Rumoured to be after Lebo Mothiba from Strasbourg - 23-year-old striker who has scored 12 goals in 39 games this season. He first broke onto the scene last season as he helped Lille avoid relegation with 5 goals and 1 assist in 14 games, before he was sold due to Lilles financial problems for €4m. My Twitter friends who have watched him say this about him: https://www.sport24.co.za/Soccer/So...radar-of-english-premier-league-club-20190603
What's your opinion on your Twitter friend's opinion, given that his scoring record in a slightly inferior league seems to suggest that he is actually not a more clinical striker than we currently have at all? I'm not saying this to be snippy, I'm genuinely interested; admittedly without having seen him play, it just seems like another typical signing where he has promise and could do well but there's not a great deal to suggest that he'd be notably stronger than the options we have at the moment and would like an upgrade on. Do you have any insight on how he might develop, or the likelihood of it?
Would be an excellent signing. I'm fully behind this, based on all the French football I watch, he's a slam dunk.
His goal record of 9 goals in 32 league games doesn't sound great, but he only made 18 starts so that's a goal every 196 mins or so which isn't terrible but hardly fantastic. Looking a bit deeper on the stats front he's overperformed on xG throughout his career so far with 15 goals from 11.46 xG which suggests a good finisher, and looking at where he takes his shots from indicates a player who doesn't take many shots, but makes them count when he does shoot. However I'd be concerned (again this is without watching him play and without any disrespect for Strasbourg!) that if he isn't starting regularly for Strasbourg then he probably wouldn't be starting for us. That being said he's off to the African Cup of Nations with South Africa over the summer so wouldn't surprise me too much if the Pozzos were hoping he'd have a breakout tournament, loan him to Udinese or somewhere for the season and then flip him for a tidy profit.
Is it my imagination, or is there a direct correlation between the amount of time a user spends scouring Twitter for transfer stories and the amount of ***** they're willing to believe might be true?
Don't knock it. All this **** helps pass the time during the summer. If we knew now the 2 low cost signings that we will actually make this summer, it would be far more depressing.
No, I meant the actual signings we will make will be depressing. But yes I miss football over the summer and believing in fake-news footy stories helps fill the gap, so don't take that away from me.
I do regret the modern trend for quoting goals from appearances; it’s rather misleading. Much more informative is goals from starts. A substitute appearance is rarely more than 30 minutes and is usually more like 15 or 20 or sometimes less than that. Years ago you would know that a player averaging one goal every two starts over a full season was a really reliable striker, while 1 in 3 was adequate. Any goal he scored when coming on as a sub was only to his credit. Now it’s more difficult to tell, as your example shows. In this case my question would be: if he’s good enough to score 9 in 18 starts, why has he made 14 sub appearances, rather than starting?
He is terribly tardy, slow at getting changed like me in PE at school. Probably late to the post match press can inferences while he looks out his Lynx Java.
It's a real shame we can't loan you to Fulham. I'm sure they'll be spunking another £120m this summer, after the huge success of their first season back. I quite fancy them for the Europa League this time around.
The French league is highly defensive, PSG aside of course. 8/20 teams this season scored at a rate of a goal per game or less. Sure the quality ain't great, but I wouldn't be too worried about a scoring record which on paper doesn't look all that impressive if it's coming from France
A goal from open play every 255 minutes - marginally worse than Gray, slightly better than Deulofeu, twice the rate of Deeney. If you take away his one penalty, his minutes per goal was 1 every 220 minutes Deeney was 1 goal per 318 minutes Gray 1 goal per 195 minutes His passing percentage seems pretty good at 78.5%, Deeney 60.7% Gray's 65.7% (surprisingly better than Deeney's). Mothiba goes for 5.4 aerial duels per match, and wins 35% Deeney goes for 13.6 aerial duels per match and wins 48% (we really do hoof it up to him a lot ) Gray goes for 4.7 aerials per match and wins 23% Can't find total touches to relativise, but Mothiba has 2.4 unsuccessful touches per 90 and 1.7 dispossessed Deeney has 2. 2 unsuccessful touches per 90 and 1.2 dispossessed Gray has 3.6 unsuccessful touches and 1.3 dispossessed. Mothiba attempts 1.1 dribbles per match, of which 64% are successful (0.7 completed dribbles per match) Deeney has 0.7 attempted dribbles per match only 29% are successful (0.2 completed) Gray attempts 1.5 attempted dribbles per match, of which 33$ are successful (0.5 completed) In summary, I'd say this guy appears very much an all-round lead the line striker, and appears capable of replacing both Deeney and Gray. He has close to the goalscoring rate of Gray, and his link up play on the ground appears as good, if not perhaps even better, than Deeney's. The only caveat is that, while his aerial win rate is okay, it's not as good as Deeney's, so playing him would likely necessitate us to keep the ball on the ground more in the build-up - this is not necessarily a bad thing! Judging by his youtube highlights, he is also still certainly capable of scoring good headers from crosses. He doesn't seem like he'd be a huge upgrade in overall quality, but he appears to have none of the big limitations both Deeney and Gray each have. He's a good age as well at 23, suggesting that if we signed him we could get rid of Gray perhaps this summer, then Deeney in the next, while simultaneously bringing through maybe one other additional striker e.g. Joao Pedro. As for him not being a nailed on starter at Strasbourg, it's not necessarily a huge deal as he seemed to be rotated fairly evenly as the main man with the slightly more experienced Ajorque, who Strasbourg also signed in the summer, and they both ended up with similar scoring stats. Lastly with the timing of the move relative to the AFCON, maybe it's because they want to sign him before he gets spotted by others, and/or maybe it's a work permit thing. Mothiba only broke in to the SA team, making his full debut, in March 2018, and has since played most their games gaining 7 caps. Maybe the Pozzos are moving for him now as it's expected that he'll continue getting appearances in the tournament and thus by the time it finishes he should hopefully have a good chance of qualifying for a permit. Anyway, I think he seems pretty good, and I'd be in favour of this signing.
Doh, just noticed that I still needed to delete the first line of my previous post (the text prior to the quote)
Back in the day it was the best a man can get. Or some such. Never actually attracted any girls with it though so maybe you are right, and their ads not entirely accurate
This has all the hallmarks of an agent generated link. Lille have a buy-back clause but more to the point the deal last year included (wait for it) a whopping great 50% sell-on clause. That suggests we would have to pay a vastly inflated fee. Don't see how this guy is in the same bracket as say Pavon or any significant upgrade on what we have. Hopefully this story has no traction.
