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2022/23 Alex Iwobi

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BigDuncTributeBand said:
Re a new 5 year contract either he significantly ups his goals/assists/big chances created or we will need to upgrade longer term, if we’re ever going to challenge for European places again.

He’s been our most advanced midfielder this season and he has one goal and two shots on target in 13 games. That needs to improve a lot. The lack of goals in midfield is one reason we’re a bottom half team.

Assists, while he has 5 this season, his expected assists are only 2. Three of his assists, the pass to Maupay v West Ham, cross for Onana that Dwight McNeil picked up and smashed in from a ridiculous angle and his pass to Calvert Lewin v Palace had minuscule xg, hence his expected assists at 2 as a result. He even said himself for the Calvert Lewin goal he’d take the assist but he just passed it to Dominic Calvert-Lewin and he did all the work beating the defender and scoring from the angle.

He’s obviously shown massive improvement and looks far better in a central position but there will come a time when there needs to be more end product.
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Oh my Lord stats really have ruined football. Who gives a toss what his xA even are if he's getting assists?
 
Nymzee said:
Oh my Lord stats really have ruined football. Who gives a toss what his xA even are if he's getting assists?
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It’s not really that hard a premise so ignore the xA if it bothers you. Ultimately if you’re creating poor quality chances that rely on the goal scorer scoring a worldie, that’s unlikely to pan out over a long period of time and so you’re not likely to keep assisting at that rate.

Obviously if goalscorers keep scoring consistently from very poor quality chances then great but it’s unlikely, isn’t it.
 
MikeH72 said:
He’s still the only player we have that I actually fancy to control a football and get it out of his feet in a tight space. Not sure if there’s a stat for that but I think it counts for something regardless.
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You’d hope your number ten could control a football and get out of a tight space, that’s a minimum.
 

BigDuncTributeBand said:
Assists, while he has 5 this season, his expected assists are only 2. Three of his assists, the pass to Maupay v West Ham, cross for Onana that Dwight McNeil picked up and smashed in from a ridiculous angle and his pass to Calvert Lewin v Palace had minuscule xg, hence his expected assists at 2 as a result. He even said himself for the Calvert Lewin goal he’d take the assist but he just passed it to Dominic Calvert-Lewin and he did all the work beating the defender and scoring from the angle.

He’s obviously shown massive improvement and looks far better in a central position but there will come a time when there needs to be more end product.
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Common Iwobi complaint from last season:
‘He’s doing well and has great energy but he needs to add goals/assists’

*adds goals/assists*

‘Yeah but the goals and assists aren’t very good goals or assists’ ?


I cba but how many great through balls or dangerous passes has he played in which have been wasted? If you want to take away 3 of his five assists I’m sure we could find 3 ‘key passes’ or whatever it’s called that he made and our forwards failed to convert.
 
Shibbywiggles said:
Common Iwobi complaint from last season:
‘He’s doing well and has great energy but he needs to add goals/assists’

*adds goals/assists*

‘Yeah but the goals and assists aren’t very good goals or assists’ ?


I cba but how many great through balls or dangerous passes has he played in which have been wasted? If you want to take away 3 of his five assists I’m sure we could find 3 ‘key passes’ or whatever it’s called that he made and our forwards failed to convert.
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He hasn’t added goals to his game though, has he. He’s got 1 in 13 league games this season. As our most prominent attacking midfielder.

As for how many great through balls has he played and how many great chances has he created that our forwards are missing the target with, not many. We create nothing for our forwards, they feed off scraps.

What I’ve said is hardly controversial, Lampard has identified it as the area Iwobi needs to improve and Iwobi has mentioned it himself in interviews.
 
BigDuncTributeBand said:
He hasn’t added goals to his game though, has he. He’s got 1 in 13 league games this season. As our most prominent attacking midfielder.

As for how many great through balls has he played and how many great chances has he created that our forwards are missing the target with, not many. We create nothing for our forwards, they feed off scraps.

What I’ve said is hardly controversial, Lampard has identified it as the area Iwobi needs to improve and Iwobi has mentioned it himself in interviews.
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Mate I said goals/assists of which he has 6/13 I assume based off your other posts - not bad at all, still room to improve sure

I saw someone post a stat that had him in the top 5 in the league or something for chances created

I can’t be bothered to find it but yeah, the lads doing well, continually improving, room for more sure but when he’s getting a goal or assist every other game compared to almost never last season it’s harsh to start finding fault
 

Shibbywiggles said:
Mate I said goals/assists of which he has 6/13 I assume based off your other posts - not bad at all, still room to improve sure

I saw someone post a stat that had him in the top 5 in the league or something for chances created

I can’t be bothered to find it but yeah, the lads doing well, continually improving, room for more sure but when he’s getting a goal or assist every other game compared to almost never last season it’s harsh to start finding fault
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It isn’t harsh to look at where we are now and where we want to be and what we need to improve to get there. I can do that at the same time as acknowledging he’s looked good in games this season and in some games, like Palace, looked a player capable of being a top 6 attacking midfielder.

There aren’t many top attacking midfielders with a 1 in 13 strike rate so it’s an area, in future, you’d need to see improve.

If not, you could still live with it if the front three were all chipping in with minimum 10 + goals a season and he kept up his current assist rate I.e. around 1 in 3 games - which would be fantastic. That will be tough to sustain though unless strikers continue to score goals from very little or he creates better quality chances.

I saw the chances created stat - don’t know how good those chances were. I don’t remember our forwards missing too many sitters this season. We barely looking like scoring a goal, our strikers are starved of quality chances, they get the odd half chance most games, Palace has been the exception.

This isn’t all on Iwobi, I’d be interested to see how he’d work with Gordon/Gray being upgraded for quality wide forwards - they’re the most pressing issue but this is the Iwobi thread.
 
4737carlin said:
The funny thing is a got loads of stick.on here when I poinred out how well he was doing in the early games under Rafael, by some of the same people who have jumped on the iwobi bandwagon 12 months later.

Cheers for the link, I'll stick it in my "I was right" folder
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HHMMMM Rafael fan ?
 

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