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Will.I.An

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Look. Ive decided I want this guy. Ive never seen him play, but im bourne of a generation where that is largely irrelevant. Im of the internet age, the twitter generation. That means that I have decided that we have to sign this guy and if we dont I cant see how we will see any success any time soon.
Lets just make this happen now ok.
 
Herr Onceared said:
Look. Ive decided I want this guy. Ive never seen him play, but im bourne of a generation where that is largely irrelevant. Im of the internet age, the twitter generation. That means that I have decided that we have to sign this guy and if we dont I cant see how we will see any success any time soon.
Lets just make this happen now ok.
Click to expand...

he's into our facilities appaz so it might happen.
 
I've been reading a few Tottenham forums on this very subject. None of them think Willian--Defoe is a good play on words. A few thought it was vaguely racist that I would assign the name of a white actor to a pair of somewhat non-white gentlemen. It was at that point that I milky way reese's pieces.
 
He's not young, he hasn't played in a decent league and his stats aren't impressive at all. Is he honestly worth £30M?

That's big, big money and we can't afford to get it wrong this time
 
If this link is to be believed, I can't help but think that this is more if a Carroll type of wasteful, overpriced signing. Hope I'm wrong, but this seems to be more about the statement than the player.
 
It's just like Carroll, except that Willian is actually very good at playing football.
 
rurikbird said:
It's just like Carroll, except that Willian is actually very good at playing football.
Click to expand...

Aye, that's not even an argument, but 30 milly on a, for the most part, unproven player is a bit mad for a club essentially trying to break out of midtable..
Especially when you consider his position surely can't be our top priority.
 
I disagree on that: an exciting attacker IS the first priority for me because with the current squad doesn't have enough attacking threats and judging by the preseason Rodgers is considering starting the season with 4-3-3 again (Lucas, Allen and Gerrard in the middle) - which will not work. Only a big attacking signing will force him to switch back to 4-2-3-1 which I believe would give us better balance.

Willian can play in any position across the attacking midfield, but like I said, if he settles on the left wing (which is where he seemed to be the most comfortable so far), then Coutinho will move to the middle - that's called a win-win. I think £22-25M would be a fair price for Willian, considering the balance between the player's potential against his not-so-impressive stats. But I would much rather overpay a little bit for a real big talent, then for a limited player.

Here's a better compilation BTW:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVVhpqNeUTM

He seems to play better in important games. He scored 2 goals against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the CL last season:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooAWmsrOD5k

And I'll post the stats here too, since his assist numbers are not easily found in English (this is taken from a Russian website):

2010/2011
Ukrainian League: 28 games, 3 goals, 7 assists
Champions League: 10 games, 2 goals, 2 assists

2011/2012
Ukrainian League: 27 games, 5 goals, 16 assists
Champions League: 6 games, 1 goal, 1 assist

2012/2013
Ukrainian League: 14 games, 2 goals, 6 assists
Russian League: 7 games, 1 goal, 1 assist
Champions League: 6 games, 4 goals, 2 assists

Current season:
Russian League: 4 games, 0 goals, 3 assists

Total in last 3 seasons + beginning of this season:
Ukrainian and Russian Leagues: 80 games, 11 goals, 33 assists
Champions League: 22 games, 7 goals, 5 assists.

I think he is capable of much more and with the right manager he can make his game more efficient and find more end product. As you can see in the video he beats defenders for fun just with his burst of pace and close control, and he knows how to curl the ball perfectly into the top corner. His stats are not all that bad, but I think his game is bigger than the stats show.
 
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We're decently flush attack wise i'd say. Especially with Suarez staying, and the emergence of Ibe and Sterling (who both need minutes). Spanking all our budget on Willian would be an aberration considering our defensive failures. We can't all of a sudden be happy with Toure just because he was decent against a few no marks in pre season
 
What that video shows is that he has a lot of flashy skills but fuck all end product.
No way should we be dumping 30m on this guy.
 
The videos keeping cutting away from scenes that shows him going past a player. Obvious reason being that he'll have lost that ball by overrunning or making a poor pass.
Anzhi overpaid for him along with others, and are now trying to get rid of most of their team.
If we're going to bid for him it should be below 20m. I'd rather we spent 15-20m on a younger teenage prospect trying to make it in South America. There's no point in paying scouts if we're not going to discover new talents Porto style.
 
I see your point, but if you spend on a player directly from South America (like this Bernard lad Shakhtar just signed for €25M), then you should be prepared to wait a couple of seasons while he adapts to a different style of football and lifestyle. Buying a Brazilian who has already been adapted to European football and had experience playing in the Champions League worked out pretty well for us with Coutinho - who also didn't have much to show in terms of end product until coming here. I try to judge players based first on their talent and skill and then on how well they seemed to adapt to European football - Willian checks both boxes for me.

He still needs some polishing, like I said, but I think this is about time he made a real break-through. In terms of both technique and physical attributes (starting speed, balance, agility, etc) he is in absolute top echelon of players in Europe. There is not much that Christiano Ronaldo can do with the ball that Willian can't - the difference is Ronaldo was coached to understand every detail of his game so he can do it consistently. But it's not too late for Willian to find that consistency. Had he been coached by Ferguson or Guardiola, I think he might have been world class already.
 
Can anyone think of better a CM that £30 million can get? Seems a hell of a lot of money for this player.
 
I haven't seen Shakhtar for a fair while, but Douglas Costa seemed to me the bigger talent than Willian, purely on account of having more end product.

What's happening with him these days?
 
dmishra said:
I haven't seen Shakhtar for a fair while, but Douglas Costa seemed to me the bigger talent than Willian, purely on account of having more end product.

What's happening with him these days?
Click to expand...

He is still in Shakhtar. I like him, but I didn't rate him as highly as Willian when they played together. I don't think they are quite in the same talent bracket.

He was one of the best Shakhtar's players in their loss to Dortmund in the CL. Should have started, probably.
 
@TransfersCenter: Anzhi gave Willian's agent permission to speak to any interested parties and agree personal terms. [Russian Express] #LFC
 
Gary25 said:
The cynical side in me tells me we know we wont get this guy but the Club are letting it be known we're interested to appease the fans.

"But but but look who we're trying to sign"
Click to expand...

In conjunction with Suarez bitching and moaning all summer.... I'd just wish they didnt say fucking anything to journos and tried to sign him on the quiet. Tell us when/ and if it is done not before. What if he ends up at Spurs or Chelsea now?? we will look quite the irrelevence wont we... again.
 
Surely by the law of averages if we sign another brazilian we'll finally get a great 1.

Our last 2 have been massively Meh.
 
I don't think Willian is worth 30M. It's just the latest example of the transfer market gone mad.

I've seen him a couple times for Shaktar and he looked a bit raw so I hope that a) rurik is right and at 24 he's ready to make that leap now and b) Rodgers isn't just signing someone for the sake of it although we probably wouldn't be able to get someone like Willian under normal circumstances so when they become available in this manner its perhaps worth just going for it.

If he does sign everyone is going to have to go back and edit their five-a-side teams.
 
Quotes: "They [Chelsea] have a culture of winning trophies and that excites me" - Willian in 2012.

I'm not all that excited about this lad. He's the Brazilian Downing.

Downinginho.
 
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