Dominic Solanke

[Bishop]

I think he has been great and is showing his to hold a ball up (something we haven’t seen since Berba) and how to play as a CF in the box
I’ve also been really impressed with his passing
Having him and Johnson play the right way for Ange ball ha ankle exasperated the issue on the left. We’re currently playing possibly out 4th choice there.
We haven’t seen a game where son has beaten a man and crossed a ball
Odebrrt has barely played a minute on the left
Richy hasn’t played any time
And Werner has been Werner
Then we have Moore who we have seen play great in one tough away European game
It’s not an area thag is functioning currently
With the rest of the play what Solanke is doing is helping us get into the right part of the pitch to be effective, something we massively lacked last year when Richy wasn’t playing CF (and Solanke is better than him)
the data shows we’re occupying the most dangerous part of the pitch more and more which is great. We just need the balance to work itself out.
Solanke highlight reel at Bournemouth was gaols very similar to what your seeing here and they are goals we wouldn’t have got last year with son playing outside of the area all the time and not engaging the centre backs

You might be right in that a quality left sided attacker will help feed him (not sure if we have that player for various reason), but even on the right Johnson hasn't been feeding him either. Johnson's been scoring but he's been no more involved in the play than usual. I dunno it just feels like Solanke is out there feeding on the scraps that he can and doing well doing that but I'd love to really feed him. To give him 3 or 4 chances a match. It's still early so maybe that will happen but yeah for me we feel a little blunt.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

You might be right in that a quality left sided attacker will help feed him (not sure if we have that player for various reason), but even on the right Johnson hasn't been feeding him either. Johnson's been scoring but he's been no more involved in the play than usual. I dunno it just feels like Solanke is out there feeding on the scraps that he can and doing well doing that but I'd love to really feed him. To give him 3 or 4 chances a match. It's still early so maybe that will happen but yeah for me we feel a little blunt.

The Johnson/Solanke link up is why both are scoring. It’s similar ish to the Kane son thing
The left side much less so
I don’t see the answer in the squad behind Oderbert developing (he has the potential) and Moore
Werner is a stop gap
Son can’t play this kind of football and I’ve said that for a long time it feels
IMO Richy should be sold for his sake and ours and replaced by a free transfer for Jonathan David
Could in theory use the money for a replacement on the left then (no idea who we can get who suits)
For what it’s worth I think Richy goes next summer and we get in Eze who I know isn’t a left wing but has flexibility
And I also know my suggestion is a lot of jigsaw pieces

 

[Muttley]

The Johnson/Solanke link up is why both are scoring. It’s similar ish to the Kane son thing
The left side much less so
I don’t see the answer in the squad behind Oderbert developing (he has the potential) and Moore
Werner is a stop gap
Son can’t play this kind of football and I’ve said that for a long time it feels
IMO Richy should be sold for his sake and ours and replaced by a free transfer for Jonathan David
Could in theory use the money for a replacement on the left then (no idea who we can get who suits)
For what it’s worth I think Richy goes next summer and we get in Eze who I know isn’t a left wing but has flexibility
And I also know my suggestion is a lot of jigsaw pieces

Yeah, agree.

I see Solanke as more like Firminho. He's an enabler to the bigger tactical system and we might see the others around him get the limelight rather than him. Example, Brennan has certainly been thankful of Solanke in these last few games. I do agree about not having someone in the Mane left sided forward role though.

Would need to see more of Eze to be fair. He always looks more of a deeper, inside player when I've watched him. Could he push right up into that left forward space and stay wider? Perhaps. Have a feeling Luis Diaz was the one that got away. He would have been Son's natural successor.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Yeah, agree.

I see Solanke as more like Firminho. He's an enabler to the bigger tactical system and we might see the others around him get the limelight rather than him. Example, Brennan has certainly been thankful of Solanke in these last few games. I do agree about not having someone in the Mane left sided forward role though.

Would need to see more of Eze to be fair. He always looks more of a deeper, inside player when I've watched him. Could he push right up into that left forward space and stay wider? Perhaps. Have a feeling Luis Diaz was the one that got away. He would have been Son's natural successor.

I wouldn’t see him playing left TBH
Not sire how we would fix that whilst Mikey develops
I think uh would be son until his contract

 

[braineclipse]

I'm going to take a controversial angle and many of the overly positive thinkers won't agree with me but I think we need to talk about Solanke and his impact on the team. I personally think he is playing reasonably well and has a few goals which is obviously really positive but I can't lie I'm unconvinced in the way we use him and the way he integrates into the system.

Across our 5 PL games so far this season he has 2 goals (great), but how have those goals come about? They've been rebounds, thats a great thing to have of course, a penalty box sniffer is not to be disregarded but where are the goals that actually finish with him having a direct shot on target? I'm struggling to remember any shots he has actually had on goal and it feels for me that he is very much feeding on scraps (hence the rebound goals).

To be clear this isn't a critique of the player himself, I think he's playing well. Pressing like a monster, demonstrating good hold up play and generally involved, it feels like his game is dangerous and he's a threat but where are the chances that we are queuing up for him?

So much was said in the summer about how well he fits the system (and he largely does) but it's a system that seems rather blunt and one that isn't really creating many opportunities for him to actually score. Without those rebounds we would all be really concerned with the lack of chances or opportunities we've made for him. The quality of service hasn't really been there imo.

I'm not too concerned who gets the chances as long as we're creating chances.

If his presence helps Johnson, Maddison, Son and Kulusevski to get more chances that's fine. If he gets chances himself that's also good of course.

We have had games where we have looked blunt, up until the second half against Brighton we seemed to be on a good run of not being blunt. Need to get back to and keep creating those chances this team and system seems capable of.

Within that there's probably also room for improvement on creating chances for Solanke. Still early and I think that will come with the way we play.

 

[glorygloryeze]

He'd certainly benefit from a press-resistant dribbler to push teams back and give him more space further forwards. He's 27 and his extremely good pressing game cannot be expected to go on for much longer otherwise we'll get @Muttley complaining about him in the same way he has Harry Kane...

Oh for a Dembele or actually a 'fit and motivated' Ndombele (yeah i know! but you get the point...)

 

[Bishop]

He'd certainly benefit from a press-resistant dribbler to push teams back and give him more space further forwards. He's 27 and his extremely good pressing game cannot be expected to go on for much longer otherwise we'll get @Muttley complaining about him in the same way he has Harry Kane...

Oh for a Dembele or actually a 'fit and motivated' Ndombele (yeah i know! but you get the point...)

I dream about the press resistant dribbler. Odobert might be that man but alas he's injured currently.

 

[braineclipse]

I dream about the press resistant dribbler. Odobert might be that man but alas he's injured currently.

Odobert properly flourishing for us would be a game changer for us imo. If that happens it will probably take a bit of time. But it seems clear that people at the club have similar dreams to you with the signings of Odobert and Yang, seemingly fasttracking Moore. It's just still a way off coming to fruition.

In some situations and when properly on his game Maddison does offer quite a bit of that. Unfortunately that seems to disappear in the kinds of game states where we struggle the most.