82 | Rico Lewis - 2024/25

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Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
It's kind of curious to see the disrespect that Rico gets on this forum, and then compare it to some neutral perspectives. Was watching the Sky programme hosted by Nieve (otherwise known as Stuntpegg on Youtube). The contrast between their assessment of Lewis as a player and what's said on here was downright startling.
I've said all along that he's not a right back, nor a full back of any kind. And it is a mistake by Pep to be playing him in that position. But Pep apparently thinks the world of him. Is Pep therefore an idiot?
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As we know pep picks a player for what he does on the ball and on the understanding of what pep wants! Of the ball like the majority of our players are piss poor! Pep or anyone must not train what you do without the or any dark arts! Of the ball as a team we are soft arses to nice
 
If he went on the market tomorrow not a single PL club would be in for him. Staggered he has got through to our squad. Too slow, too small and too weak. And has no awareness whatsoever defensively. Has been at the scene of the crime for quite a few goals this season.
 
shevtheblue said:
There's a place for him in the squad, Pep clearly loves him for a reason, but our squad building has been so shit that we've had to rely on him. I'm not convinced he would succeed at another club at right back though.
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No problems with that assessment. A fair one. Rico is absolutely not a player who can be relied on to carry a team. In any position. Does that therefore make him worthless? I don't think so. Or at least I'm not yet convinced of it. It is obviously risible to compare him with any of our great midfielders of the past fifteen years. But you need water carriers too, you know. And actually, I could see him even further up, in an inside right position. I'd like to see it tried, anyway. He seems to gravitate to the box often enough.
 
Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
The mistakes that a full back makes are glaring ones. Rather like a keeper's mistakes. It's less spectacular, in general, when a midfielder or a winger makes a mistake, and people forgive and forget it more easily.
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Agree he is not great at righback but who is in the club they all make mistakes! mainly he is better passing moving through midfield into the final 1/3 of the opposition! He just helping out rb pep's trusts him
 
waspish said:
It's mad how fans can't see what Lewis brings seems the only look at the bad in a player!
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What does he bring? Tell me one thing he 'brings' that adds value to city or the squad? He wouldn't play for Southampton so why is he playing for city? He's nowhere near the level required, physically, positionally or anything else. He is a liability that opposition exploit and they have done all season.
 
Blue2202 said:
What does he bring? Tell me one thing he 'brings' that adds value to city or the squad? He wouldn't play for Southampton so why is he playing for city? He's nowhere near the level required, physically, positionally or anything else. He is a liability that opposition exploit and they have done all season.
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They will be the same fans that were saying Phillips would come good. When it was evident from minute one he was garbage.
 
waspish said:
It's mad how fans can't see what Lewis brings seems the only look at the bad in a player!
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Fair enough if you don’t see why you should take up this invite, but would you care to list what qualities you think he has which are at Top4/Champions League standard?

I see some qualities in him, but they aren’t at that level, the kind of level this club aspires to.
 
BlueMonkey79 said:
They will be the same fans that were saying Phillips would come good. When it was evident from minute one he was garbage.
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Phillips was a gamble that backfired, and as you say not heard a peep from those saying how valuable he'd become for us. They're probably the same ones who were claiming a couple of months back we only need 1 or 2 signings as a rebuild, absolute clowns. As for Rico I've said before I like his energy and endeavour. However, his limitations are now being regularly exposed. Not sure what the future holds for him tbh.
 
chesterbells said:
Fair enough if you don’t see why you should take up this invite, but would you care to list what qualities you think he has which are at Top4/Champions League standard?

I see some qualities in him, but they aren’t at that level, the kind of level this club aspires to.
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Technically movement moving forward passing! Of the ball he is not good enough for rb! Looks at all our players off the ball you'd be shocked how crap most of our squad are! Lewis is a squad player who will play 30 games a season he isn't a starter! Every clubs need squad players you can't have 25 world class first team players!
 
waspish said:
Technically movement moving forward passing! Of the ball he is not good enough for rb! Looks at all our players off the ball you'd be shocked how crap most of our squad are! Lewis is a squad player who will play 30 games a season he isn't a starter! Every clubs need squad players you can't have 25 world class first team players!
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And therein lies the prob, lewis is adequate at alot of things but not really very good at anything, hes too poor and weak defensively to be rb, his passing is good but hes too often out of position and gets beat in the tackle to be a midfielder, so he gets shoehorned into positions because hes adequate
 
It was noticeable on Tuesday that the Madrid players were deliberately not pressing Lewis when he had the ball and then charging at the next man in possession.
This often resulted in the ball being immediately returned to Lewis in a position where he clearly wasn't comfortable

That's just a basic technical issue where he's obviously not quick enough at the elite level. However he's still an integral squad player for the games against lesser opponents
 
Thought I'd take a look on Datamb to see how our Rico is performing. Stats don't tell the whole story, but there were a few things I thought were vaguely interesting. First point to note though - the site treats him as a fullback. Nothing more fancy or specific than that.

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This is not a spectacular radar. There are a few things he's doing 'ok' at, but some things he just doesn't do. He does carry the ball forward, but doesn't do anything at all in terms of progressive passes. He's possibly been a bit better in the air than I expected for his size, but not exactly good still. Metric definitions are below.

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The scatter graphs put him fairly average. Nothing great, but not shite. Probably not good enough for where we want to be if he was a regular.

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So the site also suggested 'similar' players, and the main one I recognised was Tino Livramento. He's pretty highly rated and I know some would take him as a right back for us. When comparing the two, this is what you get.

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Not a lot between them, which surprised me. Maybe Newcastle fans all think Livramento is shite and not good enough, I don't know. Rico actually comes off better at duels, but Livramento makes more progressive passes (as does everyone else!).
 
mancboy said:
And therein lies the prob, lewis is adequate at alot of things but not really very good at anything, hes too poor and weak defensively to be rb, his passing is good but hes too often out of position and gets beat in the tackle to be a midfielder, so he gets shoehorned into positions because hes adequate
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That's most than a lot players have! I can see he isn't good without the ball 50/50 my argument is fans don't see other players without the ball a soft not good! Some fans also make their minds up and never budge! I can see Lewis is not a starter he is a player who can play plenty of games for us! I can pick on any player there faults but I look first at the positives in players!
 
I think the main thing he's good at is rondos, but Pep obviously rates that highly. He keeps the ball fairly well but that's also because he takes zero risks with it and brings no danger to the opposition.
 
Two things on Lewis, first he isn't big or powerfull and is much more a player that relies on positioning and football intelligence, so attributes that will improve with age so for a 20 year old too soon to judge.
Second thing reading the Pep book he seemed much more comfortable in the treble team playing in tandem with Rodri, for and inverted full back the chaos of our midfield pivot this season isn't the best for him.
In short far too soon to make any long term opinion on him.
 
blueparrot said:
Two things on Lewis, first he isn't big or powerfull and is much more a player that relies on positioning and football intelligence, so attributes that will improve with age so for a 20 year old too soon to judge.
Second thing reading the Pep book he seemed much more comfortable in the treble team playing in tandem with Rodri, for and inverted full back the chaos of our midfield pivot this season isn't the best for him.
In short far too soon to make any long term opinion on him.
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It's also worth remembering we've spent a considerable number of years where our LB was traditionally a midfielder. They offered little in the attacking third, inverted and were occasionally a defensive liability. Delph-Zinchenko. Walker was used as the pace to cover in the back line and the LB was used to create an overload in midfield. Then we did the Stones hybrid role with 4 CBs or 3CBs and Walker in the backline.

Now we have Gvardiol who is a more progressive LB and with Walker's decline and exit the RB role can be more of a "safe" inverted position. The whole side is struggling for balance and consistency but Rico's not an issue for me. He deserves time to improve. It's early days still in his career and most young defenders make mistakes, it's a position where those errors stand out.
 
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