Kelechi Iheanacho / Nacho Man

[The Doctor]

1 minute ago, HankMarvin said:

Where is the headline ??

I put appearances as he had scored 4 goals in 39 appearances as opposed to writing games like he has played full games.

Not sure what you’re missing

Saying 4 in 39 is misleading if most of those 39 are 10/15 minute cameos

[SpacedX]

Just now, The Doctor said:

Saying 4 in 39 is misleading if most of those 39 are 10/15 minute cameos

Agree. But the perplexing thing being, that he was one hell of a super-sub/impact player at Man City.

[HankMarvin]

Just now, The Doctor said:

Saying 4 in 39 is misleading if most of those 39 are 10/15 minute cameos

Hence saying appearances and not games 

[FLAN]

1 minute ago, Line-X said:

Agree. But the perplexing thing being, that he was one hell of a super-sub/impact player at Man City.

So perplexing how he got so many more chances with their untalented squad around him...

[HankMarvin]

3 minutes ago, F1_AN said:

So perplexing how he got so many more chances with their untalented squad around him...

Yeah when they was tonking teams week in week out by 5 and 6 

I’m baffled how a sub could have such a good record

Edited 30 December 2018 by HankMarvin

[reynard]

His price tag is against him. At 25 million we would expect a better more finished player. Sadly he is yet to deliver. If I was him I would instruct his agent to engineer a move away from us as I think it unlikely he will ever win over the fans who seem set against him.

He's been poor so far but the reception to him coming on the pitch yesterday was really very disappointing to hear.

[SpacedX]

1 minute ago, F1_AN said:

So perplexing how he got so many more chances with their untalented squad around him...

I understand the perception being that service was better - but regardless, he nonetheless showed an ability to finish and strong positional awareness which appear to have deserted him. I can still recall some of his goals for Man City and the chances that he got were no different - if anything harder to convert than some that he has missed here. There were a spate of opportunities that he either squandered or failed to seize in the first half against Spurs alone which probably equalled or were as good at those at Man City, which weren't if you recall simply tap ins. 

[LiberalFox]

We need him to be able to play as a number 9. 

[splinterdream]

24 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

We need him to be able to play as a number 9. 

We need better attacking midfielders

[siraaj_lcfc]

4 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

We need better attacking midfielders

Wut better than Madderz?

[funkyrobot]

4 hours ago, AlloverthefloorYesNdidi said:

Vardy never looked like scoring and he was on the pitch for over 60 mins

Vardy did tbf, had a chance in the first half and a good opportunity in the second. He also has the added bonus of a proven ability to get a goal even when he’s done nothing in the rest of the game, partly because of his pace. Iheanacho on the other hand isn’t blessed with pace or even speed of thought, he has barely scored a goal for us and it’s not as if he’s missing lots of chances. His runs simply don’t take him into areas that give him any chance to score. 

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

1 minute ago, funkyrobot said:

Vardy did tbf, had a chance in the first half and a good opportunity in the second. He also has the added bonus of a proven ability to get a goal even when he’s done nothing in the rest of the game, partly because of his pace. Iheanacho on the other hand isn’t blessed with pace or even speed of thought, he has barely scored a goal for us and it’s not as if he’s missing lots of chances. His runs simply don’t take him into areas that give him any chance to score. 

Dont agree with a lot of that but fair enough

[funkyrobot]

4 hours ago, The Doctor said:

Nor did Vardy tbf. And Iheanacho offered more in all-round game than Vardy, he was better than Vardy yesterday

Nacho barely did anything of any consequence and at no point did he look like he was going to score. Vardy was poor yesterday but taking off him for Iheanacho reduced our likelihood of scoring. That’s a fact unless you can show me statistics otherwise? 

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

6 minutes ago, funkyrobot said:

Nacho barely did anything of any consequence and at no point did he look like he was going to score. Vardy was poor yesterday but taking off him for Iheanacho reduced our likelihood of scoring. That’s a fact unless you can show me statistics otherwise? 

Our best chance to score came when Nacho was on the pitch and Vardy wasnt. Thats a fact

[The Doctor]

19 minutes ago, funkyrobot said:

Nacho barely did anything of any consequence and at no point did he look like he was going to score. Vardy was poor yesterday but taking off him for Iheanacho reduced our likelihood of scoring. That’s a fact unless you can show me statistics otherwise? 

Thats not a fact, that's an opinion. Vardy never looked like scoring yesterday, easily missing yet another 1v1 to the point where I don't even get excited when he goes through these days, so how taking him off reduced our chances isn't clear 

[splinterdream]

52 minutes ago, siraaj_lcfc said:

Wut better than Madderz?

to play with Madderz, better than Gray, Ghezzal, Albrighton

[Wilfcho]

1 hour ago, Line-X said:

Agree. But the perplexing thing being, that he was one hell of a super-sub/impact player at Man City.

Well man city is a super team

[inckley fox]

6 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

Thats not a fact, that's an opinion. Vardy never looked like scoring yesterday, easily missing yet another 1v1 to the point where I don't even get excited when he goes through these days, so how taking him off reduced our chances isn't clear 

Nothing could ever be clearer. We had a penalty a few minutes later. A very successful penalty taker wasn't on the pitch to take it.

 

As I've said plenty of times, the decision to remove Vardy was understandable. But you can't possibly deny that we'd have had a better chance of scoring if he'd been on the field to take the penalty. And this is the nature of the risk a manager takes, as justifiable as the decision might be, when he removes his goalscorer.

 

And, if you look at our goalscoring record with and without Vardy on the pitch over the past half season, or two seasons, or four, you'll see plenty more evidence that we are, indeed, a lot less likely to score when he's not on the pitch. With or without Puel. That is a fact. Yes, he missed a chance, but he's hardly receiving ample supply and we can't expect strikers to overcome this problem in the way he somehow managed to last season. He, like Iheanacho, or anyone else who plays up top for us, or even for Southampton when Puel was there, is on the fringes of the game. He also has some responsibility for that, but so does our midfield, and so does our manager. Puel's been quite a common denominator now, for more than one club, with regard to this sort of problem.

 

I don't see where the benefit lies in denying this. If we do, we'll go buying more centre forwards that we don't need, alienating others, and getting the best out of nobody. Surely it's better to accept that something is wrong and tweak it.

[The Doctor]

40 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

Nothing could ever be clearer. We had a penalty a few minutes later. A very successful penalty taker wasn't on the pitch to take it.

 

As I've said plenty of times, the decision to remove Vardy was understandable. But you can't possibly deny that we'd have had a better chance of scoring if he'd been on the field to take the penalty. And this is the nature of the risk a manager takes, as justifiable as the decision might be, when he removes his goalscorer.

 

And, if you look at our goalscoring record with and without Vardy on the pitch over the past half season, or two seasons, or four, you'll see plenty more evidence that we are, indeed, a lot less likely to score when he's not on the pitch. With or without Puel. That is a fact. Yes, he missed a chance, but he's hardly receiving ample supply and we can't expect strikers to overcome this problem in the way he somehow managed to last season. He, like Iheanacho, or anyone else who plays up top for us, or even for Southampton when Puel was there, is on the fringes of the game. He also has some responsibility for that, but so does our midfield, and so does our manager. Puel's been quite a common denominator now, for more than one club, with regard to this sort of problem.

 

I don't see where the benefit lies in denying this. If we do, we'll go buying more centre forwards that we don't need, alienating others, and getting the best out of nobody. Surely it's better to accept that something is wrong and tweak it.

You keep banging the penalty drum and refusing to understand that the penalty cannot be a consideration in the sub. This is abysmal revisionism based on hindsight. Would you want him on the pitch to take the penalty? Yes, but it's irrelevant because you can't manage in hindsight.

[Ceirboy]

I can see both arguments but you cannot legislate for occurrences that might happen after someone has left the pitch to be fair. It should be that the replacement is likely to carry on where the substituted left off or at least take over any responsibility that guy had. 

I think he should have taken the penalty too.

[turtmcfly]

53 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

Nothing could ever be clearer. We had a penalty a few minutes later. A very successful penalty taker wasn't on the pitch to take it.

 

As I've said plenty of times, the decision to remove Vardy was understandable. But you can't possibly deny that we'd have had a better chance of scoring if he'd been on the field to take the penalty. And this is the nature of the risk a manager takes, as justifiable as the decision might be, when he removes his goalscorer.

That's just not how a complex set of interactions over time work. When you 'go back in time' and change a major variable (i.e. Vardy stays on) it will change everything that follows. There might not have been a penalty. There might have been five.

 

Your argument is the equivalent of saying 'had Maddison scored the game would undoubtedly have ended 1-1'.

[inckley fox]

4 minutes ago, turtmcfly said:

That's just not how a complex set of interactions over time work. When you 'go back in time' and change a major variable (i.e. Vardy stays on) it will change everything that follows. There might not have been a penalty. There might have been five.

 

Your argument is the equivalent of saying 'had Maddison scored the game would undoubtedly have ended 1-1'.

Oh come on, where does that leave us?! Every outcome can be affected by any action, obviously. We accept it was right for Ranieri to drop De Laet and bring in Simpson as right back, and that the outcome was greater defensive strength, and eventually the title. But what if De Laet had stayed at right back? Maybe Mahrez would have improved defensively, evolved into an even greater player, we'd have hit 90 points and he'd have been sold for 150m. And we accept that Ranieri setting a 79 point target in December 2015 was one of his great managerial masterstrokes, but what if he hadn't done it? Who's to say we wouldn't have done even better?

 

On the flipside, we accept the signings of Musa and Slimani were mistakes, because they performed poorly for us and missed chances we'd have expected other players to bag - but what if we'd never made those signings, and signed even worse players? Or nobody? Maybe it would have been even worse... So therefore how can anyone judge these signings to have been mistakes.

 

Our judgement of the success of decisions over the course of all history is based on an assessment of what happens, and a 'best guess' of how those decisions affected them. 

 

In this case, it's not especially complex. We took a goalscorer off, working on the principle that we'd be better served by preserving his fitness, and that we wouldn't be at any great disadvantage because he wasn't proving especially effective on the day. The decision made sense, even if we didn't all agree with it. But what happened after that was that we won a penalty and our expert penalty taker wasn't on the pitch to take it, and we subsequently missed the penalty. It's as clear-cut an instance of a decision backfiring in football as you'll ever find. If your argument against this, in earnest, is that no decision can possibly be viewed positively or negatively in retrospect because we don't know what would have happened if it wasn't taken, then literally the entire study of world history would have to be abolished.

 

The only way you can say that decision was anything other than a mistake, according to your argument, is literally to argue that it's impossible to ever say a decision was a mistake because you never know what would have happened if it wasn't taken.

 

How about we admit that, while it was a perfectly sensible decision, it didn't quite work out for us? Isn't that easier?

[inckley fox]

53 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

You keep banging the penalty drum and refusing to understand that the penalty cannot be a consideration in the sub. This is abysmal revisionism based on hindsight. Would you want him on the pitch to take the penalty? Yes, but it's irrelevant because you can't manage in hindsight.

It's called looking at the success of a decision with the benefit of hindsight, which is how all decisions and how all management is ultimately assessed. That's just a fact of life.

 

It doesn't mean the decision didn't make sense. It just means it didn't work out. That's surely got to be one of the most basic concepts to grasp with regard to both yesterday's game, and how humanity in general reviews its past choices.

 

How, out of curiosity, would you go about reflecting on any of Puel's past decisions as having had a positive outcome? If you take the view that hindsight is an invalid measurement of success, then that leaves us unable to judge anything he's ever done unless we only take the information available at the time. So any eyebrow-raising decision he's ever made which works out is a bad decision too.

 

Why not just accept the very obvious evidence? He made a call, it appeared to be well-reasoned but it went wrong.

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, funkyrobot said:

Vardy did tbf, had a chance in the first half and a good opportunity in the second. He also has the added bonus of a proven ability to get a goal even when he’s done nothing in the rest of the game, partly because of his pace. Iheanacho on the other hand isn’t blessed with pace or even speed of thought, he has barely scored a goal for us and it’s not as if he’s missing lots of chances. His runs simply don’t take him into areas that give him any chance to score. 

Plus, when Vardy isn't scoring or even having a good game for him, he's still causing problems with defenders and continually running into space. Nacho does little to nothing with a two gear pace of dead slow to stop. This may be excusable if you're lazy but score plenty of goals like Yakubu or those like him who insinctively knew where to be at a particular moment in time, but Nacho doesn't appear to have that or any other kind of instinctive play. For a team like us he hasn't got enough about him. What really infuriates me is his apparent belief that he's better than he actually is at times as if we're lucky to have such a star like him from Manchester City. An example would be when Ghezzal came on and near to the area, Nacho tapped a ball to him on the edge of the area. Whatever Ghezzal did with it didn't come to much but Nacho held his arms out to him and glared as if he'd just played a worldy of pass and provided a guilt edged scoring opportunity,  what a complete dick! For a player who's first touch is at best moderate to piss poor, he needs to concentrate less on his team mates play and concentrate more on his own abundance of inadequacies. 

 

Our recruitment team shouldn't be castigated for his purchase because they,  like us reasonably expected a lot more from him for the fee and reputation. His national manager has also been vocal about his displays and effort. He doesn't fit, doesn't for me remotely look as if he's doing his best and I feel strongly feel we need rid of him if we were to come in with an adequate offer. He's the only player in our younger element that I see in yet this light because with all the others I see effort and a keeness to improve. 

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

9 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

Plus, when Vardy isn't scoring or even having a good game for him, he's still causing problems with defenders and continually running into space. Nacho does little to nothing with a two gear pace of dead slow to stop. This may be excusable if you're lazy but score plenty of goals like Yakubu or those like him who insinctively knew where to be at a particular moment in time, but Nacho doesn't appear to have that or any other kind of instinctive play. For a team like us he hasn't got enough about him. What really infuriates me is his apparent belief that he's better than he actually is at times as if we're lucky to have such a star like him from Manchester City. An example would be when Ghezzal came on and near to the area, Nacho tapped a ball to him on the edge of the area. Whatever Ghezzal did with it didn't come to much but Nacho held his arms out to him and glared as if he'd just played a worldy of pass and provided a guilt edged scoring opportunity,  what a complete dick! For a player who's first touch is at best moderate to piss poor, he needs to concentrate less on his team mates play and concentrate more on his own abundance of inadequacies. 

 

Our recruitment team shouldn't be castigated for his purchase because they,  like us reasonably expected a lot more from him for the fee and reputation. His national manager has also been vocal about his displays and effort. He doesn't fit, doesn't for me remotely look as if he's doing his best and I feel strongly feel we need rid of him if we were to come in with an adequate offer. He's the only player in our younger element that I see in yet this light because with all the others I see effort and a keeness to improve. 

Are you talking about when Nacho stepped over the ball and left it for Ghezzal but Ghezzal didnt read it? Either way, all footballers hold their arms out and glare a bit when stuff like that happens

 

Lots of speculative slating of the guy there and stuff about his touch is just plain wrong. Dont know why the vitriol, i've never seen anything to suggest he is arrogant. He's taken a step down to actually play football. Lots of players dont do that