Soumaré (signed)

[Jimbo]

12 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

It's not really staggering, the people that do that job often don't become statistical animals (in an attacking sense.)

 

Ngolo Kante and Shinji Okazaki basically won us a league title doing it in 15/16, neither is considered to have been much of an attacking contribution that year but both did the same thing and that's carrying the ball up the middle of the park. When Ngolo left, I remember saying this at the time, we actually missed his forward momentum more than we probably missed our ball winning. We were offensively impotent in 16/17, often resorting to smashing long balls in to channels for Vardy to chase where the year before Ngolo would have driven through the middle of the park carrying the ball.

 

But the player that does that role tends to end up laying it off to a winger or attacking midfielder who provides an assist. Kevin and Riyad did the vast majority of our chance creation setting up Vards.

Exactly this, and Kante is a prime example of why stats sometimes don't tell the full story when it comes to attacks.

 

Everyone was so obsessed with his defensive capabilities that season, and rightly so, but his attacking play was massively over looked.

 

He didn't just win the ball, he would often drive us up the pitch. He'd win it, and then run forward with it and was key to our counter attacking style. 

 

Hopefully if this guy comes, he could be the difference between slowing the play down and passing sideways to look for openings and just driving at the defence and giving our attacking players forward momentum 

[weller54]

Massive upgrade on Hamza!!

Him and Wilf together will be exciting.

[StriderHiryu]

Some interesting tidbits from Lille fans around the web:

 

Very complete and modern midfielder, fast, powerful, tall with great touch and passing. He is a bit raw and inconsistent though. To me the comparison is Pogba.

 

He is comfortable on the ball, has the physique to go box-to-box. Seems to lose control quite often and not that defensive, but drives forward and takes the team up the pitch

 

This guy is very good. He goes unnoticed when you watch the game, but then when you watch the game you realise he was involved in everything. He is made for the Premier League. 

 

Leicester will make him a star like Fofana. All the ingredients are there and will thrive in a more competitive league. Too bad we lose him.

 

He is box-to-box with good technique and touch. He has good footballing IQ too. He is inconsistent but with a good coach will be very good indeed! If he signed a new contract Lille would have got a lot more money for him, like Ndombele and Spurs.

 

 

 

 

Edited 10 May 2021 by StriderHiryu

[Ric Flair]

59 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

It's not really staggering, the people that do that job often don't become statistical animals (in an attacking sense.)

 

Ngolo Kante and Shinji Okazaki basically won us a league title doing it in 15/16, neither is considered to have been much of an attacking contribution that year but both did the same thing and that's carrying the ball up the middle of the park. When Ngolo left, I remember saying this at the time, we actually missed his forward momentum more than we probably missed our ball winning. We were offensively impotent in 16/17, often resorting to smashing long balls in to channels for Vardy to chase where the year before Ngolo would have driven through the middle of the park carrying the ball.

 

But the player that does that role tends to end up laying it off to a winger or attacking midfielder who provides an assist. Kevin and Riyad did the vast majority of our chance creation setting up Vards.

2 assists in 120 games is not staggering with that skillset? It defies science.

[StriderHiryu]

8 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

2 assists in 120 games is not staggering with that skillset? It defies science.

N'golo Kante has less than 10 assists total since coming to the Premier League, but was and is instrumental in setting up attacks for every team he plays for.

 

 

The following player also only averaged about 3 assists a season over a 5 year period, but I heard he was pretty good:

 

 

 

Stats aren't everything. Let's see how he performs before making a judgement. Everyone though Fofana was an expensive gamble but proved to be anything but!

[TommyK]

I think this guy is a Ndidi replacement. Maybe not directly. But you can see how he could be coached to do the Ndidi role. 

[Spudulike]

29 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Some interesting tidbits from Lille fans around the web:

 

Very complete and modern midfielder, fast, powerful, tall with great touch and passing. He is a bit raw and inconsistent though. To me the comparison is Pogba.

 

He is comfortable on the ball, has the physique to go box-to-box. Seems to lose control quite often and not that defensive, but drives forward and takes the team up the pitch

 

This guy is very good. He goes unnoticed when you watch the game, but then when you watch the game you realise he was involved in everything. He is made for the Premier League. 

 

Leicester will make him a star like Fofana. All the ingredients are there and will thrive in a more competitive league. Too bad we lose him.

 

He is box-to-box with good technique and touch. He has good footballing IQ too. He is inconsistent but with a good coach will be very good indeed! If he signed a new contract Lille would have got a lot more money for him, like Ndombele and Spurs.

 

 

 

 

Sounds like just what we need but I'd like to see some negative comments just for balance (are there any?). Sometimes the less than positive voices can tell a lot more (I appreciate this is not Amazon reviews). 

[Ric Flair]

5 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

N'golo Kante has less than 10 assists total since coming to the Premier League, but was and is instrumental in setting up attacks for every team he plays for.

 

 

The following player also only averaged about 3 assists a season over a 5 year period, but I heard he was pretty good:

 

 

 

Stats aren't everything. Let's see how he performs before making a judgement. Everyone though Fofana was an expensive gamble but proved to be anything but!

Hang on, I'm not saying he shouldn't be signed. I initially questioned us prioritising him in a position that isn't as essential for improvements as out wide and up front. But it would suggest we are preparing to spend significantly this summer or we aren't going to learn from our lessons for the 3rd season running under Rodgers.

 

What I was trying to say was, watching the various highlights of him and a smattering of games I've seen of him in recent years, I honestly don't know how he doesn't get more assists and get shots off. His long ball passing over the top is excellent, so there must have been some honking finishing from his team mates. 

 

If we had Ollie Watkins, I could see them pair being the new Drinkwater and Vardy from 2015/16. 

 

Someone mentioned it last night but Soumare seems to be half Drinkwater and half Kante, blending certain skills of both. Kante was the complete package and we have Ndidi who is a tackling and interceptions beast so I can see the desire to get him in. I just don't want it to be that we can't get a striker, right winger and left sided defender in.

[Riot Van]

Just sign as many French U21 players as possible.

[martyn]

Like the idea of this signing. Our midfield, as good as they are, are quite one paced. Having some running power available will help hugely defensively and offensively.

[StriderHiryu]

23 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Sounds like just what we need but I'd like to see some negative comments just for balance (are there any?). Sometimes the less than positive voices can tell a lot more (I appreciate this is not Amazon reviews). 

Sounds like he's unpolished, but has all the basic ingredients. Even some of our superstars such as Vardy and Mahrez looked a bit rough around the edges to begin with before developing their all round game. Seems to suggest he's in that category.

 

Overall from what I can see, the negative comments are around consistency. It seemed like he had a rough start with some bad performances but once he had a run of games won the fans over.

[sacreblueits442]

32 minutes ago, TommyK said:

I think this guy is a Ndidi replacement. Maybe not directly. But you can see how he could be coached to do the Ndidi role. 

 . I have said in a previous post he is like Ndidi but better!!!

His work seems to be our 18 yard box to thirty yards outside the opponents box. He supplies the ball to the person who makes the assists. 

[st albans fox]

Fits our modus operandi of buying players ahead of losing them. This fella is an insurance policy for wilf

 

but if he improves and adapts quickly then we could move into a position where we can actually voluntarily sell wilf as our standard summer sale if we don’t secure European football for 22/23. 

[Shamomoa]

Not looked through the whole thread, but is there a particular reason he would want to leave lille? Given he's playing in the team and they are going to potentially win the league and have champions league football? Just wonder why he would want to leave? 

[Dahnsouff]

7 minutes ago, Shamomoa said:

Not looked through the whole thread, but is there a particular reason he would want to leave lille? Given he's playing in the team and they are going to potentially win the league and have champions league football? Just wonder why he would want to leave? 

Thought the entire of French football was in recession due to the collapse of their TV deal? Might be a few fire sales, CL or not.

[StriderHiryu]

29 minutes ago, Shamomoa said:

Not looked through the whole thread, but is there a particular reason he would want to leave lille? Given he's playing in the team and they are going to potentially win the league and have champions league football? Just wonder why he would want to leave? 

The Premier League pays way more than any other league unless you are the top club in that league, e.g. Bayern, PSG, Juventus. He'll probably get a wage that is 4-5x what he is currently on, and will still be an "average" salary at Leicester. Something in the region of 40-70k a week I expect.

 

Champions League football is brilliant, but the Premier League is the most competitive league by miles, as we've found out in our last two games! Add that, plus financial stability for you and your family for life, plus in the shop window in the biggest league in the world to move to an elite club, of which Leicester has an outstanding track record in and it's a big no-brainer. Fofana is almost certainly his mate too given his Twitter postings and I would imagine has been pretty complimentary about the club thus far.

 

If Lille had a chance to win the Champions League he'd maybe stay a season or two, but they aren't in that category despite being a good team. 

[les-tah]

33 minutes ago, Shamomoa said:

Not looked through the whole thread, but is there a particular reason he would want to leave lille? Given he's playing in the team and they are going to potentially win the league and have champions league football? Just wonder why he would want to leave? 

The premier league opens up doors and Leicester have a proven recent track record of being a high level “stepping stone” to the world class level.  He will also probably go from 10k a week to 60k. Above all money talks.

[Glorious Leicester Fan]

According to a friend who has watched him play a few times, he is NOT a defensive midfielder. He compares him to Patrick Vieira. He wins the ball deep and then bombs forward with the ball at his feet. He is very difficult to stop when he is on one of his runs. 

 

He’ll play alongside Nidi and Your will be able to play a little higher up. The player who should be concerned is Maddison. I’m still trying to figure where he fits in. 

Edited 10 May 2021 by Glorious Leicester Fan

[Ric Flair]

5 minutes ago, Glorious Leicester Fan said:

According to a friend who has watched him play a few times, he is NOT a defensive midfielder. He compares him to Patrick Vieira. He wins the ball deep and then bombs forward with the ball at his feet. He is very difficult to stop when he is on one of his runs. 

 

He’ll play alongside Nidi and Your will be able to play a little higher up. The player who should be concerned is Maddison. I’m still trying to figure where he fits in. 

I really hope Tielemans doesn't play higher up. I've come to the realisation that he is best served where there is space and less likely to be pressed as much.

[Babylon]

11 minutes ago, Glorious Leicester Fan said:

According to a friend who has watched him play a few times, he is NOT a defensive midfielder. He compares him to Patrick Vieira. He wins the ball deep and then bombs forward with the ball at his feet. He is very difficult to stop when he is on one of his runs. 

 

He’ll play alongside Nidi and Your will be able to play a little higher up. The player who should be concerned is Maddison. I’m still trying to figure where he fits in. 

Never seen him play (knowingly) but I can really see why we would go for him. He ticks so many boxes we're missing, height, strength, some dynamism from the middle to break the lines, can break up play, can pass it. 

[StriderHiryu]

Regarding wages again, I came across a really interesting article today:
https://kwestthoughts.substack.com/p/build-a-team-or-sell-the-star-how

 

As Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski write in Soccernomics:
 

Unfortunately much of the money thrown around in the transfer market is wasted. In fact, the net amount that almost any club spends on transfer fees bears little relation to where it finishes in the league.
 

Each club’s net outlay on transfers only accounts for 16 percent in their total variation of league position. In other words, taken over many years the mere fact of being a ‘buying club’ didn’t help a team perform significantly better than a ‘selling club’

Kuper and Szymanski go on to explain it’s actually wages that matter, and having more money to spend on wages attracts the better players keeping the “buying clubs” at the top.

 

Why is this interesting? Let's take a look at wages to turnover ratio in the league shall we?

 

 

So really it's about picking up good players and keeping them with good wages. Then selling them for astronomical upsides and using that money to replace said player with new ones and giving all existing players a better contract. And that's why we have been challenging for a top 4 place when we really shouldn't be able to.

[Glorious Leicester Fan]

4 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I really hope Tielemans doesn't play higher up. I've come to the realisation that he is best served where there is space and less likely to be pressed as much.

I agree. I mean slightly ahead of Nidi and Soumare. Where do put Maddison? 

[moore_94]

13 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I really hope Tielemans doesn't play higher up. I've come to the realisation that he is best served where there is space and less likely to be pressed as much.

I think someone has mentioned it already in here before but the signing of Soumare could mean we move to a midfield 3 similar to Liverpool

 

Fabinho (Ndidi) in DM with Henderson (Tielemans) and Wijnaldum (Soumare) in a 2

Edited 10 May 2021 by moore_94

[Glorious Leicester Fan]

2 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Never seen him play (knowingly) but I can really see why we would go for him. He ticks so many boxes we're missing, height, strength, some dynamism from the middle to break the lines, can break up play, can pass it. 

Agree. Trying to stop should be fun. Our free kick taker should have a field day. 

[coolhandfox]

13 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I really hope Tielemans doesn't play higher up. I've come to the realisation that he is best served where there is space and less likely to be pressed as much.

I can we us playing with a flat 3 or with Ndidi just behind.

 

With the creativity coming from wide forwards and no number 10.

 

8 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Never seen him play (knowingly) but I can really see why we would go for him. He ticks so many boxes we're missing, height, strength, some dynamism from the middle to break the lines, can break up play, can pass it. 

100% this, we need more physically.