kingfox

Haven’t seen that many camera cuts since a backstage brawl on WWE.

He is a player I looked at along with Cameron Puertas and Hong Hyun-seok from the Jupiler as all three had solid creative statistics. El Khannouss in particular produced the 3rd most Smart Passes in the Jupiler last season, indicating his creative intelligence. His heat map and position history from last season, as I stated in my other post, he is a CAM who likes to drift into wide areas, particularly off the left where a number of his creative actions came from last season...

I believe he won Jupiler Young Player of the Season for 23/24. A CAM who can also play off the left. If Rudkin delivers this, I might get his face tattooed on my arm.

I don’t think a good chunk of the fanbase want us to splurge £20-30 million on high cost ‘exciting’ transfers. I just wish the club would be smarter in their transfer approach, go back to the approach that served us well in the past, signing young talents for moderate fees then making good profit on them, we have seemingly moved away from that approach and it’s bloody annoying. Over the years the team has been sprinkled with profitable assets, one of which we stupidly let go for free in Tielemans. From our first team squad(Discounting some of our academy players), who are our profitable assets right now? I’d say we only have two in Hermansen and Fatawu. While we’ll also be praying that the likes of Faes and Kristiansen have the seasons of their lives. This squad is too littered with ageing players, signing Ayew is yet another signing that won’t help us long term, and it’s also littered with assets that you just know we’ll struggle to get rid of in a few years time.

Is this slow?

Best thing about this is that’s literally his trademark move. Drop deep, spins his marker, then goes on a ball carrying run. So many of his dribbles from last season were exactly like that.

Fotis you’re the one that I want(You are the one I want) Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey

I’ve found a positive. He ranked 2nd in the Premier League for most offensive duels per90 last season

#WelcomeChristianBenteke #WelcomeMattTargett #GoodAppearanceRecord #PremierLeagueExperience

I have no problem with some of his attributes, presses well, good defensive work, master at winning free kicks. Elements of this deal though are infuriating and confusing. We have had some shit transfer windows in recent seasons, but from a negotiation and transfer fee perspective, I think this transfer window is the worst of the lot. Who in the right mind pays £8 million on a guy who turns 33 next month, it’s madness. Bobby Reid I didn’t mind as much because he was a free transfer, but Ayew is of similar profile, why on earth do we basically need two Bobby Reid’s, baffling.

I’m just a Scandinavian merchant and a poundland Ric mate.

Ligue 1 has been my go to for overseas football for the past two years. Typical that TNT ditch it once Gronbaek and Nanasi join the league

Looking forward to a deadline day deal for Christian Benteke as new striker. #PremierLeagueExperience #AyewandBentekereunited #33isthenew23

Hate when this thread goes hot

I don’t think his passing last night was genuinely terrible, his accurate passes from last night were pretty respectable. It’s that knack he has of producing some glaring misplaced passes, or getting caught on the ball which then leads to a potentially dangerous transition. A partnership of Winks and Skipp will no doubt look after the ball better, but it wouldn’t be without it’s negatives. They are similar players in terms of in possession, out of possession I expect Skipp to give us a bit more defensive bite than Winks usually does, but of course the glaring weakness would be a lack of presence and height. With Ndidi further up the pitch, then you’ll probably have to take Buonanotte out the team. What he produced last night was everything we were crying out for from a player in that role. A bit of flair mixed in with good defensive work. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cooper rotates between Skipp and Ndidi in terms of opposition, but having a midfield trio of Winks, Skipp and Ndidi would be so uninspiring, we can’t go down that route now Buonanotte has come in, we also might see another body come in, in that position too.

You know what you’re going to get in terms of upside and downside from Wilf. From a statistical standpoint he averaged 12.48 successful defensive actions last night, that’s exactly the type of number you want from your defensive midfielder, if he can remain at the 9-10 average mark for defensive actions, then you know he’s back to doing his job properly. Then comes the downside with his ability on the ball, which over the years has probably become his weakest point. Skipp will no doubt look after the ball better, but taking Ndidi out of the equation, you of course lose his defensive presence and height. Going to be interesting to see what Cooper does with the midfield over the coming weeks, maybe we’ll see numerous rotations depending on the opposition.

Fulham are an underrated side imo, but there’s elements of their team that we can target. I think a lot will boil down to the midfield duels, losing Palhinha was always going to damage them, but it looks like they’ll try to fill that void with the presence of Sander Berge. For that reason I wouldn’t take Ndidi out for Skipp in this game, we’ll need Ndidi’s presence and height. Elsewhere I wouldn’t be against moving Justin to LB and bringing in Ricardo, I’d be more confident in Justin trying to tame Traore than I would Kristiansen, even though Kristiansen performed well in the second half last night. Then the final conundrum would be whether to stick with Reid or not, in an away game for defensive workrate, it might be for the best if he remains, the only concern I’d have is if Fulham start to bombard us like Spurs did in the first half last night, Mavididi would give us a better outlet to counter than Reid would.

I’ve not been a huge advocate of Gus Hamer, especially the calls of potentially signing him last season under a Maresca system. If the idea is to be more direct and progress the ball forward quicker under Steve Cooper, then Gus Hamer would be absolutely ideal, was always one of the best progressive passers in the Championship when at Coventry.

I know we’ve just signed Skipp, but producing moves like this makes me really want Gus Hamer, his quick progressive passing ability would absolutely suit this style. As for yourself Strider, keep putting your content out there mate, the way you analyse games, more fans will be latching onto your YouTube channel in quick time 👍🏻

We saw at times last season under Maresca what can happen when we step up our aggression, that’s all that was needed last night and it made a tremendous difference. First half we got let off the hook, Spurs could have been out of sight. I thoroughly get the tactic of sitting back and trying to counter, but we were far too passive and lacked aggression. I also think Spurs triggered us in the right areas, we lacked outlets going forward, nothing was coming from our left hand side and Vardy didn’t do an awful lot in the first half either. Second half we looked like a completely different team, stepped up our aggression, moved the ball forward quicker and it was everything we used to love from a Leicester City team. The performances of Buonanotte throughout the whole game, and especially Kristiansen in that second half who looked a completely different player, I think those two especially epitomised our second half performance. More aggressive, more willingness and more on the front foot. There’s going to be times this season where we’ll probably take a few hidings, but if we can see that type of aggression in the majority of games we play, I’ll feel more optimistic about our chances of staying up.

Forgot about this post earlier, apologies. I’ll grab some clips if we end up signing him, can’t go wasting my video count when we’re in August But a few screenshots of data... His heat map from last season. I’ve left his pass accuracy in there too as that’s what brought him to my attention, he was one of the best forwards in the Jupiler last season for pass accuracy. Some of his listed positions from last season But in a few games as you can see from these heat maps, I’ll use matches against Genk and Leuven as examples, he’s more focused in that inside left channel... His dribbling and progressive run statistics are also excellent, yet again showcasing what I’ve mentioned a lot in recent weeks, that we seem to be targeting players who will give us more of a threat on the counter attack, if tonight’s game is anything to go by, then I can see why. Now, I best get some sleep

We’ll be back to moaning again when it turns out to be Jordan Ayew and Datro Fofana

He has the perfect mixture of flair and defensive grit. Keep playing like that, he’ll become a fans favourite very quickly.