’m not saying you’re wrong at all I think it’s a debate that splits a lot of our fanbase and it’s really one sided on this board in favour of Dan so clearly a lot of fans are against my opinion. He’s def a very good player at this level and I think he’ll step up to play in the PL just not as a high level as some others think. Just think if he was to leave for what he offers in that role we wouldn’t struggle to replace that short term if need be and we got a sizeable offer. Obviously nobody wants to split up the squad at this point when we’ve got a real shot of automatics but if the offer was too good we have to have a contingency.
