The Athletic have suggested we could get Walace from Udinese as our defensive midfield replacement for Capoue. "they have a Brazilian named Walace, a 25-year-old defensive midfielder, who could fit the bill. His representatives haven’t ruled that out."
Talented, tall and moody, a perfect replacement for Capoue. https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/...-the-brazil-squad-against-the-odds-513156.jsp
Translation: Adam L went on Wikipedia, looked at midfielders that weren't playing much at Udinese, got Walace's agent's details from Transfermarkt, called them and left a message that they haven't responded to.
Hasn't he be starting lately? Wouldn't really do either team any good imo. The more I think about Mowett the more I believe he is the one we should be looking at.
Is Mowett F.OC ? Otherwise we will bloody well have Walace, given we've supplied them with half of their current team.
Against Napoli one started Pereyra and one on the bench Marvellous Marvin. 2 out of a matchday squad of 22. It looks like we've sent them our stiffs.
Probably is the right person. Maybe we could do a whip round or something to raise some cash to spend on a player. What's that? The Pozzos have never spent money on a player whilst in the Champo, ever? Oh.
Mowatt is more of an attacking midfielder, his tackling and general defensive contribution isn't great
Ok I will take that because I don't really follow him closely. He was very good against us though. But let's be honest it's not so difficult to do that at the moment.
View from a Udinese fan. Did Wallace even wanna play tonight? Juve - UDINESE. Result apart, since I already accepted it would have been a bad one already days ago, but what the hell is Wallace doing? Don't get me wrong, I really like him and think his time's gonna come, but he missed pass after pass, and that's not even the worst part since his defensive effort was non-existent. He looked like he didn't care at all. Anyway the performance was of course poor from basically everyone, just wanted to share this opinion and see if I'm the only one who noticed this. Sounds perfect.
Clearly knows he's on the way to joining us, his head is all over the place, dreaming of pulling on the shirt, and making sure he doesn't get injured to kill his dream move. Welcome to the Vic, Walace
Interested to hear more about why you think this. Has 2 tackles and 1 interception per 90 for the last two seasons which is pretty decent defensively, and has generally been playing in a double pivot.
Tackles per 90 - Capoue 2.8, Chalobah 2.4, Cleverley 2.4. Interceptions per 90 - Capoue 4, Chalobah 2.1, Cleverley 1 Mowatt, tackles = 2, interceptions = 1.1 So he has fewer combined tackles than Capoue and Chalobah by quite a distance. His stats are more similar to Cleverley who is generally our most advanced CM when he plays. We need to replace Capoue with someone better than Chalobah as the more deep-lying midfielder, or the more defensive player in a double pivot (which Capoue was when he played in a 2). If we were looking for a replacement for Cleverley or Hughes then Mowatt might make sense, or if we were looking for someone else to play as a 10 (though Deeney, JP and Zinc might already be used for that).
Where are you getting your stats from? I see (on Whoscored for this season): Capoue with 2 tackles and 2.8 interceptions per 90 Chalobah with 2 tackles and 1.7 interceptions per 90. Cleverley with 2.1 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per 90. So Mowatt some way off Capoue's very high numbers but in line with Cleverley and only slightly behind Chalobah. Stylistically not ideal (I think Ben Pearson would be better fit perhaps) but not such a huge difference to say it couldn't work, particularly as he's been playing in a midfield two this season (often with Matty James) and has generally had higher defensive output than his midfield partner.
Whoscored as well - you're looking at the data "per game", not "per 90" 3.1 combined vs 4.5 combined = 69%, I'd say having basically 2/3rds of the amount of defensive output is a bit more than just "slightly behind". We've said repeatedly this season that our midfield with Chalobah and Cleverley does not get stuck in enough and gets bypassed too easily. When Capoue came back vs Norwich we saw what we'd been missing. Signing basically another Cleverley is not the answer.
I watched this game and I kept an eye out for him because I was hoping that we will sign him and I can't say he looked any worse or better than the rest of the Udinese players. They just got completely dominated.
Ok. I assumed that whoscored automatically provided per 90 data but I guess not. How do you do that? Just do the maths manually? My main issue with the midfield has been their total inability to create chances more than their inability to get stuck in. Maybe Zinckernagel playing in a floating creative role is the antidote to that and we just get in a ballwinner. Not sure Walace has better defensive output anyway.
How dare you question Leventhal, he is fully ITK at all times with everything watford. Even when he releases it 4 hours later as an exclusive, he already knew, he just didn’t say it yet.
You can click on the 'Detailed' tab and then select the filters. It seems clear that Zinckernagel is the player who has been brought in to help create chances - Ivic was speaking already a few weeks before he was fired that the two positions he prioritised for new signings were a "creative midfielder" and a "left-back"; Zinckernagel is the creative midfielder. He was known as "the assist King" in Norway. Munoz also seems to prefer a 433 and so Zinc will either play as the 10, or as one of the wingers and drift if either Sema or Sarr are rested. We'll need two CMs behind the 2 wingers and the 10. One of them should be a bit more box-to-box, likely either Cleverley or Hughes, and the other more of a ball-winner. Last season it seemed good - 2.2 tackles and 2.6 interceptions per 90 in Serie A, so a bit higher than Chalobah's this season in the Championship. Not as sensational as Capoue still, but few players in each division tend to hit those numbers. His interceptions have dropped off a lot this season though - in line with the Udinese fans' comments above that he's been a bit lazy so far for whatever reason - maybe because his mind is already at Vicarage Road?! Ha.
Apparently he’d asked to be allowed to come to us, but the Udinese manager told him he had a contract with them and he was their player so was going no-where. After the game mentioned above the manager confronted him on the bad performance and asked what he wanted to which Wallace replied “FREEDOM!” Wheres that coat....
