But the strikers were....which is my point. You're only as good as your strikers. If you cannot score goals, you will not be getting promoted. The only way you could, is if your defence is incredible, which we all know ours is not. The rest of the team doesn't really matter, as long as it's up to standard, which you can argue it is.
Vydra this season 2 goals in 800 EPL minutes Igahlo 0 goals in 120 Deeney 3 goals from open play (was it 3 or 4? a bit like Ronald Reagan's sperm count on Spitting Image back in the day) in 2225 EPL minutes. Deeney is basically scoring 1 goal from open play every 10 hours or so!!
They are Premier League strikers. Vydra has been sold for £20m twice, Ighalo is now at United and has also been sold for £20m. I think you're clutching at straws to suggest they were not a cut above the rest in the Championship.
Maybe I’m being naive but I think that’s a decent Championship team. You never know how things will pan out; maybe Gray will replicate his Brentford/Burnley form, maybe not. Maybe Wilmot and Dawson will form a solid pairing at this level, maybe not. Maybe we’ll finally get some use out of Success and Penaranda, maybe not. I could go on. But to my mind this team is as strong as probably any other in the league. The quality of players like Capoue, Hughes and Estupinan should stand out massively at this level.
I think you're underestimating the Championship. It's not Sunday league football. It's pretty good. If you strip away the bulk of our quality we'll just be left with an ordinary looking team. Just think Success, Gray, Penaranda, Deeney and compare that to Vydra, Ighalo, Foresteri and Deeney (2015 version). It's clear to me what is better. I still think we'll have some exceptional talent in certain positions, like the three you mentioned, but then you're scratching your head to think beyond that, and quickly run into the ordinary. Sure Quina, Pedro, Wilmot and Ngakia will probably do well for us, but they are young and will be prone to form fluctuations. We know Foster is a good keeper, but I think we're fooling ourselves we can lose the likes of Welbeck, Deulofeu, Suarez, Sarr, Doucoure & Pereyra without it having a major impact. If we lose that many good players, we will need quality replacements. Maybe Ivic has some contacts and can pull a few strings to get some players he knows and trusts, but it's all a little uncertain. I feel we've got an opportunity to come straight back up if we are ruthless with players and ambitious in our intentions. It seems that may not be the case though, which is frustrating.
Andre Gray scored as many goals from open play (two) as Troy, in 3 times fewer minutes (744 vs 2234) objectively he’s a better striker than Troy, if you class a strikers job as putting the ball in the net that is.
Agreed. And who wants to see their team grinding out 1-0 wins every week because they cannot score ?.
Deeney got 4 open play goals I believe. Villa (H), Villa (A), Muff (A), West Ham (A). Still a shocking return, but ya know.
Equally I think your overestimating it. Are you saying Abdi and Fessi would now be outclassed? Players than were never good enough for the premier league but were class championship players? Has the standard moved on that much in five years that our remaining premier league players will be outclassed a league lower?
People have gone from talking about how great it would be to see Sarr, Suarez ripping it up in the Championship to "Gray is better than Deeney".......can you not see it?
The point is Deeney is useless and it doesn’t matter if we lose him, in fact we need to lose him but you seem to think we need him. Andre Gray is crap but has/will have a better scoring record than Deeney in the championship.
However neither of them are prolific goal scorers . I believe we are all agreed on this. So the question is, what else do they add to the team ?. Which player is most likely to bring others into play ?.
Deeney is slow, he can’t beat an offside trap, he needs about 10 minutes to take a chance, he is often lazy and miles behind play, he’s also 32 and has a knee that has needed two operations within a year. In his favour he can control the ball better in his chest than Gray. Gray isn’t quick, but he’s quicker. He can beat an offside trap and he can finish instinctively, he’s also younger and doesn’t have any long standing injury issues. The team also doesn’t revolve around him, he can be played/benched as appropriate. His control is worse than Troy’s though.
The squad we end up with will be dictated by the needs of our finances and who actually wants to stay. You simply can't tell players they have to stay and play in the championship if they have offers from the prem or top leagues in europe. They have a short career to earn mega bucks and will want to maximise it.
I completely agree. Even without relegation finishing 8 places lower than last season cost us £15.2m. On top of that you’ve got at least £5m lost on facility payments and when all is said and done by the time fans are back in the ground in normal numbers we’ll have lost about £9m from match day revenue. So we’re £30m down before you even factor in losing another £60m from actually being relegated. Some players will simply not play in the championship and who can blame them. It isn’t Gerris fault we were relegated, far from it. If he’d been fit we would’ve stayed up. The reality of the situation is some of our best players will go, it’s inevitable and unavoidable. But they’re players who are far too good for the championship, it would be lovely to have them in some alternate fantasy land, but in the real world you don’t need players like Delefeou and Sarr to get promoted out of the championship, historically who has ever had players that good?
If we were owned by billionaires it would have been great to keep them for a season, extra financial sweetener, promise them an exit at the season end if we didn't get promoted, just to really help with promotion. Like AV kept Grealish. Very sad that we can't but it's the reality. We will hopefully still end up with a squad good enough to be in the mix for promotion and IF we can get back up, we can afford to strengthen again.
Ok so its 5 goals from open play in 2225 minutes. Deeney scored a goal from open play every 7.4 hours last season.
Grealish at Villa and Ritchie at Newcastle would be comparables I suppose. Nolan at West Ham would have been considered mid premier league level.
None of those had actually been proven top flight players, they became them top flight players with us or at other clubs. Championship clubs don’t routinely spend £20m-£40m on players who have proven top flight pedigree.
Sarr is very good and will probably be very very good but he isn’t the finished product yet, this makes paying a silly amount of money a risk. however in football not sure where the boundary between reasonable and silly exists The big Trouble with Sarr is that unless you have another player who is fast as **** he is always going to end up crossing into an empty box ,as happened with us so many times. Although this seems a bit churlish he does look like a player that would really light up if he was matched with a fast quality forward (as apposed to ours) Not sure what’s best for him really, play with us in the champ and improve his skills or sit on Liverpool’s bench and hope for a breakthrough.
That’s just because we had Deeney playing as centre forward. Sarr didn’t even clock himself in the top ten fastest sprints of the season, obviously running with the ball slows you down as well. Any half decent striker or forward player who hasn’t lost all his pace would have no trouble getting on the end of a cross from Sarr, Jimenez manages it perfectly fine with Traore.
Duncan Castles (who is best friends with Kevin Affleck at the club) says we’re trying to loan him out
