I see this guy has been linked. Is he any good? What are his strengths? Does he have a YouTube video with awful techno music dubbed over the top?
Plymouth fans describe him as... wait for it... "a fox in the box". All round game not supposed to be great but if he gets a chance, he'll take it.
I think he has scored 16/17 goals so far this season, so he has to be worth a shout if only on loan with an option to buy, or possibly to even bite the bullet and try to buy him outright now. Some on here are already knocking the fact that he is only doing it in league one, but that's where Ivan Toney came from and look at him now.
Good luck. Think of the thousands of hours of footage to go through just to get a 6 second highlight reel.
Forget the techno though. Benny Hill theme surely, with extra kazoo each time he shoots wide or into the stands.
Maybe we could loan them Gray but continue to pay his wages, that might just give them the incentive as surely Gray should score goals in league one.
Would be pretty pleased with this. Very young, top scorer in league one, having scored 40% of Plymouth’s league goals. Meant to be a very good finisher. From a long-term perspective, would be a more sensible move than signing Vydra on a perm (although it’s fair to assume that Vydra would have a bigger immediate impact). We could do a lot worse.
I doubt it scoring from 2 yards in the championship is probably just as difficult as scoring from 2 yards in league one.
Source? He's no Toney, that's for sure. Not very quick, doesn't really create goals for himself, not particular good in the air either (despite the occasional headed goal). "Fox in the box" does seem a reasonable description, could be handy, sure, but he is a fairly limited player. This is supported by the fact that although he's League One top scorer, his whoscored rating is only 6.9 (only the 74th highest in the league, similar to Luke O'Nien). Toney was at about 7.9; his rating reflected that he was way too good for that level. A couple of stats for Jephcott supporting what I said above - 0.1 dribbles per game. 0.5 aerials won per game (this season in the Champ Toney is on 0.4 dribbles and 3.2 aerials). The only minor caveat to his rating is he's playing for a mid-table team and is their highest rated player. Still, Plymouth usually play with 2 up top. Jephcott will be reliant on having other forwards close to him and would not really work as a lone striker. Any more than £2.5mil up front will scream "panic buy" and trying to repeat what happened with Toney despite the fact that he's an inferior player with a lower ceiling. Second half of this vid for some Jephcott goals (from last season): Also, highlights from their game yesterday (he's number 31) - he makes a lame effort at a finish with his left foot at 30 seconds which Gray would be proud of, then scores from 6 yards out at 50 seconds; pretty much sums him up from what I've seen in general:
I'm pretty certain Andre Gray would be completely on board with a forced move to Plymouth in the dying days of the transfer window.
Only just turned 21 so plenty of time for him to improve - this would be a much more exciting signing on paper than some of the crap we are being linked to. Young, upcoming striker.
Not saying I totally disagree with your broader point - but the emphasis has to be on going up this season due to our finances. We should be going for the option that gives the bigger immediate impact. And return for Jephcott in the summer if we have to reassess staying down here for longer...
I would have thought this is the sort of player we could do with, even if he isn't the complete player. We do create chances, and we have the ability to create far more if we had a player that could anticipate them. We just don't have the ability to take them.
This is good, detailed analysis but I’m not sure I agree with you conclusion. I would also be surprised if he costs more than £2.5m anyway. We have creative players in Sarr, Sema and Zinckernagel who will give a fox in the box the sorts of chances they need. Deeney will probably keep sitting in that number 10 role and maybe rotate a little with Pedro who can be creative too. We’re really looking for someone who will receive and score chances - Jephcott could be it. One of the issues with Vydra is that when he was at Derby in 2017-18 and had his best recent season, he played more as a shadow striker, picking up the ball a bit deeper and driving forward. That wouldn’t fit with our current style. This Jephcott lad is one of the best young strikers in the EFL. He is the league’s top scorer for a team that is mid table and has only scored 34 goals. He just turned 21. He has more goals at L1 level than previously hyped target Max Waters - who is a year older than him. Edit: just to add @lowerrous: the source is Burnsy’s mate who has passed on some other reliable information already.
To add to this, I was told we had bid and just to keep an eye on it - wasn't told it had been accepted or that its happening. It's the same person who told me Gosling was definitely happening (pending medical at the time) - hence why I was so confident in my comments on here before it got any real traction elsewhere. Also told me about Pochettino's son (not sure how far along that was in negotiations) and one unnamed player we had bid/enquired for (maybe Longstaff but it was hyped up as a great signing if we could do it so not sure its him). And its not 'him from twitter' before anyone wonders! It's someone actually employed by the club.
I think he'd be delighted that someone rates him as high as a League One player. It would be an ego boost for him.
Nothing against this kid and hope he does well if he does sign but ******* hell, between him and Dan Gosling it feels like within 6 months of relegation we’re back to the Dyche/Malkay days of transfer targets
Thanks for the extra detail and for sharing in general. Let’s hope that the unnamed player is worth the hype and gets over the line. I agree - hard to see how Matty Longstaff on loan is a particularly exciting one.
Some people seem to forget the impact Sarr made when he signed and he was a similar age so this one will be just as good. Or does that comparison only work for Watson/Gosling?
I agree with you that he would fit in to our current team in place of Gray and with Deeney behind him. He could well score the goals we need if he gets the chances Gray has been receiving. However, despite his age I'm not convinced he is a long-term solution to the striker situation for a club with PL ambitions. Say in games against good opposition where we play 433 and are often under the cosh, at least Gray provides a decent out-ball at times running in-behind and in to the channels; we wouldn't get that with Jephcott. If we also took Deeney out the team eventually, we'd lack physical presence up front either to hold the ball up or hit teams on the counter. If he didn't cost too much then he'd be worth it as a good option, but even if we signed him I suspect we'd still need to sign another more all-round CF in addition in the not too distant future, either to play alongside Jephcott in a 442, or to play instead in a 433. You mentioned Watters, and I don't rate him much either from what I've seen - he only cost Cardiff £1mil though. Cheers.
If we would have put our hands in our pockets and paid for the top scorer in league one last season we would be comfortably sitting in the automatic places this season.
That depends, have this guy and Sarr had similar careers to date, playing at similar levels? If not, then no, there probably isn't any point comparing. Watson and Gosling, however...
Who is a long-term solution as a prem-standard lone striker currently available for less than, say, £3m? Vydra isn’t either.
Read LR’s excellent post above, Toney was levels too good for L1 and it showed in his all round game, not just his goal scoring This looks more to me like a punt on a fox in the box type from the lower leagues. That doesn’t mean it won’t work, Danny Graham is a great example of how it can pay off. It just feels like a bit of a panic move where they’ve just looked at the top scorer charts on the BBC football website and decided to take a punt on a cheap option