TWar

I guess, but that was the year Celtic completely imploded IIRC, looking absolutely shambolic

Team in freefall with 5 losses on the bounce and no identity and little quality having sold their best player hires a man with zero experience in a top league off the basis of basically winning a one horse race in Scotland. I can see this all ending in tears personally.

I think he's not as much the dribbling type, even in france, he tended to pass round players to get in a good position to cross.

No one believes that

It is indeed. I think our best dribblers probably go: 1) Tino (no contest for me) 2) Djenepo (Can beat multiple players with his tricks and step overs, shame he has the end product of a Victoria sponge cake) 3) A. Armstrong (So so rapid, and the ball absolutely sticks to his foot. Have seen multiple times where I think he's about to lose it in the box in a congested situation and he dribbles out) 4) S. Armstrong (Great great dribbler when on form, can wander through a team, not on form as much yet this season hence his dropping down the list) 5) Adams (Powerful and intelligent dribbler, can plow through players, at villa had two dribbles where he beat two men easily to progress play) Diallo probably is an honourable mention, as is KWP. For those wondering our players listed in order of numbers of players dribbled past per 90 is: Looks like I should have included Diallo and KWP as well as Redmond. Obviously this doesn't take into account the quality of the dribble (ie how hard the def was to beat) but I think it is interesting. S. Armstrong is lower but was quite high last season iirc

Cornet is 10th and his team is in the relegation zone with 1 win all season. Chelsea only have one player despite being in number 1, City have none in the top 15 despite being 2nd.

Not really, he has been excellent pretty much every game. In the villa game we had a lot of luck up the left so he attacked less and KWP attacked more. But defensively he was a rock.

Easy to address though, add in xAL (expected aristocratic lineage) to the process.

Haha fair enough. I'm bad at spelling, admittedly.

You gotta earn your spot, you won't just get it given to you for being younger or for having a good run. Obafemi was always injured and got lazy, Valery had a bright spell but was on the most part pretty weak for us and also for Birmingham. If you are good enough you will play. Livramento proved that displacing one of our top players from last season. Tella looks decent but he is still pretty raw. Both Redmond and Elyounoussi have been good so far and Armstrong is our best AM, we have a lot of competition and imo that is a good thing. Tella will have chances in cup games, when injuries hit later in the season, off the bench, and in training to impress Ralph. He has to do that, no charity.

I think sometimes strikers go on baron runs, things don't work out, they get in their own head etc. It happens to the best of them. If they start looking completely anonymous in games thats when you should worry, if they keep getting a tonne of chances and don't put them away then I think at some point that luck will turn. You see it time and time again. He doesn't really play the same role as Che imo, they are pretty much opposed in every way which is why they are a good pair. One is really fast, smart runner, very two footed, and in his previous role a pretty good finisher (form will come in my opinion), the other is is strong, intelligent, and an excellent passer as well as being very powerful as a runner. I have faith both will be great together as soon as Armstrong's finishing gets back to its level he exhibited previously. He has put away two great finishes already this season so I am hopeful personally. Broja is good, but way way overrated on here unfortunately. He is a good "fox in the box" who gets the ball in decent spots and his finishing is good but he adds little else tbh. He doesn't drop deep and spread play like Armstrong does, he doesn't have the power which Che does, and he can't really dribble like the other two. Firm player, but more an impact sub for us in my opinion. If he goes for £60m+ I'd be very shocked personally. He is also tall and can head the ball which is handy when we are chasing the game and need a different option, last season when we wanted that we would have Vestergaard pretend to be a striker for the last 5 mins when chasing a game, nice to have an actual striker provide that change of pace now.

2 week break now for him should get him right.

Bit of a shame we couldn't get it done on pens in the league cup (and Smallbone missed that chance), a lot of big boys out of that one makes it look pretty winnable.

That's reasonable. Fair enough.

Fair enough, you have your views and I have mine. xA is supposed to account for differences in finishing of the player you are assisting but if you don't like it thats fine. I find it a little weird that you are so fervent about Broja being better than Armstrong that you can't even listen to unrelated opinions of people who disagree with you. Like even if Broja is slightly better surely there isn't enough in it to say the contrary completely discounts the other persons view on all things football? That's an odd one for me. Either way, the issue with the "I just reckon Buendia is very good" approach is it isn't technically an argument, it's just a conclusion. It has no evidence and reasoning, so you can't really counter it. I've given reasons and evidence, you have no obligation to do the same but you've sent a fair few comments now, have a glance back and see if you actually say anything to justify the view, I don't mean numbers even, just something "he's good at dribbling", "he was expensive". Anything. I think you might suffer from a thing people sometimes have when they argue where they see their point of view as the default and then it is on the other person to disprove them and they can just say "no, you haven't convinced me", which isn't really a conversation.

Suddenly linked with Japanese players?! Coincidence?! Probably 😂

Buendia has scored and assisted the same amount as Redmond in both his prem seasons, so with regards to output he is Redmond level. This "Armstrong is worse than Broja" thing should really die now. Armstrong is considerably better and will likely get the nod from here on out, like he did against villa and rewarded it by scoring a belter to win the game. Broja is good, but he isn't as good as Armstrong. Feel free to not discuss what you want, but honestly I don't think you actually made a single argument in favour of Buendia, you said you disagreed over and over but I didn't catch a single actual point? Does that count as discussing merits to you? Where did you list a merit, I might have missed it?

I don't think noting "goals and assists" is being "obsessed with stats", attackers are measured off output and his is Redmond level. But if you argue "Good creators only get assists if chances are taken", Redmond has a higher xA this season and, whilst his xA is lower in 19/20 he also scored 4 times as many goals as Buendia. If you prefer what you see, did you miss him being relegated with a mere 1 goal to his name all season? Or him being absolutely woeful this season? I can see why you might not see it, he's been basically invisible all season... To answer your question, Buendia is probably marginally better than Redmond on the whole, as Redmond is very patchy and the two Buendia has been in the prem for happen to coincide with two of his better seasons, but Buendia has been considerably worse this season. He most certainly isn't as good as Armstrong. If you think he is a very good player then most of our team are very good players or considerably better in some cases. He is decidedly average and it amazes me people can't see that.

The year he was up in the prem he got 8 goal contributions, this year he has two. You know who has identical in those two seasons? Nathan Redmond. Do you think Redmond is a "very good player"? Redmond has managed it in much fewer minutes too. Buendia is wildly overhyped. I can't see how a player who got relegated after scoring one single goal and then wasn't considered sufficiently talented to be signed on relegation is now so good that even doubting he is a "very good player" can be classed as ridiculous. What has Buendia possibly done to earn this adoration? Finish bottom of the prem with a mere 8 goals plus assists? Curb stomp a bunch of crap championship sides like multiple mediocre players before him? Or when he got back up, look basically completely anonymous while his team slumps to 15th on the back of 5 consecutive defeats?

Yes.

In that same period they had like one more win... Since last Jan they have had 9 wins, we have had 10.

I remember him having a snapshot that went wide and playing the ball about a bit, he had a brief hot spell but didn't have a single shot on target or chance created. I wouldn't call it an onslaught when Macca made one save which was straight at him. Also did he go off with cramp? I thought he was hooked because he wasn't getting anything done.

Give your reasoning if you want a debate. What makes you think Buendia is significantly better than Stu? McGinn is honestly dreadful, he has been so wasteful this season, he can't make simple passes, and his defensive output is minor. Of all the people I thought would misuse the "chances created" stat for Buendia, I didn't think it would be you. Buendia was second for "chances created" under the older definition. He was however not even top 15 for big chances created or xA, he was actually behind Walcott and Boufal for BCC per 90. This is because the chances he created were not of a high quality, there were just a lot of them. Bednarek is better than Mings by a good margin. One of them has kept 4 clean sheets in 7 this season including against city, the other has haemorrhaged the third highest goals conceded in the league and was dropped for Hause (who is also rubbish) despite being the captain. What Ralph gets with us is a project, slow growth, good recruitment of younger players and a youth system set up to help him use it. What he would get with Villa is a bunch of entitled fans and an entitled board who don't seem to realise Grealish was all that stood between them constant relegation battles. They'd sack him immediately when he didn't get that sorry squad to europe, which I'm not convinced Pep/Klopp could do. Regarding bias, just because something favours us, it doesn't make it wrong. We dominated villa on friday, we are above them in the table, and they just lost 5 on the bounce, maybe there is a reason for that?

Martinez is decent, to be fair. What makes you say Buendia is good though? He did well in the championship but a lot of players do that (McBurnie, Nugent, Brewster) who don't translate it. For Norwich he was relegated and was actually dropped a few times mid season as his form dipped. Now for Villa he has looked basically anonymous in every game I've seen him in except for one well struck goal (which we know Stu has in his locker too). Ings already has a hammy injury, I would be shocked if he outscores whichever of Adam Armstrong or Broja locks down our starting spot personally, purely because he just can't stay fit. I'd say if they want to get europe the teams they are competing with are Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham, and Leicester. They'd need to spend imo about £250-300m to get near those levels. Two europe level CBs will set them back ~£70m, two europe level CMs is probably £100m considering the likes of JWP and Bissouma have a price tag of £50mish. A RB for £20m, genuine quality in attack rather than Buendia who is rubbish ~£60m. And a better striker than Watkins is like another £40m. It might seem steep but go through Leicester squad player by player and see how much each of them costs. They can make sales to cover it obviously but some of them will be tricky to shift.

Villa are wank, Buendia is no better than Stu, Ings is crocked, Watkins was carried by Grealish, Bailly we will see but is lazy as all hell in defence. Their midfield needs a complete overhaul, not a single player is top half level. Mings is wank. Villa spent a lot when coming up when their squad was shit, like Fulham did when they came up. The summer after, as they realised that the squad they had was relegation level (should have gone down if goal line tech worked), they spent a bunch again. Two spends like that just to get to midtable 11th. This year they had a positive net spend, has the money run out or do the owners feel the season they sell their only top player is the one to tighten the purse strings? Either way I don't like their chances. Bad team, only going one way for me. Ralph would be a fool to take it.