Patson Daka

[Bilo]

We're very unlikely to keep both of Nacho and Daka imo. Of the two, I'd rather keep Nacho as he's much more proven. If we somehow kept both though, we'd score for fun in the Championship. 

[Finnegan]

30 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Yes!  We weren't creating enough chances with Tielemans and Maddison in the team. We are going to need divine intervention (or some great signings) to address this issue. It's the thing that worries the most.

 

I dont see it that way. It's not about the people it's about the tactics.

 

We created an abundance of chances for our central striker with Maddison and Tielemans in the team in 19/20, particularly before Christmas, we were abysmal with the same players the last two seasons. 

 

We tend to obsess over how creative an individual footballer is, we think about it in terms of football manager stats, what's his vision or passing like. As much as Youri playing inch perfect, defence splitting passes across the deck from 30 yards is extremely visually pleasing it probably makes one or two goals per year max. 

 

What makes goals is good combinations, well planned overloads and well rehearsed patterns of play with adequate numbers of players getting forward to force opposition defences to have to make decisions in movement that they don't want to. 

 

It was either the Iheanacho thread or this thread earlier in the year I think where I ranted about this and even included a bunch of diagrams. I can't be arsed to dig them up now but the bottom line is, Maddison playing at 8 on the left, Youri playing at 8 on the right, Ndidi anchoring the formation and both full backs having the freedom to get very high up the pitch to overlap was far more important than the individual quality of Maddison or Tielemans. 

 

You could have swapped the two of them with KDH and Soumare and that 433 in 19/20 would still have been more successful than the more defensive 4231 we've played for the majority of the last two years, even with Maddison and Tielemans in it. This is because the full backs have been stuck in our own half by and large, Youri has been shackled to the defensive midfield spot, there's been zero width down the right, Maddison hasn't been involved in anywhere near enough ball progression and our strikers get marked out the game by multiple defenders at once. 

 

What we've lacked isn't individual creativity it's been collective movement and a combination of both adequate numbers going forward and the RIGHT numbers going forward to also provide sufficient cover against breaks. 

 

That last part is essential. In not properly understanding how the team was being successful defensively, Rodgers hamstrung how his team played offensively and it ultimately cost him his job and our position in the Premiership. Our entire decline can be traced back to his lack of confidence in our solidity because of two heavy defeats in the winter of 2019 to Man City and Liverpool consecutively despite the fact we lead the league on defensive performance indicators until that point. 

 

Edited 31 May 2023 by Finnegan

[Les-TA-Jon]

Don't really think it's about who is good or not.

 

Vardy has 1 year left and will be 37 during the season. I imagine there's a reasonable chance him and the club mutually wind up his final year.

Nacho has 1 year left, is too good for the championship, we'll receive offers, we'll need to sell if he doesnt extend (and why would he?) and I can't imagine he'll want to stay. 

Daka has 3 years left, so we don't need to sell, can't imagine we'll get many offers for him and just purely for numbers, I can't imagine us letting him go this summer. Do we really want to go down to zero strikers? 

[FOXYTALK]

Any transfer links with Daka 

[Babylon]

Wondering what the correlation is between those writing off Daka and those who booed Iheanacho every time he came on the pitch a few years back.

[kristianity77]

Couple of my mates who support Brighton seem adamant he is going there and it's close to being done. 

[Scanchez]

1 hour ago, Bilo said:

We're very unlikely to keep both of Nacho and Daka imo. Of the two, I'd rather keep Nacho as he's much more proven. If we somehow kept both though, we'd score for fun in the Championship. 

I think there will be a lot of interest from other teams around Nacho.

Daka... not so much.

Would LOVE it if we kept Nacho but can't see it happening.

[StriderHiryu]

2 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

 

That last part is essential. In not properly understanding how the team was being successful defensively, Rodgers hamstrung how his team played offensively and it ultimately cost him his job and our position in the Premiership. Our entire decline can be traced back to his lack of confidence in our solidity because of two heavy defeats in the winter of 2019 to Man City and Liverpool consecutively despite the fact we lead the league on defensive performance indicators until that point. 

 

Great post again but I am going to defend Rodgers a bit here. The 4141 we played was amazing to watch and smashed pretty much everyone but Man City and Liverpool. But it relied a lot on Wilfred Ndidi, who over the years kept up picking injuries and every time he returned got a bit worse. We were starting to get turned over in midfield. Those games were definitely the catalyst but it's not the only reason. Teams started to work out that they needed to target Ndidi. At this point I think that unless we directly replaced Ndidi, that system was no longer workable. 

 

Rodgers solution was to go to 4231 with Youri being part of the double pivot with Ndidi / Mendy. This won us the FA Cup and we finished 5th, so whilst we lost out a bit up front, we were still pretty stable overall. That was despite having to sell Ben Chilwell.

 

Going to 433 was the beginning of the end. That was at the start of last season when we were having a lot of bad results and our fall from grace started to take shape. He then varied it between 433 and 4231, trying to shoehorn KDH, Tielemans and Maddison all into the same team, ending up with Maddison on the right, which suffocated his game. 

[dylanlegend]

3 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Don't really think it's about who is good or not.

 

Vardy has 1 year left and will be 37 during the season. I imagine there's a reasonable chance him and the club mutually wind up his final year.

Nacho has 1 year left, is too good for the championship, we'll receive offers, we'll need to sell if he doesnt extend (and why would he?) and I can't imagine he'll want to stay. 

Daka has 3 years left, so we don't need to sell, can't imagine we'll get many offers for him and just purely for numbers, I can't imagine us letting him go this summer. Do we really want to go down to zero strikers? 

That’s an excellent point. We can’t afford to keep losing players for free. If we can’t get Nacho to commit / sign a new deal we should prob cash in for 15-20mill. Daka and Vardy would be a great strike force in the champ.

[Mok]

he shit , get rid - hes had 2 years , gets bullied all the time

[The People's Hero]

1 hour ago, kristianity77 said:

Couple of my mates who support Brighton seem adamant he is going there and it's close to being done. 

 

Strangely, my pal seemed to think Brighton were trying to sign two of our players, one being a striker, so maybe you're right.

Loads of rumours this time of year though. Doubt we will do much until we have a manager in, unless release clauses are activated or players are out of contract.

[sacreblueits442]

7 minutes ago, The People's Hero said:

 

Strangely, my pal seemed to think Brighton were trying to sign two of our players, one being a striker, so maybe you're right.

Loads of rumours this time of year though. Doubt we will do much until we have a manager in, unless release clauses are activated or players are out of contract.

...you can understand why Brighton may see him as a potential signing, Enoch Mwepu being there!!!

I believe that he was a big friend of Daka's, and came to the Premier League together.

[Finnegan]

39 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Great post again but I am going to defend Rodgers a bit here. The 4141 we played was amazing to watch and smashed pretty much everyone but Man City and Liverpool. But it relied a lot on Wilfred Ndidi, who over the years kept up picking injuries and every time he returned got a bit worse. We were starting to get turned over in midfield. Those games were definitely the catalyst but it's not the only reason. Teams started to work out that they needed to target Ndidi. At this point I think that unless we directly replaced Ndidi, that system was no longer workable. 

 

Rodgers solution was to go to 4231 with Youri being part of the double pivot with Ndidi / Mendy. This won us the FA Cup and we finished 5th, so whilst we lost out a bit up front, we were still pretty stable overall. That was despite having to sell Ben Chilwell.

 

Going to 433 was the beginning of the end. That was at the start of last season when we were having a lot of bad results and our fall from grace started to take shape. He then varied it between 433 and 4231, trying to shoehorn KDH, Tielemans and Maddison all into the same team, ending up with Maddison on the right, which suffocated his game. 

 

But this is my problem, he made all of these over corrections to complicate things when actually he should have had faith in the winning formula and just substituted Ndidi for a like alternative that was sitting under his nose. 

 

Bringing in Mendy to play the same role in the same system might have been a downgrade given Wilf's form at the time but it would have kept consistency and familiarity for the rest of the team in the shape. Instead he kept chopping and changing, trying three CB systems and messing with what was working in order to try and compensate. It was a disaster, it's easy to forget just HOW bad we were in the second half of 19/20.

 

Hell, if he had to fit Daniel Amartey in somewhere then we'd have been better served having him do the Wilf role in defensive midfield, which he signed for us to do, and maintaining the shape elsewhere. 

 

He was prudent to change things the following year when we played Liverpool and Man City in key games, it was good he took a more defensive approach then and learned to take a step back. But in games where the expectation was on us to win he threw away the playbook that worked and rarely ever went back to it. 

[JimJams]

14 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...you can understand why Brighton may see him as a potential signing, Enoch Mwepu being there!!!

I believe that he was a big friend of Daka's, and came to the Premier League together.

Mwepu not being there kind of makes that irrelevant though doesn't it?

[sacreblueits442]

1 minute ago, JimJams said:

Mwepu not being there kind of makes that irrelevant though doesn't it?

...part of the youth coaching staff there!!!

[TheStig]

11 hours ago, FOXYTALK said:

Any transfer links with Daka 

This on FB from a highly "reliable" source.....

[Finnegan]

There isn't a single news article or even a tabloid rumour linking Daka with any move away. 

 

He's one of our longest contracted players, he's one that quite likely has a relegation reduction clause in his contract and with Vardy ageing and Iheanacho having a year left he's our only striker with long term security. 

 

He also seems to be a fairly honest pro by and large. 

 

The only way I see him leaving is if a new manager comes in who doesn't want him. Until we've got a head coach in place I don't see any of the "maybe" players leaving. I can only really see Barnes and Maddison being sold regardless of the opinion of a new manager. 

 

Every social media itk wannabe is going to be linking our players to moves everywhere because people just assume players abandon relegated clubs like sinking ships. The reality is that the core of our team next year will probably involve players that were relegated. 

 

Hell, we could probably start the season now with 11 players on the pitch who aren't out of contract and who we realistically can keep. So eh. 

 

Just gonna have to get used to ignoring a lot of the noise. 

[sacreblueits442]

19 hours ago, TheStig said:

This on FB from a highly "reliable" source.....

...it has been known that there are African social media bloggers who are indeed on the inside track with African players!!!

[hackneyfox]

Man United are interested but n Daka???????

[Clever Fox]

On 31/05/2023 at 15:10, sacreblueits442 said:

...you can understand why Brighton may see him as a potential signing, Enoch Mwepu being there!!!

I believe that he was a big friend of Daka's, and came to the Premier League together.

If he is going to Brighton we should make sure to take Evan Ferguson in any deal.

This kid is the best CF prospect I've seen in many a year. He's big strong and is very mobile as well as an eye for Goal.

He has a big future ahead of him. I'd like him here.

[CountesthorpeFox1]

3 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

If he is going to Brighton we should make sure to take Evan Ferguson in any deal.

This kid is the best CF prospect I've seen in many a year. He's big strong and is very mobile as well as an eye for Goal.

He has a big future ahead of him. I'd like him here.

Nil chance of that. I imagine next season he will be starting a lot more games for Brighton.

[Clever Fox]

6 minutes ago, CountesthorpeFox1 said:

Nil chance of that. I imagine next season he will be starting a lot more games for Brighton.

Yes I'd say so.He's already ahead of Daka in development.

He's a huge talent in the making. I could see Pep signing him to replace Haaland when he goes.

 

[ARM1968]

Utterly stupid if even considered. This lad will rip up the Championship.  Wouldn’t be surprised. We’re run by incompetent muppets who don’t appear to know the first thing about football. 

[sacreblueits442]

28 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

Yes I'd say so.He's already ahead of Daka in development.

He's a huge talent in the making. I could see Pep signing him to replace Haaland when he goes.

 

..it felt like watching Barnes upfront, we are missing a trick!!!

[lee7]

The quicker we sell the better. It will give us more chance of recouping some money. 

A strong gust of wind seems to have him over. 

He'll be nowhere near physical enough for the Championship.