I'd prefer to get Lukaku in on loanTammy Abraham is available for £25M from Roma. He is 26 and may be up for joining a club with a high likelihood of trophies as a bit part player.
I'd prefer to get Lukaku in on loanTammy Abraham is available for £25M from Roma. He is 26 and may be up for joining a club with a high likelihood of trophies as a bit part player.
You know the rules.....!I like him. Big handsome fucker who puts himself about and scores goals.
Halaand is our highest earner and the face of the club now. If he contributes less than 20 towards the 38 goals target you set here for whatever reason, we deserve to lose the title..t's fine naming a bunch of players we've got and saying we'll be fine but where exactly are the goals coming from if we play false 9 to cover the 38 league goals our strikers got? Who's getting 15 from midfield like gundogan, who is getting 15 from the wing like Sterling or 10 from the wing like mahrez?
It's funny you mention getting 5 more than Arsenal, as they were playing with a false 9 themselves last season and everybody is claiming their lack of a striker cost them the title despite having somebody suited to the false 9 role that we don't in havertz, despite having the double digits goalscoring midfielder in odegaard and despite having wingers who can get 15 goals a season that we don't in saka, Martinelli and Trossard.
Yes and Haaland scored 27 of those and alvarez got 11. Thats 40% of our league goals from our strikers.
so who is going to up their tally to cover those goals in his potential absence?
Foden already got 19 last season, he isn't adding many more than that, he'll do exceptionally well to get within reach of last seasons tally nevermind add to it so you can rule him out straight away.
Bernardo got a handful but will be needed deeper in midfield this season so he isn't going to be expected to chip in with any more either.
kdb got 4. He got 7 the season beforehand when he wasn't injured for half of it, 15 the year before without a striker. I don't believe he will get as many as that again as he's lost that running power that got him into scoring positions but even if we are generous, you could realistically expect maybe 10 more at most from him there. The first name who could realistically help bridge the gap.
Doku got 3, that's an area he needs to improve on and I expect him to but he's yet to prove he can be a good source of goals so hitting double figures is probably the absolute best we can realistically hope there and thats a very big ask.
Grealish also got 3 which isnt out of the norm for him. He hasnt scored goals his whole career he's not suddenly going to be upping his contribution considerably.
It's fine naming a bunch of players we've got and saying we'll be fine but where exactly are the goals coming from if we play false 9 to cover the 38 league goals our strikers got? Who's getting 15 from midfield like gundogan, who is getting 15 from the wing like Sterling or 10 from the wing like mahrez?
It's funny you mention getting 5 more than Arsenal, as they were playing with a false 9 themselves last season and everybody is claiming their lack of a striker cost them the title despite having somebody suited to the false 9 role that we don't in havertz, despite having the double digits goalscoring midfielder in odegaard and despite having wingers who can get 15 goals a season that we don't in saka, Martinelli and Trossard.
Don't get fixated on Wilson. That's simply I name I threw out as an example for the level we'll probably end up looking at. I.E a competent premier league goalscorer not somebody who I was saying we should actually target. A player of that level can comfortably get more than a 1 in 2 ratio over the season for us which is all we need from a backup striker.
I agree about short term stop gaps, which is why I don’t think a 4 month injury even enters into our thinking. Whatever we were planning before the injury is what we will be planning now.I'd back Haaland to get more this season, and I'd back Doku to get more and KDB to get more
I'll fixate on Wilson as that was the name that was thrown out and the direct reference for my comment
As I said, the club are after a replacement for bobb/Alvarez and Wilson is not good enough for that role
We don't look at short term stop gaps, that not the club we are and a big reason for our success
We'll go with a younger player, potentially (likely) one who can play across the entire front line not just as a direct CF
is offsiderashford
I've no issue with people joining a conversation midway through but if you're going to do that, at least read what's been said first before going off on a nonsensical tangent.Halaand is our highest earner and the face of the club now. If he contributes less than 20 towards the 38 goals target you set here for whatever reason, we deserve to lose the title.
Of course I agree that everyone should chip in. But it is absurd to act like we will lose 38 goals if playing with false 9. I suggest to look at the shot/goal ratio in the pass two seasons. Last season Halaand Foden and Alvarez took up very large chunk of shots while players like Bernado took less often. And actually Bernado's shot/goal ratio is very good. Same goes with many other players. It suggests if they are given more opportunities to shot they will add goals perhaps not as many as Alvarez but it won't be too bad.
We scored 4 goals vs Real Madrid without Alvarez involvement. We scored 5 against them the year before. The difference is that this time our defending level dropped too much. We lost to Utd for the FA cup because we leaked silly goals.
I am not against the idea of getting a backup striker. Probably someone with good header and not too interested to be a midfielder. We created tons of corners against Real but no one could win a header vs Nacho. It was laughable.