It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

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PragueBlue said:
You seemed happy with Alvarez was a back-up to Haaland, yet they are completely different players.

I really don't see that there's much that Alvarez could do that someone like Foden can't.
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Regardless of Foden doing a job as a 9 if he has to do it for an extended period of time we are in turn losing the best goal scoring AM in the Prem. None of KDB, Gundo, or Bernardo are going to duplicate that type of goal scoring at this time. Hopefully it never comes to that.

As an aside while Foden may be my favorite player on the squad and a much better all around footballer than Alvarez IMO, you may be discounting Alvarez' ability as purely a 9. To say Foden can step into that role and be just as effective is a bit presumptive and underestimates Alvarez as a striker...
 
JewelZee said:
As an aside while Foden may be my favorite player on the squad and a much better all around footballer than Alvarez IMO, you may be discounting Alvarez' ability as purely a 9. To say Foden can step into that role and be just as effective is a bit presumptive and underestimates Alvarez as a striker...
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I must admit I was never a huge Alvarez fan (and that may cloud my judgement a bit) but I really think Foden could be at least as effective in that role.

Anyway, time will tell.
 
JewelZee said:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not seeing many on here saying anything about us being a disaster. This is potentially the deepest, most versatile squad we've had under Pep. But it lacks a second player who plays in the 9 position. That's not hyperbole, complaining or anything else. It's just a simple fact. In the 2 seasons Erling Haaland has been here we have had Julian Alvarez here to provide back up at the 9. Now we don't have Alvarez. Again, the facts are we have no one. Not a less established player. Not a veteran who can do a job. No one. Hopefully this never becomes an issue for us in terms of derailing us from our objectives, small margins and all that...
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Be interesting to see how pep approaches the carabau cup, fa cup early rounds etc.
one things certain, Haaland will not play every game so pep must have a ‘plan b’
 
PragueBlue said:
I must admit I was never a huge Alvarez fan (and that may cloud my judgement a bit) but I really think Foden could be at least as effective in that role.

Anyway, time will tell.
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I think Haaland aside, Foden is the best finisher at the club. He's an absolute natural in front of goal and if Haaland were to get injured, i'd have no huge worries about Foden playing slightly further forward.
 
ninjamonkey said:
They're not desperate for a 9 though, that's just the media/social media fans peddling that idea because they don't have a haaland and it's easy for them to say "they'd be better if they had somebody like haaland" when looking for ways in which they can improve enough to best us in the league.

havertz fits the false 9 better than anybody we've ever had at city do it, that's his natural position, he can drop in and play and he's got the physical presence and goalscoring ability to replicate a real 9. Then they've got Jesus when he's fit, An actual striker who again can fill the roles of a genuine 9, soneone who drops and a winger.

Crucially, they've got goalscoring wingers, saka, Martinelli and trossard all weigh in with good numbers and odegaard behind them puts in good numbers too. They're set up to play with a false 9 and have more than 1 option to do it. We're geared towards play as a 9 with wingers to provide for the 9 and we only have 1 player to play as the 9. Without him our entire approach is thrown out of the window. We have a real need for one, arsenal do not.
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Well stated!!
 
willipp said:
I think Haaland aside, Foden is the best finisher at the club. He's an absolute natural in front of goal and if Haaland were to get injured, i'd have no huge worries about Foden playing slightly further forward.
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Fodens just won player of the year playing central and being involved as much as possible, many of us were constantly calling for him not to be pushed out wide where he isn't involved as much and now we are going to be pushing him further out of his natural position as the striker/false 9 if one player is unavailable.

Doesn't seem like a good plan to me. Not only is he not a striker, but we lose last seasons best player in his natural creative role too.

Nobody scored more goals from outside the box than foden last season, he isn't going to have the opportunity to bang them in from 20 yards when he's upfront waiting for the pass and even if he drops deep, there's no striker occupying the defenders to give him the space to do that.
 
ninjamonkey said:
What makes you think we cannot spend big both windows? We bring in as much as anybody and we've made profit last 2 seasons, we aren't in a position where we need to put the brakes on spending, we could easily spend £200m+ today and next summer and the summer after and have zero issues, money isn't a restricting factor for us right now.
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We definitely don’t need to put brakes on spending but who do you suggest we spend big on this summer and then next summer and who will be leaving? Pep stated many times he likes a small squad so I don’t see where all these expensive players, who will be excepting plenty of minutes, play.
 
ninjamonkey said:
Fodens just won player of the year playing central and being involved as much as possible, many of us were constantly calling for him not to be pushed out wide where he isn't involved as much and now we are going to be pushing him further out of his natural position as the striker/false 9 if one player is unavailable.

Doesn't seem like a good plan to me. Not only is he not a striker, but we lose last seasons best player in his natural creative role too.

Nobody scored more goals from outside the box than foden last season, he isn't going to have the opportunity to bang them in from 20 yards when he's upfront waiting for the pass and even if he drops deep, there's no striker occupying the defenders to give him the space to do that.
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Not a chance Pep plays him as a striker like Haaland, he would just revert to the false 9 which i don't think is a bad back up plan if Haaland does get an injury.

Reality is, Foden continues to play his position he did last season and only as a false 9 if really needed.
 
Blitz teams, fast and direct. Hook Hattrick Haaland on 60 mins and pass the game out.

Hope we rarely see F9 as a perm option for 90mins
 
Coatigan said:
We don't, you are right. And I wanted and expected one myself, for what it is worth.

What we do now have, instead of Alvarez is Gundogan and Savinho. Ok, they are not 'no.9s' but then neither was Alvarez really, the way we played him. He spent more time playing in Kevin's position than Haaland's even when he was injured.
9s 6s, the only numbers Pep sees anyway are completed passes, so we are not that rigid that our season would be defined by the absence of one player in a one specific position.

Btw, we could have signed a second striker, and he wouldn't have been immune from injury either.
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All true. I hope Big Erl can go 32/33 games in Prem and most of CL. If that happens we should be gold...
 
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