[SOLD] Gerard Deulofeu

I get the point that both our defence and attack needed improvements, but to claim a fit Aguero wouldn’t have kept us up is absolutely bonkers.

We’d be chasing a European place with him in our team, despite our abysmal defence.

 

I think the problem with this debate is that if you take attacker to mean any player that isn’t a defender or holding midfielder then yes, of course we’ve spent money on them.

But what we haven’t invested in (aside from the money wasted on Gray) is somebody to put the ball in the net.

Yes Sarr is an attacker and cost £30m, but he’s a winger, his job is predominantly to get the ball in the box for somebody to finish... but that person doesn’t exist.

The fact that we’ve spent so much on attackers but not a decent striker is precisely why our chance conversion percentage is the lowest in the league in the last five years, plenty of players to create chances but none that can actually finish them. As far as attacking players are concerned there is a distinction between players who create and players who score.

Southampton let four less goals in than us, but survived comfortably because they have a player who can convert chances, we don’t.

 

The debate started on this thread specifically because some claimed Deulofeu didn’t score enough. He’s also a winger...

But moreover, people have just pulled you up on what you said. You said we haven’t invested in attackers. That’s clearly not true. And I’d even argue we have spent plenty on strikers for a club of our means - the problem is the ability we bought, not how much we spent. But in the context of the wider debate, it’s still far far more than has been spent on defenders. Gray alone covers our entire defensive outlay under the Pozzo’s. That’s scandalous.

 

Pendantry/semantics. A forward/striker is clearly what I meant and clearly what I’ve just explained. You think Aguero wouldn’t make a difference to the team though, so I don’t know why I’m even bothering.

 

There is also almost a direct correlation between goals scored and league finish, the only anomaly being 13th but even then comfortably our best season defensively didn’t give us our highest finish, yet our best season scoring did, whereas our worst sent us down.

11th 52 59
13th 40 50
14th 44 64
17th 40 68
19th 36 64

 

My apologies. I did write a post last night saying that perhaps my Aguero comment was far-fetched but it obviously didn’t post. I was trying to make a broader point about the attackers being fed off the well-below par defenders and CM.

However, my point isn’t pedantic and nor was it clear what you meant. As I’ve said, this debate has been framed off comments about Deulofeu being dispensable because he doesn’t score enough - yet you yourself have said wingers aren’t there to score but more create - so haven’t we gone full circle on this debate in that respect? In the modern era too, I would disagree about your point about wingers as I think in formations like ours, they are there to score goals as much as create.

And again, I don’t think it’s pedantic to point out that when a discussion is being had about whether we need to improve the defence or attack more, that we have spent far more on attackers/strikers than we have on defenders. The two figures aren’t even close. If you can’t see that, then yes...I don’t know why you’re bothering.

 

My view is that both sides of this debate are essentially correct.

Clearly the defence has been neglected for some time and this is frustrating as it would not have taken much investment relatively speaking to improve. However, it is also blatantly true that the lack of a goal scorer and the striker deficiencies were the biggest contributor to relegation as demonstrated by a19tgg’s stats and compelling arguments.

Win/win?

 

I think you’re both broadly agreeing. We’ve spent a fair bit, certainly in % terms, on “attacking players”. We’ve not spent much on “strikers” whose primary job is to stick the ball in the back of the net, Gray, Okaka, Welbeck and Oulare. All the other attacking players have been primarily wingers or attacking Mids and I’d class GD, Sarr, Pereyra, Success, Penaranda (like a new signing), Amrabat etc in this group.

 

Quite - but I don’t get the current clamour for signing yet another striker when we now know Suarez is training with us and Joao Pedro should be given more game time. We need to offload some of what we have before adding more in that area.

But defensively, we need reinforcements now. And not lazy, 50/50 punts from Udinese.

 

Because when we last won promotion we had a side packed full of goals. Ighalo. Vydra. Deeney. Forestieri as back up. Abdi regularly netting too from midfield.

Who would people put money on now to get 20 goals this season?

I’m not talking about hype over, as yet, unproven but exciting forwards we have. We think Suarez looks decent and we know Pedro is full of exciting promise. We all hope both come off. But let’s have this conversation from a realistic point of view. Are both automatic 15-20 goals a season material just yet?

Then we are left with a past his best Deeney, Gray who I think only netted twice last season and a rarely fit Welbeck who wants out anyway.

If he stays, I think Sarr could well be our top scorer this season.

In my opinion to be in the promotion push we will need at least two players to hit 15 plus. We will need more goals from our midfield, which apart from Doucoure’s purple patch when Pearson arrived, really under achieved in terms of goals. It was laughable that since lockdown, bar penalties, Dawson was our biggest goal threat. We will need to quickly transform from a side who only scored 34 goals last season to one capable of netting 70-80 minimum.

Therefore I think it’s imperative we do boost the forward line, especially if players leave. You can never have enough goal scorers, as we found out last time we went up.

 

But Vydra, Ighalo and Deeney all were unknown quantities. They all did well but we didn’t know they would before the season started, much the same as Suarez and Joao Pedro. I don’t see the situations as being too different.

So what’s the suggestion? Who do we buy that will be guaranteed to score 20 goals and have a transferable skill-set to the PL if promoted? We have had clamour for Ivan Toney - who is just as much a punt as what we have. Gray and Deeney have a track record of scoring in the Championship, Toney doesn’t...
I think people are just clamouring for goals which is understandable. But when you look deeper, I don’t see the attainable options that would be better than trusting what we have.

 

I agree we do need to score a bucket load of goals to gain promotion, but we do also need to sort out the defence. The defence has been so badly neglected for years, and only furnished with aging Championship players. Now we're actually in the Championship they will probably be more effective, however, I don't see anyone outstanding at the back in central defence even for the Championship and this needs addressing above everything else.

In terms of goals, we cannot pretend it's going to be just as tough to score in the Championship as it is in the Premier League. It will be easier as keepers are not as good and you tend to get more chances per game.

In the top league we were nowhere near clinical enough, but we still created a lot of chances. I think we finished 13th in chances created, but 19th in chances taken. The forward line this season will be revamped. If we get everyone who I'd like to see remaining from within the current squad, we'd have more than enough.

Suarez, Sarr, Pedro, Deeney, Welbeck, Deulofeu and Gray will score plenty of goals in the Championship. I would say that's an upgrade on Vydra, Deeney, Ighalo and Forestieri.

Now if we start losing some of those players, like Welbeck and Deulofeu, then probably we'd need one more striker because that is a lot of quality out of the door. Having said that, Hernandez will hopefully be coming in January and should help to fill that void. If we lose more than two, such as Suarez and/or Sarr, then we'll be in big trouble and will have to heavily invest or else we'd have very little chance of getting promoted. If we're left with Deeney, Pedro and Gray, you can forget it.

The key to promotion is keeping the best players we currently have. Of course some will go, but we cannot afford too many to leave as that will impact the side for sure.

 

TBF Deeney and Vydra weren't unknown qualities at the start of the promotion season. Ighalo was, but effectively became a rotation alternative for Vydra and ultimately effectively replaced him.

 

Is another striker more important than a goal scoring CM? I look at the midfield which is likely to stay, and I think we'd be lucky to score 10 goals combined - Sarr is excluded from this as he's on the wing and further forward for me.

I'm still none the wiser what formation Vlad prefers though. If it's 2 up top, then this is less important, if it's one up top we need goals coming from elsewhere.

 

I would argue that our forward players/depth of squad last season were ‘on paper’ better than what we had when we finished 11th and scored 52 goals. We added Sarr and Welbeck and didn’t lose anyone. The attacking players we had should’ve been capable of us staying in the league.

 

So, by the same token, Gray and Deeney aren’t unknown quantities this season? Both have done it in the Championship over multiple seasons.

 

Gray and DeeKnee had a track record of scoring in the Championship, absolutely no guarantee that it would work again, they're both a lot older now and hardly shown the form of being capable of doing so.
Suarez, Pedro again are unknown tbf. Pedro has shown signs in him cameos that there is a player with ability.
Let's be honest we have no idea who is even going to be here opening day let alone when the window shuts in October.
Everything is up in the air still. But I agree that we need a CF who can come in and threaten if not start very soon. I for one am cringing at the thought of DeeKnee being the loan striker with Gray the alternative from the bench. None of us are stupid enough to think Suarez will be with us 100% even if he is we cant expect him to bang in 15-20 goals or even be involved for 46 games. Money talks and if they get the right offers Suarez, Pervis and any others will be gone. What that leaves us God only knows.
It's the strangest of situations currently due to the Pandemic and the lack of information from our club. I like the rest of you are just hoping that we can build a team that's capable of challenging for automatic promotion.

 

In fairness I am sure we would have stayed up if any of the three talented players were fit at the same time, but Sarr and Deulofeu seemed to get injured just as the other returned to fitness and Welbeck was crocked for most of the season. Did we even manage one game where we played our strongest front three?

Also not sure what happened behind the scenes, but hard to blame the club for the fact Pereyra has spent most of the season playing at 50% effort.

We had the same attacking players as last season, but improved them pretty significantly with Sarr and Welbeck. as JimOrn says - that should have been enough.

 

Gray is 29 - he is hardly old. I dont rate him particuarly, but in the right system he has proven himself as a top level championship striker.

Suarez - if a big money offer comes in sure he will go, but then we would have more than enough money to sign another striker like Grant or Toney.

I honestly think we are okay for strikers with Suarez, Gray, Deeney, Joao Pedro. I am far more concerned about the wide areas where we only have Joao Pedro, Sarr (maybe) and Sema.

 

Yes many moons ago though. I don't think we will be going into this season as excited at the propect of Deeney and Gray leading the line vs our excitement of Deeney and Vydra leading the line 6 years ago....

 

Well we have Success, when fit and Penaranda if he's still at the club. Oh and Sema and Sinclair if they are too. This Summer is the last chance saloon for many of them. Maybe just maybe Ivic can get something out of them.
I'm not saying Gray is old. I'm saying he's worse than useless and jesus I hope he makes me eat my words but I highly doubt it.

 

Looking at the last ten years in the Championship, here are the goal scored by the two automatic promotion teams:

10/11 71, 83
11/12 69, 85
12/13 72, 61 (us in 3rd got 85, Peterborough in 22nd got 66!)
13/14 83, 72
14/15 98, 91
15/16 72, 63 (20th place team got 65)
16/17 85, 74
17/18 82, 69
18/19 93, 78
19/20 77, 77

Obviously getting a lot of goals helps but it's not everything as shown in a few cases as a relegated side in 2013 got 5 more goals than a promoted side, also our last season here was an anomaly where the top two scored a massive number of goals.

The average number of goals scored by a top two team was 77.75, I believe that we may have enough in our squad for that, what we need to do is have a better defence.

 

I agree our defensive spending has been pathetic, but isn’t the case with most clubs that are forced to splash out on potential goal scorers. Attackers generally cost a lot more than defenders.

This isn’t a one or the other. We spent big in attack on duds/ players that don’t fit our playing style and spend nothing on our defence.

To top it all off, we bring in relatively poor managers on the cheap, who can’t motivate or bring players together and leave us with no coherent identity or playing style.

Saying all this, the standard is poor and one better defender or attacker would have seen us scrape safety this season.

But alas.

 

Loan deal for Vydra. At least he would have the pace to get on the end of Sarr's crosses.

 

Swap Gray for Matty and Gibson

 

maybe someone like Karlan Grant?


https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/karlan-grant/profil/spieler/314183

proven track record and probable affordable and potentially up for a move to promotion favourites. There are others but this seems like the kind of targets that are viable.

 

Ahem...see transfer suggestions item

 

Sounds good sign him up.

 

oops sorry if replicated elsewhere. I guess I was trying to say that there were viable targets.

 

"Viable" if we'd be willing to spend £20mil, which we most likely aren't.

 

Huddersfield have already supposedly turned down £15m bids for him. I really doubt we will be spending north of that.

 

And people are suggesting that we should sell Deulofeu for around that price.

 

A starting forward line of João Pedro, Suarez and Sarr, with Gray in reserve should be good enough to see us up from the Championship, but the nervousness comes from whether

1. the front three can handle that level of pressure. João Pedro is very young and Luis Suarez has never played in England.

2. Gray is the right player to provide quality and experience. He's never shown real leadership qualities and would need to recreate

3. Whether they will all be here come end of October anyway. There's still a big risk that Suarez and Sarr in particular will be subject to a big offer.

4. There's enough cover in reserve for a long season. Big doubts as to whether Success and Penaranda can cut it and we don't appear to be in the market for that player in the number 10/wide role vacated by Geri and Pereyra. Deeney might or might not be here, but he is definitely not the player he was last time he was in the Championship and it doesn't seem likely with his recent record that he can provide the 15-20 goals needed.

I do agree that if we have money to spend, we absolutely need to focus that on investing in a that has been neglected for too long. But that relies on us holding on to the right players going forward, and even then isn't without risk.

 

On point 2. Ivic needs to drill Gray to even make him a half decent sub. He has one of the worst first touches I have seen in football. Get a machine to ping footballs at him daily to control and that might help. What is Gray anyway? Like what's he actually good at? When he joined he said his strength is his pace, but he doesn't appear to be that quick. His movement and awareness is poor. His finishing I can't comment on - perhaps he can find the net but his touch and movement lets him down. In the championship you can get by with some one trick pony's. McAnuff was a decent championship player, he could beat a man but had no end product. Deeney had strength and some finishing ability that got him to where he is. Helguson was a beast in the air, as was Henderson. These guys did it in the champ and had a strength. What is Andre's? I think mentally he thinks he's rapid when he isn't, he needs to take a long hard look at himself and focus on what his strength might be, if he can finish, then how's he going to get into those positions. He might have pace to beat the last man, but he needs to be on the shoulder and not be offside, and once he gets to the ball he needs to have some control.

There might be a player in there, and historically he's scored some goals, but that player has been long gone. He needs to reinvent himself.

 

I think Gray has really good anticipation and positional awareness. Get's in the right areas. He's like a poor version of Lineker. If he got some confidence up I still think he'd score a lot in Championship.