Hughes and McGinn behind Traore, Grealish, Buendia and Watkins is ludicrous. What are Villa playing at? Make a bid you absolute *****.
Douglas Luiz is way better than Hughes. Hughes would just be an inexpensive rotation option for them.
IMO and it will not resonate with some , and I don't wish to coat off Rice or Phillips who have been fantastic for England , but WH is the type of no.8 England have been screaming for . A schemer .
I think it's just a throwaway comment from Leventhal about a month ago. I've not seen it anywhere else. Sounded far more more like he was taking the piss out of the rumour.
I'm happy for him to leave, but only if he's replaced adequately. And I have no confidence that our owners are capable of that. If he leaves our midfield isn't even championship standard.
We did finish second, I very much doubt taking Will Hughes out of the equation puts us 20+ places lower.
Hughes will not be the difference between us staying up or going down - he didn't do much when we got relegated last time.
Blimey, Phillips was putting in such good performances in the Champ that he got an England call-up before ever having even played in the PL - Hughes is just not at his level. Bellingham and Ward-Prowse are two other no.8s who are better than Hughes who have hardly got a sniff recently. Central midfield is one position where England are perhaps a bit light on quality at the moment, especially considering some of the excellent players we've had there in previous tournaments, but Hughes is far from a solution.
This "Hughes" guy sounds awful. Perhaps we should consider loaning him out this coming prem season ? Maybe to Villa so he can link up again with Hoggy and we can bring them both back once they are a little closer to being ready for the first XI ?
Hughes is as good, if not better than JWP. JWP just happens to be one of the best set piece takers in Europe which clouds a lot of peoples judgment on his actual ability.
Isn't JWP's set piece quality a component of his actual ability though? (Otherwise I agree, Hughes is better in open play, in and out of possession) I still think Hughes will stay. He could be the linchpin of our midfield or a rotation option at Villa. Villa are upwardly mobile but being a rotation option at Villa is not akin to being a rotation option at, say, United or Spurs.
I don’t believe that’s true in the slightest, I saw these stats when he was omitted from the England team, and let’s not forget those are as Premier League player, not as a championship one like Hughes was last season:
https://fbref.com/en/players/3515d404/James-Ward-Prowse This seems more relevant. As Louorns points out those stats are not particularly helpful and are little more than propaganda. A fundamental misuse of statistics. The fbref page shows JWP creating lots of scoring chances, scoring goals etc but almost all of that ouput is from his set pieces. He is distinctly average (if not slightly below average) in possession and off the ball.
He’s performed consistently at PL for a while and Hughes hasn’t. The fact that he can take a good free kick and effectively place the ball in the area the size a postage stamp from 25/30 yards surely reflects well in other parts of his game? Like a lot of our players Hughes is atrocious at shooting, this will also be reflected in his passing at times because he’s technically just not as good. JWP is simply a better footballer as his stats and status confirm by comparison, there is literally nothing that proves the opposite.
Maybe but Hughes was (for the second half of the season at least) the best CM in the Championship and was probably our best/most consistent CM in the PL in 19/20. You can see Hughes' stats on fbref for 19/20 - it shows him as an excellent ballwinner and below average passer, although without adjusting for possession that's partly or even largely a function of our style of play. In 3 months or so we'll be able to compare them directly at the same standard in the same season. I think, in open play, Hughes will compare favourably.
What does the Set Piece Goals stat mean? 7 of JWPs 8 goals were direct from a set piece? or All of his 7 assists were from set pieces, therefore had 0 assists from open play?
Was arguably our best player in the run-in and looked like the only one who cared. People have short memories.
Yes, it wasn't his fault we had a blob up front, no Geri and a brainless defence. I get the idea behind selling a player who either wants to leave, or who might leave for a free in a year's time, but there's absolutely no guarantee we get a player anywhere near his ability for the kind of money we'll have to spend. Tough one, I hope his words about wanting to get the contract sorted out soon weren't just bluster
I think we need to re-evaluate our transfer strategy, including being more careful with the contracts we give out and selling players much earlier. However we need to maximise values on our talented players, meaning sometimes it will be prudent to protect value with a larger contract. If they’re changing their approach then fine by me. We give out too many long deals (Cathcart, Cleverley, Kiko, Kabasele - all got new contracts in the last couple of years despite having low transfer values. Deeney got an extension 2 years ago despite being grossly overpaid and not performing for a while before that point). But a player like Hughes? Who’s reaching his peak, was arguably our best player in the PL 2 seasons ago and was clearly too good for the Champ? He’s worth £15m if he has 3+ years. I think we’d be lucky to get half that if he goes this summer though; which may even be a loss? That is really disappointing when the club will rely on making profits on these kinds of players to ever progress.
Agreed. Its a tragedy that Hughes contract will run down, considering the numerous retirement contract extensions we have handed out to aging average to poor players over the years.
That's what happens when you have a **** season and get relegated. No chance he was signing one while we were fighting relegation or while we were in the Championship.
Considering the average to garbage that we randomly renew with plenty of time left (Cathcart and Success for example), why not renew him when he had 3 years left after cup final season? If we'd been prudent with other players and it was a blanket approach I wouldn't have a problem, but we've thrown long contracts at rubbish and let the obviously decent asset run down.
Fully agree, the club's contract extensions have been abysmal. I think and hope the club have learnt their lesson, Duxbury is making the right noises anyway. But why has it taken them this long to realise that giving players aged 28, 29, 30 long contract extensions on decent money is bad business? It's just bizarre.