StriderHiryu

Relevant to this is the latest When You're Smiling podcast: Guillem Ballague referencing some of the issues Enzo had with the club hierarchy and hinting at what he wants changed going forwards. He also makes a good point about what happens next season when we start losing games and the crowd turns. Forest will stay up despite having won only 8 games, Brentford only 10. It will be backs to the wall stuff next season and a real challenge to stay up.

I really like this guy. It’s not just against us, in many other games he was effective and when Tomasson was in charge he was effective in the press. 20m is a lot given there’s no resale value, but counter point is that he’s proven in the Championship. His wages won’t be outlandish so whilst the fee might be high, the overall package might not be. Winks is supposedly on over 70k so if this guy was signed on 35k then even if the fee is double the package would be similar. I’d be very tempted. EDIT: There’s also the possibility that in our system he’d be well suited as the 9 as he would be dropping deep. He’s not really a striker despite the crazy number of goals. KDH, Ndidi and Szmodics?! That would be tasty!

That might be the best way to do things. There could be a general manager and then a sporting director. Plenty of German clubs operate in that way.

Decent for a free. We have two first choice wingers but need cover / players to challenge. A lot of the players we are linked to are the ones you’d expect a team that is going to be battling relegation to sign, but that’s where we are…

Massive opportunity for Enzo to call Top’s bluff and massively diminish the influence Rudkin has on the club here.

An old video but one I wanted to share. Burnely dominated the Championship but struggled in the Premier League. They were the "Man City" of the Championship, but regualr old Burnley when promoted. So what went wrong? Seems like a few things to me: - Lost some of their best players in transition from Championship to Premier League (Maatsen, Tella, Harwood-Bellis) - Replaced their Keeper with James Trafford who looks out of his depth at Premier League level - Signed lots of young players, but not many experienced ones - Insisted on playing out from the back, even when getting murdered by doing so and without the personell to do so at times Burnley spent a LOT on new players upon their return, something we can't do. But we have a lot more experience providing not too many players go. Will Hermansen make the step up to Premier League? I think most of us are confident he will. But we will start on minus points and we do have a stubborn manager...

Fair points! Here's how he compares to Vestergaard, as well as some other players that are similar to Jannik. And to be fair... he seems a much closer fit to Jannik than the wide CBs, so on this one, I bow down to the Foxes Talk scouting overlords! One interesting thing I read (but can't find a link for) is that on average the league where players seem to transition from the best around the world is Portugal. Sure we got hit by Adrien Silva and Islam Slimani, but Ricardo was a magnificent piece of business and elsewhere you've got players like Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Jota, Ruben Neves, Pedro Neto, etc, etc. Of course there are flops, but on average players from that league tend to fare quite well here. Jannik's lack of pace and slow turning speed has us all nervous. He's also on a rumoured 80k a week, which is a lot to keep on the books. Despite that, I think he had a great season and was our most consistent CB. Faes is the one that worries me the most because I think he is rash, whereas with Jannik, we know his weaknesses, but he's easily the best option we've seen for us in the central CB role in the Enzo system. But he'll have to be replaced sometime and if you bring in someone from Portugal on 40K a week who has resale potential, then that's a smart business decision.

Personally I can't see us NOT starting Vestergaard next season. Hermansen, Vestergaard, Winks and Ricardo are the most pivotal players in the entire system. Vestergaard himself had a really dodgy first game (as the RCB) against Coventry then stabilised a bit, and then I would say after 5-6 games started to look really good. It takes a specific type of player to play there and it takes them time to learn the role. I think it's too risky to throw someone into that position right away unless they are / were a very experienced player with international experience. I could of course be wrong, but in all these videos he is on one side of the pitch and not bang in the middle. The only way I see us not starting Vestergaard is if somehow someone like Lewis Dunk is made available, which I don't see happening. Faes played in that position when Vestergaard was suspended and you could notice the difference. Do you play defence? Do you like to play suicidal balls across the face of the box or to your team mates despite being pressed by Mo Salah or Darwin Nunez? Then we've got the right team for you! Leicester City based in the East Midlands are looking for kamikaze centre backs and they are looking for them now!

I find this kind of unusual given that statistically he doesn't seem too similar to our wide CBs. The links for Anselmo McNulty or Trai Hume by comparison look a lot more similar to JJ. But that said we are playing a system that not many other teams use. So it's all about the raw ingredients. The video above seems pretty encouraging. He can use both feet and is pretty quick, as well as being comfortable on the ball and good at making forward passes. Pace is definitely something we need to address. Vestergaard is slow but I think offers enough when on the ball in the build-up to still warrant a place. Doyle is slow for a young player and Faes whilst not slow is calamitous on the ball. It's not a surprise that when we lose games, Faes has a stinker.

I get more excited for these type of signings than established stars. Fatawu and Hermansen were our two best signings, Mavididi not too bad either. Stats look promising but no idea till we see him in the flesh. However, Glover and the team seem to have something about them.

Great analysis! I would agree with all of that. He's young and learning the system, so this should be expected. But I do wonder if Enzo fancies him or not, you get the impression there are a few players that were brought in that he didn't have a say in.

Don’t think anyone is saying he’s dreadful, but more that it might be a lot to expect a striker with no Premier League experience and a handful of appearances for us this season to step up right away. For what it’s worth I’d keep him over Daka too, he comes across as a better finisher to me.

There’s a rumour that he was signed “as insurance” in case we weren’t promoted this season. The thinking was that if we didn’t go up right away it would be likely we couldn’t sign anyone so in that case we’d have a proven Championship striker to give us a chance in the second season. He looked like a good player to me but there’s probably a lot of merit to letting him have a full season as a starter in the Championship, bag 15-20 goals and then come back to us. The step up between the divisions is massive.

That was such a nice moment. Really gave me the feels!

I actually didn't know that! Why do you reckon Ronnie Edwards (called him Jackson for some reason, lol) didn't get signed up? I remember us and Palace looking at him a few seasons back. I only ever hear good things about that player. Also what do you think of Davis Keillor-Dunn at Mansfield? He's the Szmodics of league 2! Eiran Cashin of Derby has also got good reviews this season I have heard.

Both Harrison Burrows and Ronnie Jackson of Peterborough are players a few Premier League clubs have looked at. For both, in an ideal world they need a season in the Championship to prove themselves. But many players have made that level of a step up. Ivan Toney being a great example who had a few stops along the way but proved himself to be a top finisher in every division. So he's a gamble, but one that could be worth taking.

That is exactly what is happening to them, just a bit slower than us: - Dodging relegation - Stabilised in the league - Upturn in fortunes / over achieving - Great signings making a difference Then - Sell best players for astronomical feeds but replacements not as good - Struggle with the demands of European football - Style of play gets worked out - Injuries to key players - Manager starts to look stale / looking elsewhere Don't think they are in danger of going down, Chelsea just gave them so much money. But think they are just the latest in a list of teams that try and break the top 6 but can't. Villa are having a great spell now, and Emery as coach has been an inspired appointment. Think they will have a good run for as long as he is around. But they spent a lot to get to where they are and were lucky to sell Grealish for so much money.

That would make a lot of sense if so! They seem to be able to publish highlights that you get on Wyscout or similar, so it's possible. I hope so, because that's the way we stay up IMO! In 15/16 teams did not respect us and pushed up suicidally high, leaving Mahrez and Vardy in acres on transition. Our new style means it's not just a case of pumping the ball long every time, we can keep and control if if needed. But as you say, the gaps will be there and the core of our team can exploit them. I think rotation options for Mavididi / Fatawu are important signings we need to make for this reason. Wingers can have off games, and having players that carry a threat on the break will net us a lot of goals. Kasey McAteer had a good game against Preston but if that was a Jayden Philogene or Jack Clarke we'd be even deadlier. Sebastian Nanasi on the continent has also been linked, though I suppose the most realistic of all is Glover pulling out a name we haven't heard of yet. I like Yunus, but he doesn't have that clinical edge to his game and seemed better suited as an 8.

Time to revisit my own thread for the first time in a while! Life has been busy! In the end, despite a massive wobble at the end, we did it and we are back in the Premier League. Recently we saw some good performances that show 2 sides to our game. First up, the type of game we saw for most of the season, playing against opponents with a vastly inferior wage and transfer budget who decide to park the bus to try and steal something from the game: Against Southampton we played a team that had very good overall quality in terms of players and put them to the sword twice. In both cases we see the ability to keep the ball under pressure, play our way out of trouble and engineer chances from it. Going into the Premier League, the Southampton games give me reasons to be a little optimistic. Very few teams park the bus in the Premier League these days. Hodgson left Palace, Moyes is likely to leave West Ham and I'm not sure if Nuno will still be at Forest next year. Everton will probably still play defensive, but these days even Bournemouth go for it. That means that we could get a lot of success by allowing the opposition to have more possession than we do and to pick them apart on the transition. I think that's going to be what dictates our fate next year. I think this season Burnley were too naive. If you push up too high and leave your defence high and dry, in the Premier League too many teams have players that will punish you. We definitely need to maintain an element of keeping the ball and dictating play as you can't play without the ball for 90 minutes. But if we do too much of it we will get killed, whereas if we are a bit more cautious I think we will surprise a lot of good teams, because our transition is really good and we have some quality attacking players. What do I think will happen? We will have to wait and see. I think Enzo will try to keep heavy possession to begin with, after a few losses we will see if he changes it.

Here is the one for League One: https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/8/Seasons/9623/Stages/22081/PlayerStatistics/England-League-One-2023-2024 Making the step up from League One to Premier League seems like too much of a jump for me. That said, Harrison Burrows of Peterborough has an interesting profile and some crazy stats. (6 goals, 14 assists from left back) Bali Mumba is ranked pretty low down in the Championship ratings, but he's been impressive for Plymouth this season. At just 22 and able to play both sides, he's not the worst shout.

This may or may not be useful, it's the top ranked players in the Championship statistically. You have to take such ratings with a grain of salt, but I think there's a large element of truth to the statistical side of these ratings. For example, I didn't realise Gabriel Sara and Jacob Greaves were ranked as highly as they are. Both are very good players, but especially in the case of Sara, I didn't realise he had carried Norwich that much. Some outliers: Sammie Szmodics is ranked 36th, despite having 25 goals (I suppose playing in an awful team will do that to you) Trai Hume of Sunderland is ranked 30th. Has been linked to us in the past. Jamie Vardy is ranked 107th! I suppose touching the ball 3 times a game against the bus parkers will have that effect. Callum O'Hare is ranked 160th. Mads Hermansen is 157th which is surprising given that everyone in the Championship has him as hands down the best keeper. I think if you're looking for value then Whittaker and Chair have great numbers and ratings despite playing for struggling teams. Perry Ng in with a shout too. The full list is here: https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/7/Seasons/9622/Stages/22080/PlayerStatistics/England-Championship-2023-2024

With their current wages and lack of debt they’ll also be in a good position to strengthen. The big question for them is if their style will work in the Premier League? They’ve already beaten some teams this season, suggesting it will, but they give up a lot of chances. Maybe if they sign better defenders they could address this, but maybe their style always leads to giving away chances? The top league has changed a lot. Only Moyes and Dyche play safety first and Moyes will leave at the end of the season. This could work both for and against the teams coming up. I’m hoping we play more on the counter like we did against Southampton next season. Unlike the Championship, teams won’t park the bus and we could exploit teams that don’t respect us a bit like the first 5 months of 15/16.

Yeah that's why I included that table. I think we are looking for: Left footed Can take the ball forwards both with the ball and can spot a forward pass, especially the cross-field switch Strong in the air Reasonably fast Good on the ball Good defensively, especially on a forced turnover by the opponent

Shieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet why didn’t I think of that?

Here's my quick and dirty scouting report: 21 years old Over 6 Foot tall Pretty quick (see videos below). Faster than Doyle, slower than JJ Left-footed ^ Here's how he compares to JJ. A very similar profile. Number of passes is way down, but that's because he isn't playing for a team that dominates possesion. Seems like a perfect rotation option for that LCB hybrid role to me. Hard to say how competitive the dutch league is compared to the Premier League. Milos Kerkez is a first team for Bournemouth who came from a team of similar standing.