Rayan Aït-Nouri

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I think both were overpriced. Mendy worked out worse. So was Cucumber to Chelsea. But that's just my view.
£50 million for arguably the best full back in the history of the Premier League. If we take your argument that full backs are worth less, then £50 million for the best ever is at least about right. For comparison, £120 million wasn't enough to get Kane, who is in the conversation for the best striker in PL history.
 
Squad players as I clearly put in my post. We let good squad players go, you know players that could step in when needed. They were replaced with crap. You talk of delusion and then say Doku and Savinho have equal potential to Sterling and Mahrez haha, fuck me.

You are making my point for me, we replaced Mahrez, someone who contributed high end in terms of numbers and replaced him with a raw kid. That is us being weaker and going backwards. That is ok for the odd player, but most of our outgoing players haven't been replaced with the same quality. It is pretty simple really.
I suspect you didn't read my post properly, choosing not to.

Have another read - equal potential to Sterling and Mahrez. Do you not remember FFS Mahrez who wouldn't put a shift in? Or Raz who missed more than he scored? Those opinions were shite about two excellent players, and I believe yours to be shite if you think that our two wingers, at 22 and 20, do not have great potential. And yes, I will stand by what I said, that I believe that both have the potential to be as good as Sterling and Mahrez. What you are guilty of is comparing two developed players at the peak of their careers (for that is the clouded memory of many) with two players at the beginning of theirs'. As I said, please find me the career record of Riyad at 20, and compare it with Savinho's.

Now, your later point about replacing peak players with potentially great players is not wrong, but we then have a whole school of thought that we should be recruiting the players that Brighton and Bournemouth buy and then sell on for 10x the fee, instead of paying big money for players that are then abused from the stands (and on here for not delivering the impossible). We cannot have it all ways.
 
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But that's because you're talking bollocks. You complained about his pace then someone shared a statistic showing he's faster than Gvardiol (our current left back, who isn't slow anyway).
Good to spark debate.

No good living in an echo chamber.
Do they? Who would you identify, of the players who cost a bit of money and didn't get sold on for what we paid or more, did the scouts get badly wrong? I reckon it's these:

Disaster: Mangala, Philips, Mendy (hardly the scouts fault), Bony, Jovetic (due to injury)

Never good enough: Sinclair, Rodwell, Gomez, Angelino, Nastasic, Garcia

Underwhelming: Nunes, Fernando, Navas, Torres, Grealish (for the money), Danilo, Nolito

For my money (and I might have forgotten a couple) that's all of shite signings since the infamously terrible transfer window of in the 12/13 season. And even some of these played an important role at times. The rags would manage that level of failure in a couple of transfer windows.
Yeah, that’s fair.

You might in time include Doku, Sav, but we will see.

And of course it may not have been all the same scouts as well.
 
Gvardiol is faster than the average CB. on the high end of CBs for speed outside of the extreme case like Khusanov and the dude at Spurs. Dias is slow, but everyone else is average ( Ake, Lewis) or Above average ( Akanji, Stones). We simply do not have a slow defense.

Ait Nouri would be for Fullbacks what Gvardiol is for CBs. On the fast side but not extreme like Robinson

I think your speed worries are overblown.
Maybe but we have missed that pace Walker had, and it needs replacing somewhere. Assuming Khus, plays back up.

Against the top teams this year I’ve felt the team looks unable to compete in a physical sense, strength, pace, power, aggression.

I think technically we are still arguably the best, but I’d just like to see a bit more brute force in the team over the technical players we might normally go for. That’s just my broader concern.
 
£50 million for arguably the best full back in the history of the Premier League. If we take your argument that full backs are worth less, then £50 million for the best ever is at least about right. For comparison, £120 million wasn't enough to get Kane, who is in the conversation for the best striker in PL history.
I think you are proving my point. 50 million was the highest paid for a full sck at the time. So absolutely we were supposed to get the best fullback of that period.
 
Maybe but we have missed that pace Walker had, and it needs replacing somewhere. Assuming Khus, plays back up.

Against the top teams this year I’ve felt the team looks unable to compete in a physical sense, strength, pace, power, aggression.

I think technically we are still arguably the best, but I’d just like to see a bit more brute force in the team over the technical players we might normally go for. That’s just my broader concern.
I think you make a fair point.
I do think that the absence of Rodri and Stones were significant factors. The former stops so many counter-attacks and the latter is one of few genuinely able to stroll into midfield to begin attacks of our own. At the same time, we had a big mental drop off from the four-peat and the short close-season. I am convinced that we will be far better in the seasons to come but that we have probably recognised the need for a little more variety in our own play because the game changes and opponents counteract teams with a single methodology.
 
Nunes 36.28 km/h
Khsuanov 35.62 km/h
Gvardiol 33.92 km/h
Akanji 33.28 km/h
Stones 32.30 km/h
Dias 32.27 km/h
Ake 31.70 km/h

Saliba 32.99 km/h
Gabriel 32.30 km/h
White 31.85 km/h
Timber 33.35 km/h

VVD 34.92km/h
Konate 34.11 km/h
Frimpong 35.38 km/h
Kerkez 31.8 km/h

These are figures from the champions league (excluding Kerkez) as a point of reference for how slow/quick our defence is

Obviously there are variables, like it doesn't show if its a full on sprint or how hard they were trying and what was the starting position etc.

Sure Ait Nouri would rank above a lot of those mentioned above even if he's not Frimpong/Nunes

Don't think pace is the concern, the concern is how often our lads are caught on their heels but think thats a physical/mental fatigue issue
 
Maybe but we have missed that pace Walker had, and it needs replacing somewhere. Assuming Khus, plays back up.

Against the top teams this year I’ve felt the team looks unable to compete in a physical sense, strength, pace, power, aggression.

I think technically we are still arguably the best, but I’d just like to see a bit more brute force in the team over the technical players we might normally go for. That’s just my broader concern.
Its a mix. I think we were technically far weaker this season than we've ever been which meant our technical superiority wasn't good enough to protect any other frailty.

Nunes towards the end of the season, showed damn near Walker pace. O'Reilly was also pretty fast. So was Gvardiol and Akanji. Its no surprise we improved with this additions.


But it's worth noting that our greatest risk happened when players ( due to technical failures) misplaced passes that led to goals. From Kev to Phil to Gvardiol to Akanji, to Nunes to Gonzalez. We just lost the ball too often due to lower technical skill.

I am highly excited by links to players with impeccable technical skills.
 
Nunes 36.28 km/h
Khsuanov 35.62 km/h
Gvardiol 33.92 km/h
Akanji 33.28 km/h
Stones 32.30 km/h
Dias 32.27 km/h
Ake 31.70 km/h

Saliba 32.99 km/h
Gabriel 32.30 km/h
White 31.85 km/h
Timber 33.35 km/h

VVD 34.92km/h
Konate 34.11 km/h
Frimpong 35.38 km/h
Kerkez 31.8 km/h

These are figures from the champions league (excluding Kerkez) as a point of reference for how slow/quick our defence is

Obviously there are variables, like it doesn't show if its a full on sprint or how hard they were trying and what was the starting position etc.

Sure Ait Nouri would rank above a lot of those mentioned above even if he's not Frimpong/Nunes

Don't think pace is the concern, the concern is how often our lads are caught on their heels but think thats a physical/mental fatigue issue
Cool to see. Vvd is faster than i would have thought. Nunes is a hell of an athlete
 
Nunes 36.28 km/h
Khsuanov 35.62 km/h
Gvardiol 33.92 km/h
Akanji 33.28 km/h
Stones 32.30 km/h
Dias 32.27 km/h
Ake 31.70 km/h

Saliba 32.99 km/h
Gabriel 32.30 km/h
White 31.85 km/h
Timber 33.35 km/h

VVD 34.92km/h
Konate 34.11 km/h
Frimpong 35.38 km/h
Kerkez 31.8 km/h

These are figures from the champions league (excluding Kerkez) as a point of reference for how slow/quick our defence is

Obviously there are variables, like it doesn't show if its a full on sprint or how hard they were trying and what was the starting position etc.

Sure Ait Nouri would rank above a lot of those mentioned above even if he's not Frimpong/Nunes

Don't think pace is the concern, the concern is how often our lads are caught on their heels but think thats a physical/mental fatigue issue
This shows that we're not slow. Having said that, comparisons between clubs aren't necessarily that reliable, because they can be just as much a reflection of playing style. In other words, whose defenders are more likely to be caught so far from their goal line that they have to get up to full speed to make a recovery? Let's just say, I can't imagine Forest's defenders have got much faster than 5km/h this season camped in their own box.
 
The delusion is real.
Zinny, Mahrez, Sterling, Laporte and Jesus were all condemned here - not a left-back; not athletic enough; doesn't put a shift in; can't turn for toffee; needs six chances to score...
What is it about a section of our support that everyone who left us is a world-beater but everyone we sign isn't good enough?

I'll be clear that I think that Nunes is as good as Zin, or better; Doku and Savinho have equal potential to Sterling and Mahrez; and Marmoush is better than Jesus. Give me Mahrez at 20, for example, and tell me his playing record at that time compared to Savinho. I thought Raz was a cracking player for us, but was he universally lauded here? Not on your Nelly!
Exactly. Some of our support these days should fuck off and see what the rest of the football world has to put up with.
 
What surprised me was his age I thought he was much older he seems to have been around a while so maybe ready to step up..
 
Think he's really good going forward but defensively a little suspect. I think he's perfect for a wingback signing but if we are insisting on 4 at the back again next season, maybe there are better options.

I always wonder with City if 3-5-2 would be ideal going forward. Ait Nouri on the left, Nunes (or this Wesley we are linked to) on the right putting in crosses for Erling. At least it would mean cutting our wasteful wingers. Think it's worth a try in pre season.
3-5-2 would leave us with centre backs having the ball all the time which has been a weakness this year without stones imho
 
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