honeybradger

I am worried that Nelson isn't starting, Monga isn't starting, Alves isn't coming off the bench and Evans isn't even involved. Feels like the youngsters are going to held at arms length for yet another season which would be the wrong decision.

Based on status among fans maybe but as a football player he wasnt good enough to be in this conversation.

This is good news. Rudkin, please for the love of anything please do not sign Michael Keane, Ben Mee or Craig Dawson as a replacement. We have enough centrebacks without Coady.

Yet a newly promoted Bundesliga side turned over a recently relegated PL side. Very much reminded me of the Everton 4-0 with how static our defence was.

The fans who turn on academy graduates quickly are usually not the same ones who wanted them in the team in the first place. Who cares if academy graduates don't live up to expectations? They never cost us a transfer fee.

Monga is more technically gifted but Sterling has more pace. Monga more reminds me of young Jadon Sancho.

That's the point I was making though. Belgium are high in the FIFA rankings but that is purely down to a few standout individuals and are weak in multiple positions compared to where they are as a team. Belgium is considered the 8th best national team but does Wout Faes even get into a single PL side? The 3 promoted are the only ones he has an argument for. Similarly i dont think he gets into most of the teams in the top 5 leagues. Yes Faes plays for the 8th best national team but that isnt a good representative of his individual quality as it is simply because Belgium are bereft of good options in his position. The belgium national team is an absolute anomaly in respect to the gap in quality between the team overall and their weaker players.

Wout Faes is the latest Belgian to have him being an international player used as to why he is actually good. I remember it being used as a reason that Praet should play over Maddison and now Praet is back in the Belgian league. Belgium is a small country with a s shallow talent pool that happened to produce a few exceptional talents over the last decade that raised the level of their entire team. Just because their star players are good does not mean Faes is good, he has little competition for his position. Faes's career will go the same way as Praet, back to the Belgian league once he has left us

Yh I hadn't watched the first game yesterday at the time of making this comment and I watched it today and Soumare was really bad. It is worth noting that the quality of the pitch was terrible though, pretty much everyone apart from El Khannouss and Nelson struggled to get anything done that game

Alves is still exciting and has the potential to develop into a solid PL player. Monga is just another level though, he might already be a PL ready player at 16?

I was saying that saying Vardy isn't a good tackler is bonkers considering how important his tackling was for us in his early days. His ability to win the ball in the opposition half was immense. The objective of tackling is to win the ball back and he did that time and time again, therefore he is a good tackler. I wasnt advocating playing El Khannouss as a defensive midfielder but you can play in the pivot without being a defensive midfielder. You can have an 8 and a 6 in the pivot or even two 8s like Barcelona do with De Jong and Pedri or Bayern had with Goretzka and Kimmich.

My whole point is that Khannouss is currently a square peg in a round hole at attacking midfielder. He is a natural 8 who should be predominantly based in our half and venture into the opposition half rather than be pinned as our furthest forward midfielder. He is a much better tackler than Tielemans was for us who successfully played in the pivot when we won the FA cup, much better tackler than Winks as well who currently plays the pivot for us. If you compare tackling ability to Ngolo Kante as a benchmark then there are no natural tacklers apart from Ngolo Kante. When I see El Khannouss play i see a Tielemans replacement, not a Maddison one. His best moments for us last season were receiving the ball in our half and progressing the ball up the pitch. When he is in the opposition half he often struggles to open up the opposition defence, his final pass isn't always great and his shooting is inconsistent. We need to play to his strengths by playing him deeper where his ability to dictate play can shine and minimise his time outside the opponents box where he often struggles to make things happen. Yes, he's not going to be elite at protecting the backline but as I've said we have had success in the championship and the PL playing players who are worse defensively than El Khannouss.

They are a bundesliga side, they will be competing against the likes of Dortmund, Bayern, Leverkusen etc next season. They're better than most we will face in the championship. Think of a team around Everton's level.

Bilal is a strong tackler, I dont quite understand your point about tackling not being one of his strengths, you cant just say that without backing it up. The stats and the eye test all say the opposite. The point about Vardy is bonkers as well, in his younger years he was the best defensive forward in the league, you cant win as many tackles as he did without being a good tackler. Being able to tell if someone is a good tackler is simple: 1. being mobile enough to close the opposition down. 2. Positioning yourself to make the tackle. 3. Being able to win the tackle once you commit. El Khannnous is more than capable of all 3. I cant see how it's acceptable to have Winks and Skipp in the deeper roles who arent mobile, cant position themselves properly to tackle and in Winks's case loses the tackle more often than not it he goes for it. In terms of El Khannouss taking too many risks with the ball in the pivot he is an intelligent player and will understand the difference in playing in front of his own defense as compared to the opposition's. Particularly as he has played deeper many times before. It's not like you are comparing El Khannouss to Rodri or prime Matic, he will be able to play that role to a higher standard than Winks, Skipp, Soumare or Ndidi. Think of Tielemans for us, El Khannouss should be playing that role but we keep on trying to play him like a Maddison which he isn't.

Whatever it is Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp arent in it. As much as our fans dont want to admit it after ragging on them for years but Soumare and Ndidi are better. There's a reason that was our starting midfield last season in the PL despite it not bringing results. I think at the very least we need to play El Khannouss deeper with one of Alves or Page in front of him. Personally i would partner El Khannous with Page and play Alves ahead of him but that's not a popular opinion on here. For me we need to get as many of the better players on the pitch as possible.

If he was £5mil there would still be a consensus on here that he's not good enough. If he was cheaper you just wouldnt have the hipsters like yourself saying that the reason people criticise him is because of his transfer fee. Otherwise the reaction to him would be the same. He's not good enough at foofball, plain and simple.

If El Khannouss is on the way out (as implied by him being in the B team) i am a bit disappointed that Alves has lined up in our B team. He should be the next attacking midfielder in line for us surely?

He did have an 18 goal championship season many blue moons ago. Sadly he seems to have built a career off of that season and at the end of the tunnel we've been lumbered with him.

He plays deeper for Morroco. I have a feeling he is going to be misused here until he leaves then another manager 'discovers' his best position. He may never be a goals and assists machine but his quality on the ball is undeniable, we dont get him the ball often enough. Based on him playing high up the pitch in our last friendly I fear we have another manager who doesnt understand how to use him, hopefully if Cifuentes has anything about him he sees the light.

BEK is simply not an attacking midfielder. Stick him in a deeper role as as the point of contact to progress the ball up the pitch and he will be elite. Compare him to someone like Winks, he is taller, more physical, better passer, better workrate, more press resistant, better ball carrier, better dribbler. We should be playing him in the same role that Winks plays, not as our furthest forward midfielder where he is isolated a lot of the time.

I know it's not entirely accurate but Dewsbury Hall's whoscored rating in our 22/23 season was higher than any PL season Skipp has had. I genuinely dont think he was that bad that season, his worst performances for us would still be better than most of the ones Skipp had for us last season.

Dewsbury Hall at least showed some quality in our relegation season and was good for us the season before that where we finished 8th. Skipp on the other hand i just struggle to see how he's going to contribute for us next season but this time last time we went down i was strongly questioning the use of Ndidi as a an attacking midfielder which somehow worked out so what do i know? The championship is crap after all.

5 years ago. Soyuncu was in the PL team of the year 6 years ago and now he's playing in Turkey. If you actually watch him play football he clearly lacks quality but people are gaslighting themselves that he will tear up the division next season because he was good on loan half a decade ago. If you compare him to Dewsbury Hall for example who was our star player in the championship last time around there's a clear gap in quality. You could point to KDH's ball carrying, playmaking, athleticism and runs into the box and say those were his key qualities. What exactly does Skipp do well? His positioning is very poor, often times he is left standing like a statue whilst the opposition bypass him, his passing isn't good, he's not particularly energetic, he's short, he's not a goal threat, he's not press resistant, he doesnt progress the ball up the pitch well, often times just laying it straight back to the centrebacks. When he was in the championship last time around he was a lot more mobile and a lot more confident, that's all gone.

Did you not watch the games against Zalaegerszeg, Leuven or Peterborough? Skipp is nowhere near good enough, even against relatively weak opposition. That season for Norwich was 5 years ago, it's like expecting Ndidi to still be one of the best midfielders in the PL because he was in that category from 2019-2021, like Ndidi Skipp is just not the same player anymore after his injuries.

Skipp is a £5mil player, not a £15mil one. £15mil would still be a massive overpayment, if he were to be sold this summer we would get nowhere near that, if any offers at all.