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Xavi Simons

This transfer is a good example of 2 things:

1. It shows why people say wait until the end of the window before declaring it a disaster

2. It shows why it’s better to get the RIGHT player late rather than go down your list to get a player in early (before pre-season/tour/1st game)

To much sense in that for some.
 
Do you guys think yesterday's game's issues might be alleviated by this signing? The manner in which we struggled. Or was it something deeper in the midfield that was the problem?
 
Do you guys think yesterday's game's issues might be alleviated by this signing? The manner in which we struggled. Or was it something deeper in the midfield that was the problem?
we were outmuscled and outran.

xavi is like 4cm taller and 4 kgs lighter than maddison. he was happy to get stuck in and was no pushover, but the EPL takes it to a whole different level. so it depends if xavi can adapt to the robustness quickly. xavi is quicker than maddison though, and i believe he will be a foul magnet.
 
we were outmuscled and outran.

xavi is like 4cm taller and 4 kgs lighter than maddison. he was happy to get stuck in and was no pushover, but the EPL takes it to a whole different level. so it depends if xavi can adapt to the robustness quickly. xavi is quicker than maddison though, and i believe he will be a foul magnet.
My thinking is having that creative outlet might take pressure off needing to defend. That's why I thought we looked better with Bergvall on. Defense through attack, like we used to under Poch.
 
My thinking is having that creative outlet might take pressure off needing to defend. That's why I thought we looked better with Bergvall on. Defense through attack, like we used to under Poch.
With zero shots in the first half and us very consistently struggling to progress the ball in any meaningful way leading to turnovers for them I fully agree.

There's no viable plan to make that work. We need to be able to attack ourselves and get the ball forward. Not even to the point of defense through attack (although I agree with your point), even just having a real attacking threat of our own that matches or comes close to matching theirs.

More physicality can be an avenue to that. Hoof it, run, fight. But imo a more needed thing is the technical quality Simons really should be able to bring.
 
Do you guys think yesterday's game's issues might be alleviated by this signing? The manner in which we struggled. Or was it something deeper in the midfield that was the problem?
To an extent I can see him helping but when Richy and Johnson are just constantly giving the ball ball back to the opposition there's only so much any AM can actually do.

In an offensive sense the main issue was our inability to keep the ball in the opposition half and build the play. It was all rushed and lost almost instantaneously meaning we were constantly putting our fires and changing backwards. We had no meaningful periods of useful possession until the end of the game when Bournemouth were naturally happy to hold and we really went for it.
 
To an extent I can see him helping but when Richy and Johnson are just constantly giving the ball ball back to the opposition there's only so much any AM can actually do.

In an offensive sense the main issue was our inability to keep the ball in the opposition half and build the play. It was all rushed and lost almost instantaneously meaning we were constantly putting our fires and changing backwards. We had no meaningful periods of useful possession until the end of the game when Bournemouth were naturally happy to hold and we really went for it.
Started with midfield
The amount of times they went sideways and backwards it was scary
 
Started with midfield
The amount of times they went sideways and backwards it was scary
We chose a functional midfield, in retrospect a poor choice but then we actually don't have much in terms of options or variety until Xavi comes into the side and even then as I've said a million times one creative player isn't enough. We need depth of Simons and I guess you could say that's Maddison and Kuku but neither is effectively available for quite some time. We have no depth for Kudus, and no technically competent and ready right now LW. Our squad building has been poor imo.

I remember a week ago having a discussion on here with someone and they were advocating Sarr plays permanently as AM not getting an AM I was just thinking wut! Sarr is no AM, I really rate him I think he's a fantastic talent but shoehorning him into the AM role will never get the best from him.
 
We chose a functional midfield, in retrospect a poor choice but then we actually don't have much in terms of options or variety until Xavi comes into the side and even then as I've said a million times one creative player isn't enough. We need depth of Simons and I guess you could say that's Maddison and Kuku but neither is effectively available for quite some time. We have no depth for Kudus, and no technically competent and ready right now LW. Our squad building has been poor imo.

I remember a week ago having a discussion on here with someone and they were advocating Sarr plays permanently as AM not getting an AM I was just thinking wut! Sarr is no AM, I really rate him I think he's a fantastic talent but shoehorning him into the AM role will never get the best from him.

We had no available AM
So it’s make do with what we had
But as we have discussed in the Lookman thread it was poorly set up anyway
Bergvall in there and maybe no Paulina may have been better for example
 
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