How many games do you require to judge a player or new signing?

[STUHILL]

There are a lot of factors for me, including if they are coming from abroad, their age and also in Mendy's case, any injury issues but generally after about 15 games, I expect to see some real signs of their ability and whether they are able to have a positive impact in the league. 

 

Mendy still has some way to go before I can judge him as well as Slimani, although I can see why any are quicker to judge Slimani, due to his transfer fee. I've seen more of Musa and although many of these have only been from the bench, I think we can all agree that he has pace in abundance, but not much else so far. 

[StanSP]

none.

give me YouTube videos all day long.

[VLC86]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

none.

give me YouTube videos all day long.

Alright Mr Allen we have told you before, you aren't welcome here.

[TiffToff88]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

none.

give me YouTube videos all day long.

I remember watching videos of a frenchman nigel pearson signed and thinking we were in for a real treat. Fastforward to the end of the season, 20 games and 1 goal later, and a playoff semi-final penalty shootout against Cardiff. It was then i decided never to trust youtube again.

[StanSP]

8 minutes ago, TiffToff88 said:

I remember watching videos of a frenchman nigel pearson signed and thinking we were in for a real treat. Fastforward to the end of the season, 20 games and 1 goal later, and a playoff semi-final penalty shootout against Cardiff. It was then i decided never to trust youtube again.

hossain kaebi was the one that did it for me. 

[Foxxed]

Our best striker took more than a season. It took us a season and a half to appreciate Shinji - and he managed to help us win the Premier League in that time!

[ZeGuy]

To me, 10-15 games would be about right to see if the guy has potential and just needs to adjust or is just a flop.

 

I needed two games to see that Ndidi was the real deal. 

 

10-12 to completely write off Musa (although I never was impressed from the very beginning).

 

Slim is a good striker. Played to his strength he'd bag at least 15 in a season. You don't need 20 games to see it and anyone saying otherwise is either biased or knows jack about football. Don't care about the transfer fee, he didn't set it himself. But I doubt he'll ever find his place in this team.

 

Mendy is a hard one. He didn't particularly attract my attention every time he played and I found him average at best, mediocre at wort like against Millwall. That said, the injuries might play a huge role and I didn't see him in a team performing. So he's on stand by. Question is will he ever play again with a blue shirt?

[Sharpe's Fox]

If I see one bad touch or misplaced pass when I'm in a bad mood I'll hate that player till he fvcks off.

[STUHILL]

Just now, Sharpe's Fox said:

If I see one bad touch or misplaced touch when I'm in a bad mood I'll hate that player till he fvcks off.

Knowing how your mind works on this, was worth starting this thread alone 

[Gerard]

I ticked 2-5.

 

I'm not saying that's all they have but in the majority of cases you can usually tell quite early on if they're going to be any good or not. Not that you can't change your mind but if I had to judge every Leicester player after five games I'd be right a lot more than I'm wrong if they're any good or not.

[kingcarr21]

18 minutes

[lcfc old boy]

as many games until you think I hope he hasn't got a release clause

[foxinsocks]

When vardy arrived.... he himself said he had to do a lot of work to learn to play huge centre backs.  It took a year.

If any player is new to the pl we need to understand what they have and what they will need to develop.... i am not just talking about getting used to the speed or close pressure or needing to gain confidence.... i mean what skills and mental representations will they need to develop in order that they will read and anticipate to their advabtage (this reply is too short for me to speculate how...).

Eg. Slimani needs a personal mentor to work on this stuff

 

So when we understand what they need to improve ...we still need to assess how viable such improvenment is and if the player will put in the effort. 

 

Ps.i am seriously considering writing to the club to propose such a programme for slimani and amarty 

[EGBFitness]

I put one. 

 

You can tell instantly if a player has the attributes to be a success or not. That's not meaning the player will be an instant success but can always tell if a player will add something to the side or have potential. 

[Arriba Los Zorros]

In Ahmed Musa's case, some people in denial will need about 2 full seasons before realising he's a flop.

 

Personally around 10 games, I went 5-10 because in that time you can see what basics they have and if they have potential to kick on.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, StanSP said:

none.

give me YouTube videos all day long.

Football Manager for me.

[Koke]

Gray has had bad/indifferent games but I believe he will be a good player for us because his technique, close ball control and first touch is Premier League quality. The rest of his game can be worked on (decision making, positional sense etc). 

 

So if I see a player with the above quality in the first 5-10 games but he's struggling with the pace and physicality of the league, I will give him a full season to settle in before I judge him.

 

Musa is the polar opposite of Gray in terms of ability, hence why people like Gray but lay into Musa calling him useless. 

[urban.spaceman]

Vardy really struggled in his first season in the Championship, and then his first season in the Premier League.

Mahrez, though clearly talented, only showed rare glimpses of his genius in the 18 months he was here before last season.

 

It takes some players longer than others to fully understand the league they're in and learn the role in the team the manager/coaches want them to play - last season happened for a number of reasons but one major one is that these players had been playing together for a long time (Kasper, Morgan, Drinkwater and Vardy had all been together for at least 4-5 years), they knew each other's roles and jobs and with Claudio's genius they perfected a unique style and game plan over the course of the season.

 

Exceptions to this in the last few years are players like Kante and Ndidi - who've come into an already good squad and become a perfect cog in the machine. Shinji also deserves a lot of credit for the phenomenal work he does particularly at the sacrifice of being a proper striker. Gray also came in last season and performed very well but was reduced to cameos sadly.

 

For this reason I'm willing to give Musa and Slimani more time - Musa is still young and needs to be helped in understanding his role better, while for me Slimani is a bit unlucky in that some of his poor form coincided with our shocking form and going away to AFCON and then being injured didn't help - Shinji deserves his place in the team so it's Slimani's job to prove he's worth it. His best game for us was Man City; if he can regain that somehow then we're in business next season. He should be getting an opportunity or two in the fixture congestion coming up so he really needs to shine.

 

 

[Detroit Blues]

All you have to do is look at the old posts to see how people thought of our players when times we're tough. Various positions I've seen held by people:

 

Schmeichel will never be good enough, we should be starting Hamer.

Kramaric is class, he's the future. Start him over Vardy / Ulloa / Nugent, etc.

Simpson isn't very good, no reason to hold onto him while he's going through legal troubles.

Morgan should be dropped, and his captaincy given to Cambiasso, Schmeichel, etc.

 

 

 

 

[Thracian]

There are so many variables there's no simple answer.

 

With some players like Hernandez you couid see on day one that he was just not quick enough, strong enough or defiant enough to be a Premiership defender for us. Nor did he have any specific qualities which might make him an "occasional" asset so, basically, I've no idea why we signed him at all.

 

Chilwell, by comparison, has enough pace, aggression, mobility and fastish football skills to be home as either a defender or as a left-sided midfielder and, furthermore, has the time available to hone those skills to be still more effective and reliable.

 

Those skills could be clearly seen on any day. and likely his shortcomings too given that he's not a player who hides when he's up against it. He stays involved and tries to take responsibility which is another asset for all that it does show his inexperience at times. But inexperience is not the issue when judging the potential of a player to be an asset          

 

Now let's take Mendy and Ndidi or even Kante. Mendy got a bad injury very soon into his career here and doesn't seem to have ever recovered properly so harsh though it may be the guy's been a sicknote and of little use to us. My first question would be how likely is a sustained ankle injury likely to affect him long term? Physically and/or mentally? Will he ever be able to sustain the pace of a Premiership season? I'd have my doubts.

 

However, Mendy did manage to play a few games and in none of those games did he show the skills or the strength of body or mind to dominate and influence the game. Of course it might be said he was still focusing on finding his place in the team - or even the club - but that makes two things I'm concerned about.

 

Compare that with Kante who made a massive impression from the off, sustained that influence and never seemed to get injured or need time out and there'd be no-one surely who would choose Mendy ahead of Kante for a signing.

 

Ndidi was slightly different. He didn't have it easy playing in a struggling side and was as bad an anyone else against Southampton in our 3-0 defeat. But even in those first few games you could see his various abilities, his constant involvement whatever mistakes he made and his determination to make a difference.

 

Thereafter those qualities have been confirmed and more to the point where he's settled in completely, is readily and obviously accepted as a worthy addition by his  team-mates he also has the added the bonus of being a genuine goalscoring threat where we haven't had much threat at all for a while.

 

And, of course, Ndidi's success has quite likely affected  any assessor's view of Mendy's value to us. Will he likely replace Ndidi or Drinkwater? Not from anything I've seen. And is he worth keeping on the bench ahead of Amartey or King when we might be able to invest in someone a lot more exciting? It's be a simple decision to me from what I've seen so far.

 

Signings, whether for the present or the future don't just need to be good all-round footballers and strong, resilient athletes, they need to maintain the standards we already set and add something more. Anything less will take the club backwards over time.

 

But you need to view a player narrowly (in terms of basics) and broadly in terms of potential or even re-deployment. Sometimes, for instance, a fast, aggressive winger can be converted into a full-back or a big, strong, brave defender can be uitlised as an attacker, the legendary Steve Walsh being a prime example. So it's not always just about seeing how a player performs in his regular position. Being able to adapt is a potential quality in itself.

 

So basically I'd say basic footballing skills, character and the potential to add something different are easily and quickly seen but judging any potential for improvement, adaptation, leadership and so on might be worth additional observation, assuming the basic needs are covered.             .               

 

Five to 10 games generally but up to 20 games occasionally.

[Alf Bentley]

I've gone 20-38 as something of an average, but it varies to a ridiculous extent.

 

After a whole season, it looked 50-50 whether Vardy was good enough for the top half of the Championship.

After several seasons, Schmeichel was probably lower Premier standard...now he's arguably one of the best keepers in the PL

Yet I'd have been confident about N'Didi becoming a top player after about 3 games....maybe 5 for Kante.

 

Too soon to tell for Mendy. I'd be confident that Slimani will be OK at this level, but possibly no better than OK, at least with our team formation/tactics (he has good finishing/heading/physicality/anticipation, but lacks pace & creativity).

Sadly, I'd be fairly sure that Musa won't make the grade here, just because his confidence must be shot. But he might be one of those who goes on to do well elsewhere....or maybe here next season? Not confident about that....

 

 

[Bossman Blessed It]

Age, purpose and unfortunately price tag relative to wealth have an impact too. With Gray, not only was the cost actually really low at £3.5 million, we signed an 18/19 (not sure which) year old who had shown a hell of a lot of promise - the gamble was worth it, he's developing well, is worth a hell of a lot more and we didn't require him to make an instant impact as we already had wingers who played in his position with more experience. Bad games? Yes. Bad decisions? Yes. Bad signing? No, as he ticks every box in the development plan of the club (and, is actually a very talented player now he's been given a decent amount of game time). A very similar thing could be said about Amartey and also Kaputska. 

 

Slimani: Is he young? No, he isn't. What did we sign him for? I really do believe he was bought in with the purpose of being a key man, starting more or less all games and the intention was to shoulder the responsibility that Vardy clearly has; a problem still unsolved. Price tag? £30+ million. Now, for a club of our stature, that is expensive. With the financial gains from our title win and the TV rights, it probably isn't a big deal for the owners. Bad signing? Yes, because he hasn't fit the purpose. 

 

 

[AKCJ]

5-10 for me if we're on about an average.

 

 

[fleckneymike]

The disadvantage nearly all this summers recruits have is that they've joined a team that won the league. With the best will in the world our trajectory this season was always going to be slightly lower than last year. Additionally we always like to think that signings are upgrades rather than squad fillers.

 

Musa has had the hardest task because he is essentially an expensive Vardy, we now know what a striker with pace should be capable of and that means every mistake Musa makes (and he makes a few) serves to highlight that he is no Vardy.

Slimani has it slightly easier (even though his fee is larger) because as a 'big man' we can only compare him to Ulloa - a player who isn't a regular, so we don't have too much to go on in terms of comparisons.

Mendy has 'benefited' from being injured and may even be helped by the arrival of N'didi who is more similar in style (if not stature) to Kante than Mendy ever will be.

N'didi has benefited from only joining in the winter and having a 'visible' style of play (interception, tackles etc).

[themightyfin]

If he has a release clause you know he's going to make it