It's inconceivable they don't know each other. It's a small country and professional footballers must be rare.
I think it's easy to forget we have been playing games expecting to win almost every single one. Naturally this won't be the case next season. I would not at all be surprised if we tweak the system to accommodate two defensive midfielders, particularly when facing the better teams in the division. Bringing in another DM is essential in my view. This deal in isolation looks very low risk - 20 years old, highly rated, current team's fans outraged at the low numbers being talked about. He would have to be seriously crap for us to make a loss on him. I agree that spending a third to half our budget on a midfielder may seem unwise, but none of us are particularly clued up as to what our budget is. It also seems we may be saving money on a striker by signing Borre. It will be an interesting few weeks.
Looks a little bit like Doucoure but with a fair amount of skill and passing ability. I kind of agree that if this rumour is true do we want to spend a big part of our budget on one player but if he made our midfield significantly better I'm ok with it. A striker is going to be difficult because everybody wants a player that can score 10-15 goals. Whilst our midfield is pretty good, Gosling probably won't play much, who knows about Quina but nothing suggests he will do much, Clevs gets a few injuries, Chalobah seems to be over his injury but will he be good enough? Hughes is the only one I feel confident about
I don't think our CM is anywhere near strong enough as it stands. We've basically swapped Doucs & Caps for Gosling since our last Prem season when we got relegated. I know Chabs looks much improved since then, but even so I fear for us if we don't bring in some extra quality in that area. At least 2 decent Prem-quality CM's are required IMHO.
Absolutely. Hughes made a big difference and having one top quality midfielder in the Championship can get you promoted, but you need at least 2 and preferably 3 of them to compete in the PL.
Yeah he does seem to have the remarkable ability to make multi-coloured lightning fall from the sky whenever he touches the ball.
Indeed, Fulham got easily relegated with Anguissa and Lemina in midfield - Anguissa is probably better than anyone we currently have and Lemina is pretty similar.
Further evidence that it doesn't really matter if you have a decent midfield if you have total shitters in the attacking positions who are incapable of scoring goals.
I heard it’s Dan Ilos who was the Forest Green kit manager before his obesity induced quadruple heart bypass last year.
Although Hughes is best deployed in a deep-lying position, that doesn’t make him a ‘defensive midfielder’. His role is more of a ‘quarterback’ or playmaker.
Especially when you consider Sao Paulo is just a 5 hour drive (in good traffic) from Rio. They probably hung out every day after training.
He plays the deepest of our midfielders, does a lot of work off the ball and is excellent at retaining possession generally through fairly simple passes and shielding the ball. I don't really understand in what way he is not being played as a defensive midfielder in our current system. I am big fan of Hughes, but his long range passing is pretty poor or at least something he opts not use often. Capoue did more "quarterback" style passing, yet presumably you would call him a defensive midfielder?
Many comments on here talking about the need for a young DM , can I point out we have Tome Dele who would likely have been a regular starter if not for that difficult injury. If he recovers well, then we have that position covered.
If he doesn't we'll have another wages boat anchor. A smaller boat anchor than several others, but still. Our slow, injury-prone poor passing back line and DMs were a major reason that we couldn't get anything done in the Prem. We were consistently defending with 7 or more, well into our own half. We could never mount an attack even when we did win the ball.
He didn't really look a DM though - he seemed to be playing more of the Gosling/Cleverley slightly more advanced midfield role.
Again, based on what? Without any particular negative comment on his ability, because we have essentially no idea/evidence one way or the other, I'm not sure how we can confidently deduce from his 60 minutes of league play in total for us that he would likely be a regular starter. Add to that the fact that what we did see was in the Championship; he has literally never played a single minute in the Premier League. He'll relatively likely end up needing a loan next season back to the division we've just escaped to get enough minutes to continue his development, and that is if he does indeed recover perfectly from said injury. The idea that his existence means we have defensive midfield covered in next season is just not based in reality, as it stands.
Judging by the very little we've seen of TDB, I do like him, what a horrible injury, and what a horrible time to get it. I'd be inclined to loan him to the Championship until January, evaluate him then, and if he's doing really well, think about recalling him and giving him a bash in the Prem
**** knows what the plan was for him and Quina at the start of last season, you'd have thought a loan to the Champo then would have been ideal
You can point it out - but he’s neither a DM, nor very likely PL quality (as least not yet). I also doubt he would have been a regular starter given the players we had in CM.
I think that dribble against Chelsea that made everyone swoon was pretty much the highlight of his career
Kennedy had no impact here as well. I think he is an okay player generally though and not sure why he played so little when that side was so ****.
He got in trouble for posting a potentially racist insta story/snapchat when on a pre-season tour of China with Chelsea, iirc.
