What if we just went with Delap, Jesus, and Torres?

[Pubteam Lomas]

Palace away showed what a top quality striker gives you.
The false 9 started to get sussed towards the end of the season and it put massive pressure on the likes of Gundogan and Foden to score the goals.

Delap is the only recognised no9 in the club, with Torres learning the role and Jesus saying he prefers to play wide.
The fact Delap is being linked with championship clubs tells us where his current level is.
He has potential, but that is raw potential at the moment and I don't think he's ready to lead the line in the premier league or the CL.
Missing out on a striker will cost us in the tight games, so basically we've not given the manager the tools to do the job.
We clearly haven't learned a thing from 2 years ago when Kompany left because we'd have sorted it.
Basically the title of this thread could have been 'What if we just went with Laporte, Stones and Otamendi?'
Now we all know how that played out, don't we!

 

[samuelyeboah]

Thanks.

Would love to see him up against those Arsenal CBs for 15 minutes tomorrow.

As usual, vague pep is vague, so he.. might still be injured? Not sure.

Edit : according to the official site he said "this preseason he was injured" not "is injured", so probably no longer injured!

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

We are more then good enough with the options we have.

I’m hoping the test not coming in means delap is given a fair chance

 

[mccity]

There's this odd premise at the heart of your comment which is that we are starting from zero again. "Replicated twice" is a weird way of saying keep playing the system we have for the last 10 months with incredible results.

28 games with it so far and 2.57 goals per game. Its not slowing down.

Pep didn't invent anything last season, he reverted to a system he's used for over a decade when it suits the squad he has. Aguero and Jesus were injured so it suited the squad so he used it. There is nothing stop gap about it.

"Underlying goalscoring issues" what are those exactly? Is it being top scorers 4 seasons in a row? Is it having goals from almost every postion on the pitch?

Or is it just trying to sound smart when you mean "occasionally we don't score" which is true for every team in history no matter how many strikers they have?

We scored in 36/38 games last season. 34 in 19/20, 36 in 18/19 and 36 in 17/18.

So I'm really struggling to work out what "underlying goalscoring problems" actually means as it doesn't seem to have anything to do with scoring goals.

Our goals per game from the 3-1 win away from Chelsea was pretty in line with the previous 3 seasons. And anyone can pretty easily deduce why we may have had a lot of difficulties in the preceding 12 league games or so given how the 19/20 season ended.

Plus Sterling and Jesus both had anomalously weak seasons (but still not terrible) in front of goal. If we optimistically assume they'll get back on track, add in Foden's and Torres's' developments too, and possibly Delap hitting the mark at some point this season, and it's easy to see that collectively as long as everything before the final ball is as good as it in every previous season, we should once again be fine for goals.


Another thing, at the back end of last season when Pep was literally playing second string sides that had limited cohesion, we weren't struggling too often to hit the net.

 

[Vicmeldrew666]

Delap up front, given scoring chances, which should be pretty plentiful, he should be scoring for fun.
If we don't start the players signed for 2-3 seasons then despite the money on offer in future players will go elsewhere.
Also Pep needs to tell raz to pretend he is playing for England!

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

Delap looks v different to our other options and given a run would do well. Torres looks the best bet to me but frustratingly he doesn’t seem to get involved enough. Very light and risky situation but it is what it is

 

[Octavian]

It’s clear that either Torres or Delap needs to be given a run of games.

 

[mccity]

I'd like to add that as far as direct creativity is concerned this is as strong as we've been.

KDB and Grealish are obvious. Mahrez is capable of great bits of creativity too. Foden is getting better by the week. Jesus in a deeper role is very creative. Cancelo has his moments. Gundogan and Fernandinho have it in them. Rodri is slowly but surely improving on this front. We even saw Walker and Dias chip in lately. And of course there's the wildcard that is Ederson.

If you're not going to have a super-striker, this is probably as good a support act as you could ask for.

 

[FantasyIreland]

It’s clear that either Torres or Delap needs to be given a run of games.

No,it isn't.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Disappointed we've been gazumped. I'm sure Ronaldo will be fantastic for the rags and has definitely improved their title credentials. As for us not sure whats going on at the club at the moment, it's been a terrible couple of weeks for us.

Disappointed that we would have paid 100m over 2 years for a then near 39yr old whose best days have long gone and who would have struggled to make our 11??

Messi was a tad disappointing but he never wanted,or had the gonads, for the Prem,and again went with money......not being dried bummed by Spurs,and an alleged rapist arrested and refused bail.......

A 'terrible' couple of weeks? lol......Behave.