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Other Football Thread 17-19th September

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dmishra said:
Meh, Bowen doesn't cut it for me. He's an underrated footballer, but he doesn't have the high-level technique needed to be an absolute top level player. He'd be a tier below Salah, Mane and Jota, and that's not the kind of player we should be targeting for our attack.

The kid at Salzburg now - he looks like a serious talent.
Click to expand...

Every good team can use a Dirk Kuyt or a Grosskeutz or a Lucas Vazques. At the right price, I think Bowen can be a good fit.

And yes – Adeyemi looks like potentially the next big thing and we should definitely try to sign him. We'll have quite a few rotation attacking spots to replace next season, I think.
 
I can't remember who shared the article about Bowen, but there was a really interesting analysis of his shooting and how he makes terrible decisions often shooting when he should pass and after too many touches etc. Maybe that can be trained out of him, but for all his good movement and positivity that was a red flag for me. Still - I think he has a lot of the foundations required to be a good squad addition, but unconvinced that he could come in and challenge to be a starter which is ultimately what we need.
 
I have all the time in the world for hard-working players who become valuable squad contributors through sheer graft. If you get a player like that from your youth system or buy someone like that on the cheap, that's great value. You don't spend top dollar (40+ million) on a player like that when that money gets you a potentially top-class player like Jota.

Also worth considering that Bowen will turn 26 next year. Think it'd be pretty poor value for money to spend 40+ million on a 26 year old hard-working squad player. Especially when there's a definite need to find long-term successors to Salah / Mane.

Spend the money on Adeyemi or Moussa Diaby or someone like that.
 
Agree with Dmish that we have to be targeting players with a higher ceiling than Bowen. We need players who can eventually replace the likes of Salah and Mane.

I haven't seen much of this Adeyemi other than YT. He looks decent, but he's desperate to go back to Bayern after being released by them earlier in his career. Like many in Germany, he seems to have his career path set out. In his case RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig with a release clause to Bayern Munich seems very probable.

I'm hoping we're still tracking Sarr closely. At 23 he's in the right age window, 3 goals in 5 PL games suggests he's starting to kick on, and his ability to play either side like Mane makes him a decent proposition, IMO.
 
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It seems likely we will have to sign some English players soon. We have Jones who is 21 in the next couple of years, Kelleher (home grown), Gomez (home grown), and Trent (home grown), and then Hendo and an aging Milner, as well as the non-influential Ox. That's already one gap, which could be 3 by next season. We will need to buy English players for sure, so I see why we are after Bowen, but I hope we can find better value
 
dmishra said:
I have all the time in the world for hard-working players who become valuable squad contributors through sheer graft. If you get a player like that from your youth system or buy someone like that on the cheap, that's great value. You don't spend top dollar (40+ million) on a player like that when that money gets you a potentially top-class player like Jota.

Also worth considering that Bowen will turn 26 next year. Think it'd be pretty poor value for money to spend 40+ million on a 26 year old hard-working squad player. Especially when there's a definite need to find long-term successors to Salah / Mane.

Spend the money on Adeyemi or Moussa Diaby or someone like that.
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Yeah, I agree with that. That’s why I said “for the right price,” I wouldn’t spent Jota money on him.
 
SummerOnions said:
It seems likely we will have to sign some English players soon. We have Jones who is 21 in the next couple of years, Kelleher (home grown), Gomez (home grown), and Trent (home grown), and then Hendo and an aging Milner, as well as the non-influential Ox. That's already one gap, which could be 3 by next season. We will need to buy English players for sure, so I see why we are after Bowen, but I hope we can find better value
Click to expand...
I've been thinking about this, and I think frankly we should be fine - we have Kelleher, Gomez, Rhys / Nat, Trent, Henderson, Jones, Elliott. That's 7 players who I think are good to be here for at least another 3-4 years.

Not counting Milner as he probably retires next year, and not counting Ox either as I expect he'll be moved on in 18 months.

The more important thing is that you need to keep trimming players from your 17 member foreign quota. As long as we manage to offload the likes of Minamino, Origi and Adrian, we should have enough space for new foreign player signings. Also worth noting, it's really not necessary to register the full 25 as long as you have 3-4 good u-21 youngsters who will play a part in the first team setup. That's typically been a feature of Klopp's squad building, and the academy is presently brimming with talent. We should be in good shape there.

As for signing English players, I think signing them in the 21-25 age bracket from other PL teams is basically getting shafted for value. Players like Ben White who've achieved literally nothing going for 50 million tells you all about that.

The best bet is to continue signing them in the 15-18 age bracket (which we've regularly been doing), and occasionally seeing if there's somebody in the 18-21 age bracket worth buying for a reasonable fee.

I would have thought someone like Michael Olise would've been worth going for given that Palace signed him for just 8 million.

Other players I'd keep an eye out for are Noni Madueke at PSV (though he might soon be expensive), maybe Hudson-Odoi if Chelsea get rid of him. Then there's Jayden Bogle at Sheffield, who'd be a pretty interesting backup for Trent at RB - he seems super talented offensively. I'm sure there's a lot of other young talent in the Championship worth considering too.
 
Carabao Cup Round of 16 draw
  • Chelsea v Southampton
  • Arsenal v Leeds United
  • Stoke City v Brentford
  • West Ham v Manchester City
  • Leicester City v Brighton
  • Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur
  • QPR v Sunderland
  • Preston North End v Liverpool
 
momoWASboss said:
Carabao Cup Round of 16 draw
  • Chelsea v Southampton
  • Arsenal v Leeds United
  • Stoke City v Brentford
  • West Ham v Manchester City
  • Leicester City v Brighton
  • Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur
  • QPR v Sunderland
  • Preston North End v Liverpool
Click to expand...
Finally City get a somewhat tricky tie.
Could be only one non EPL team in the quarters
 
Think he’s ineligible but who cares man.

Decent draw for once and another chance for the youth to shine.
 
Ineligible, that's the word I was looking for. Too bad, would have like to see him play
 
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