Think he'll flourish once Louza begins starting games. Would've probably finished the 2 big chances Davis had yesterday.
Based on what? He had a great chance to score vs Blackburn, but instead chose to overhit a sideways pass to Sarr.
Based on him scoring more last season (albeit most in the Portuguese Segunda) than Davis has in his entire senior career
It is ridiculous how quick people will write a player off. Give him a chance, and, I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, maybe support him?
I reckon Davis will start on Saturday and then we'll see much more of Araujo in home games against bottom-half teams.
There's no benefits to the club in giving him a chance when he's not up to it and only here so briefly - it's not as if he's meant to be some work experience kid on a jolly, we need to be getting results right now to try and get promotion. Rather that than pi55 our promotion chances up the wall by repeatedly giving him minutes just for the sake of it while he does nothing before he gets sent back to Benfica.
It appears he's set for the Bayo role of only being sent on to try and poach a goal when we're chasing games, with it still to be seen how effective he'll be at that.
How can you know he's not up to it? We'd be giving him minutes over Assombalonga and Davis. Hardly sacrificing a bundle of goals.
Davis is at least alright at holding the ball up. Araujo really struggled vs Blackburn - Davis came on at half time and seemed miles better than him, which is a massive concern considering how mediocre he is. I would give Araujo minutes ahead of Assombalonga if we need to make a sub while chasing the game and needing to score, but in games like last night when we're already ahead and need to keep the ball then Assombalonga made a lot more sense. He'll likely get such minutes when we're chasing the game, but he'll need to need to improve at a rapid rate to get to a point where he can make a major impact in them before his loan ends. If we'd have had him on loan from the summer window for the whole season then I'd have been a bit more hopeful that he'd have a chance of eventually coming good, but for where we're at right now it seems a long shot that it's enough time. Archer has come in at Boro and straight away got 3 goals and 2 assists in 5 games. Given our issues with goalscoring this season and that we're in competition with Boro for promotion, we needed to bring in someone capable of having a similar kind of impact.
While it's probably true that he's an upgrade on who we have, with our current unbalanced squad, it's not a guarantee that he'd have been a success if he joined us
How? We needed someone who was an upgrade on Davis to be first choice CF. This guy really doesn't seem like he'll be that this season. Instead we've got someone who will more likely have to do with attempting to replicate the Bayo role, where it's unclear how good he'll even be at it.
After his first 4 games Archer had 0 goals. Hopefully their fans didn't write him off as a goalscorer after that.
I guess Archer had the advantage of having shown last season that he is very effective in this league.
You may have more resource to do this - I guess many of Araujo’s first team appearances at Benfica were off the bench. But in his time there for both 1st team and B Team, was he usually paired with another striker or was he used as a lone forward? Seems to be a very popular opinion of him on here that he simply can’t play up front alone - but would be good to see whether that passes muster on his career to date (I accept the Championship may require a level of adaptation).
He did play two up top before Pedro was fit. How would you suggest fitting Pedro, Sema, Sarr and a front two into the team?
This is league only (so no CL etc) but a majority of his mins across his career in Portugal were as a lone forward in a 433. Most of this was with the B team as his league mins with Benfica were pretty limited, but he played 30 mins in a 442 this season with their first team. He played 138 mins last season and all of that was in a 433 or 4231
He did play as a lone frontman a bit under Ivic and did an admirable job, although seeing as the most viable alternative to JP in the hole is Asprilla, I don't think it'll happen as Bilic doesn't seem to like Asprilla
He was good at Reading, created a goal and also crested a decent chance for himself in the first half. Burnley was not the game for him and Blackburn he did struggle to be fair. I would play him over Britt though who just looks unfit and won't be here next season either
I guess it depends on the match situation and whether we need someone to hold the ball up / kill time/ slow the game down, or are chasing an equalizer/winner and need someone to nick a goal.
As BA lumbered forward on Monday,overtaken on Pinner Hill by the milk float I was trying to remember if he was always so immobile. I came to the conclusion the only thing I recalled was the conga song!
His first 3 appearances were a grand total of 64 minutes off the sub's bench - and one of those was against Brighton in the FA Cup when they were already losing 3-1. And he was arriving at Boro having played even less senior football recently than Araujo. His 4th appearance was his 1st start, and it was the game against us where he was excellent.
It took 275 minutes of football for Archer to score his first goal for a Boro team that are flying. Araujo has played 183 minutes for a disjointed Watford side. I'm just saying it's early to be writing him off in the way you are doing.
