honeybradger

It will be interesting to see Mavididi in the PL next year. As good as Barnes was on his day, he also dropped a lot of stinkers whereas Mavididi at his worst is just ineffective going forwards but still works his arse off tracking back.

Is it possible that there's a communication issue? Maybe for Maresca counter attacking primarily references sitting behind the ball and letting the opposition have possession whilst for the fans counter attacking means quickly transitioning the ball up the pitch when there's space. We certainly did not seem to 'hate' moving the ball quickly up the pitch as seen on Monday. Hopefully he is not opposed to quick transitions as, for me, those first two goals we scored were peak football.

I didnt meant to imply that he's not always been good, what i meant by my comment is that he's a good player and is still improving as the season goes on.

He's a good player now and i think he will only get better as the season goes on. I think he will do well in the PL next season.

There's a good player in there imo, but he needs 6 months of consistent game time (at least) for him to begin to realise his potential which he is not going to get with us apart from a run during AFCON. I dont think Maresca or the club expected Ndidi to be as good as he is in the 8 role which has led to Casadei struggling to get on pace with the team.

It usually happens when Piroe scores which has not happened recently. The comparison is more to show that Vardy and Iheanacho are still scoring at comparable rates to the top scorers in this league. The only reasonable criticism towards the two is that they are not performing up to their own standards, which would be a level above the other best strikers in the league like Armstrong or Piroe. For me it is unreasonable to say that they are 'wank' or bad at this level. Despite facing lots of criticism from our fans they are still among the most productive strikers in the league, if their worst is decent championship level performances then we should not be tossing them aside for unproven strikers like Cannon.

Piroe has 8 goals in 1883 minutes, that is 0.38 goals per 90. That's almost half the goal output of someone like Vardy yet you still get some fans on here who are down in the dumps that we didn't sign him. Granted Piroe is playing as a 10 this year but it's not like he offers creativity and technical ability to make up for his goal scoring numbers.

Between them they have only played 1700 minutes this season. 11 goals in 1700 minutes isnt that bad, that's a goal every 150 minutes.

The way it's phrased makes it seem like it's guaranteed that he will prove himself, it should be 'whether' he comes good not 'once' he comes good. Personally i would be surprised if he displaces either Iheanacho or Vardy when they are fit again.

Why are some of our fans so obsessed with Cannon? He could be good, he could be bad, so far there is very little to go off of.

Without the points deduction he would have Everton on 23 points and they have won 4 out of their last 5. Considering they were playing relegation football when he joined he's done well to get them to midtable form, in fact they're not far off from challenging for Europe.

Vestegaard is a key player for us at the moment. Personally i dont want to see us gamble next season with lots of new players when what we have is working so well. Having to bed in new players in important positions for us whilst fighting for survival is not a good mix.

It is a bit worrying that we struggle to make things happen with KDH and Mavididi on the left. As much as i do like KDH, Ndidi seems to be much better at finding space to receive the ball and he works better off our wingers as a result of it. Hopefully with less teams sitting deep against us next season KDH will have more opportunities to get Mavididi into the game.

You are correct, I dont know where i got that stat from. It might have been that Vardy has the highest Ballon d'or finish out of any englishman in the last 10 years.

Haaland himself said vardy was the best in the world at making runs behind the opponent's defence. Vardy is the only englishman to get a top 10 ballon d'or finish in the last 10 years. Pep Guardiola said he was one of the best strikers he has seen (although his word isnt always to be trusted). Aguero called Vardy a 'phenomenon'. Suarez, arguably the best striker of the 2010s, asked Vardy for his shirt after our friendly against Barcelona. I think the opinions of some of the best strikers in recent years might be worth something. You wont find similar quotes for strikers like Morata, Werner or Aubameyang.

A reminder that some fans were begging for us to sign Joel Piroe in the summer. He needs almost twice as many league minutes to score as Vardy and iheanacho who have been heavily berated on here (usually by those who wanted us to sign piroe)

I agree with everything you said except regarding Mavididi. For me he is our most underrated player, his footwork for his second goal was outstanding, the way he made space for himself with his touches was almost Mahrez-esque. Yes he is 25 but I don't think his ceiling as a player has been determined yet, I think there is a good chance he will be a much better player at the end of this season than he was at the start of it and even compared to how he is now.

Calvin Stengs seems to be doing well for Feyenoord. Albeit that's after 3 years of mediocrity.

There was some ridiculous stat that if Wednesday continue to gain points at the same rate they would have to play 60 games this season to not have the lowest championship points tally ever. Wednesday are on a completely different level to Rotherham.

I have a feeling he's going to be terrible all season then amazing for the last 3 games and go back to chelsea.

Brendan Rodgers football summed up in one photo below. Even if they had 'genuine quality' it doesnt matter if you play windscreen wiper football.

There was a stat after Celtic's last CL loss that Rodgers was the worst manager to have managed 20 or more games in the champions league. To be fair to him it's impressive that a manager of his 'caliber' has even gotten to manage 20 games in the champions league.

19/20 was one of the worst years to watch overall for me, alongside our relegation seasons. Yes the first half of the season was good but the second half was worse than watching us last year. We had champions league football to fight for but couldn't manage better than relegation form for almost half of a season. I just cant reconcile how a couple losses made us completely lose our heads that year.

I think most of us can accept the benefits of drawing the opposition in and exploiting the space. It's when we already have space to exploit but still default to recycling possession at the back that frustrates many fans. Thankfully Maresca gave them a bollocking at half time and we played some decent stuff in the second half. It's good to know that he apparently finds the risk averse approach unacceptable. That's the main difference between Maresca and Rodgers for me, you had Rodgers frothing at the mouth when we were 3-0 up at half time against West Brom because we lacked control whereas Maresca gave them a bollocking after Rodger's dream half the other day (a controlled snooze fest). The intent is hopefully to play some exciting football rather than grind opponents to death.