You can't knock his effort agreed but in our ageing midfield I believe he is easily being found out as a weakness. His head and his willingness are not on the same wavelength.
Up there with the worst individual performances I've seen from a Watford player today. Painful to watch. His legs have fully gone and it was borderline cruel of Roy to keep him on the pitch for as long as he did.
Was he fouled or did he just **** up either way it cost us a goal? I would not be quite so harsh as WT above, but I have to agree we need someone better. Tom is still good enough to be in the squad, but we need someone else to be the regular starter.
Cleverley was at fault for one goal but we conceded 3. And when Roy substituted Cleverley after 73 mins in the last home game the score went from 1-2 to 1-4 so that may have been in Roy's thinking. However, imo, he did look a bit legless around the 70 minute mark today after not having one of his better games.
I agree that Cleverley wasn't great, but our worst player was Dennis and has been for weeks. He constantly gives the ball away, always offside and misses simple chances. He may have scored nine goals but he looks a busted flush. In fact Kalu did more in five minutes than Dennis did all game
Agreed, let's pick out Dennis of all people, who is the only reason we're not rock bottom with about 5 points, but excuse the geriatric, utter garbage that's been stinking up the place for years. Of course Dennis is going to have the odd crap run of form or bad game, he's not a world class striker. But the man has 9 goals and 6 assists for us, in his first season in this league and playing in an utterly terrible side, and jumping on him of all people is laughable.
Dennis is not having the odd crap game, he hasn't played well since before Christmas. Tell me when he last had an assist, he doesn't pass to anyone. He tries to beat everyone himself and eventually loses it and the ball comes straight back at us. You say we would be bottom of the league without him, well we are next to bottom with him
He literally scored the winner, yet again, against Villa a couple of weeks ago. And yes, we are next to bottom, but we're within touching distance. Without him we would be bottom, cut adrift with absolutely no chance whatsoever. Just a bizarre player to specifically pick on, of all the garbage in our squad. Admittedly crap today, not at his early season levels so far this year, but a player who has won games for us repeatedly and giving us some of the only exciting moments in an appalling season.
He has scored 1 goal and no assists in 2022, Sissoko has scored more than him and he can't hit a cows a--e with a banjo. You may not like what I said but if you read before you jump all I said was that Dennis was worse than Cleverley today and hadn't been great since Christmas, the stats prove it
You do have such a proclivity for tying yourself in logical knots in an effort to justify whatever the status quo/decision made was, Manat. It's like an addiction.
That thing he does where he’s stood facing our goal, waiting to receive the ball from a defender, but is too flat-footed/incapable of scanning so he can turn to space and ends up fouling an opponent who has nipped ahead of him or is dispossessed completely. It happens at least once a game and gifts them the ball in a really dangerous area. Shocking.
“Always offside” is one way to describe a player who was less than half a yard offside when he scored a cracking goal right at the start of the game. Doesn’t mean everything certainly but per whoscored Cleverley got a 5.6 (our worst outfield player) and Dennis 6.5. Cleverley was dispossessed twice (including the error leading directly to a goal) and Dennis 0 times. How can you watch that game and think Cleverley is playing well and outperforming Dennis? Certainly Dennis’ performances aren’t as strong as his purple patch early in the season but Cleverley has been poor in pretty much every one of his appearances. I can’t recall a single good performance this season aside from away at Norwich. It’s a shame as he is a likeable, hard-working guy but his best just isn’t good enough any more unfortunately. He isn’t strong enough out of possession and is neither progressive or quick enough in possession either. Furthermore, there is a logic to playing a striker who blows hot and cold in case he has a hot game and wins us the game, particularly when you consider our other options or paucity thereof. There is no point in playing a midfielder who is consistently crap, especially when you consider our other options (Kayembe, Etebo or even Kucka). What stats? I would genuinely be interested to see them.
The club contributed to him having this poor form by preventing him from playing at the Afcon. Sent from my TECNO P701 using Tapatalk
I guess that is in highlight though. Maybe people were thinking that at the time but didn't seem to be publicly anyway. Nigeria weren't in that for that long so not sure how much that excuse works? It's been 4/6 since the tournament finished.
I really don’t think it’s that. I think he’s just the £3/4m player we bought, who blows hot and cold, is often selfish with the ball and is prone to sulk now and then. If you convince yourself he’s worth £30m then of course you’ll be looking for other reasons as to why he isn’t the match winner every single game.
I don’t think a player has ever been overvalued as much as Dennis by our fans in terms of what we can sell him for. Except maybe Sarr post Liverpool 3-0 game.
It’s also totally illogical that he would miss an open goal like he did yesterday because he’s still sulking over Afcon, makes no sense on any level. He’s just more the player we bought than the player people like to think he is. Certainly a good player on his day and a bright spot in an awful team, but he cost what he cost for a reason.
He wasn't great yesterday, but when you've got Leeds paying £25mil for Dan James, Villa paying £33mil for Emi Buendia, and West Ham paying £22mil for Championship Said Benrahma, then the ball-park figure for a 24 year-old with the joint 6th most non-penalty goals in the PL so far amd 7th most goals+assists combined (for a crap team in the relegation zone) will clearly be closer to £30mil than £3/4mil.
A lot of clubs will pass on Dennis if they watch a few of his games and his overall play, which you’d assume they would if they’re about to hand over £30m. Only a few more months and we’ll all get to see what he’s worth anyway.
His overall play, ability, level of consistency etc. will be no different from the likes of Benrahma and Buendia and likewise most similar mid-table PL clubs will be eyeing him up. We might not quite get £30mil for him, unless it's Newcastle bidding, , but £20-25mil is the minimum reasonable fee which we'll be likely to receive and consider. Again, it'll 100% be closer to £30mil than £3/4mil.
Depends what he does for the rest of the season, he’s got what one goal this year? It’s all about context, if all his stats are heavily front loaded into the first half of the season then again, clubs will be extremely wary of shelling out big money for him.
There is no where in any of my post did I say Cleverley played well, he didn't. Also, I agree that he was dispossessed twice during the game but I can also blame Dennis, the offside goal where he should not have been offside as you said only half a yard. Half a yard is a big distance they didn't need to go to VAR. Then there was the open goal he missed. Just because he had an purple patch doesn't make him immune to criticism
You can say the same about Sarr and King, but only because we’ve been forced to play them across the front three for various reasons.
We will find out soon enough. If he tails off completely as he has done for the last two months we will do well to get close to £20m. All depends on if he can show the start wasn’t a flash in the pan.
He's still seemed dangerous again in the last few games - he had his major slump during the Afcon and also while he was near enough having to carry the team with Sarr injured. He hasn't tailed off completely. Emi Buendia only had 1 goal and 7 assists across the entirety of his first season in the Prem when he was only a year younger than Dennis. Danjuma didn't have a single goal or assist in his 629 PL minutes for Bournemouth two seasons ago when he was the same age as Dennis and Villareal paid £20mil for him this summer. Dan James had marginally worse goals + assists per minute numbers than Dennis while playing for Man Utd, and hardly played at all last season. Dennis has already shown enough that £20-25mil minimum is justified. One of Villa, Leicester, Brighton, Newcastle, Leeds or Everton will surely pick him up for that.
That aside you’re also completely ignoring our circumstances. Sarr and Dennis are our only saleable assets and there will be a financial hole to plug and they will need to be sold. You can bet your house on the fact that Dennis will also point blank refuse to play in the championship. We will not be in a position to make demands given the circumstances. It’s got undisclosed fee written all over it.
