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2023/24 Amadou Onana

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The lad isn't a £100m player, hell I'd say we even overpaid at £30m for him.
But we didn't buy a 28 year old finished article, we bought potential and work in progress.
So stop comparing him to prime Viera fgs.
He is already our best all round midfielder by a country mile, and he's our only midfielder at present than any 'bigger' club will be watching.
Let's hope he continues to improve in this his 2nd season in PL and only his 3rd full season in top flight football.
 
Chrismac said:
The lad isn't a £100m player, hell I'd say we even overpaid at £30m for him.
But we didn't buy a 28 year old finished article, we bought potential and work in progress.
So stop comparing him to prime Viera fgs.
He is already our best all round midfielder by a country mile, and he's our only midfielder at present than any 'bigger' club will be watching.
Let's hope he continues to improve in this his 2nd season in PL and only his 3rd full season in top flight football.
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Just because he is out best, doesn't mean he is actually good.
He is a very marmite player. I get others see something. I don't. All i see is someone with potential, strolling around the pitch, missing tackles and making the occasional good forward pass.
To me he comes across as a bit of a Pogba.

I hope he does become great. Means we will likely stay up, and the money we get could probs gets us a whole better midfield
 
Perfect example of the piss-poor recruitment policy...

Big bucks for a player that is counted upon to develop in the next few years but this team needs players who can perform NOW...
 

Chrismac said:
The lad isn't a £100m player, hell I'd say we even overpaid at £30m for him.
But we didn't buy a 28 year old finished article, we bought potential and work in progress.
So stop comparing him to prime Viera fgs.
He is already our best all round midfielder by a country mile, and he's our only midfielder at present than any 'bigger' club will be watching.
Let's hope he continues to improve in this his 2nd season in PL and only his 3rd full season in top flight football.
Click to expand...
Might mot be right now but he definitely could become that whether that is with us or not is the question?
 
Cameron Manning said:
Yes I like your balanced reply, watch his sliding tackles, when they come off they look good as you say, but he does miss half of them, he has been booked for some them, mostly last season.

I’ll keep watching him hoping for some improvement, I don’t criticise him for the fun of it but because I truly don’t see the player that some see on here and I believe he really should be doing a lot more.

I really appreciated you reply, it made me think.

As I keep saying he should be doing a lot more, I wonder if any of the coaches are sitting him down and talking him through his game pointing out his skill has to be added to with work rate.
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Personally, I don't think his work rate is all that bad. Let's hope he is able to use it better throughout the match. It'd be nice if his mentorship is more than just a phone call from steven defour.
 

mistuhp said:
Do you have a source for this? Winning tackles and headers is one thing that can be measured fairly easily, so the statistics are pretty straightforward, and complications only come from how they are presented.

According to how the opta data are presented on fotmob and fbref, last year he made 72 tackles and the team won the ball on 43 (59.7%), and thus far this year he's made 7 and won 6 (85.7%). At Lille the year before joining, he won 31 of 48 (64.6%).
On whoscored they have attempted tackles, then it's broken down into just tackles and dribbled past. This year he's listed as having attempted 11 with 7 tackles, last year attempted 84 with 72, and at Lille it was 55 attempts with 48 tackles. Those tackle numbers square with what the other sites present.
My assumption is that the tackles number is where he won the ball, but lots of tackles a person would normally count as having been won will result in balls going out for a throw in/corner, or a loose ball picked up by the opposition.

So even if we go with the least generous method of "Did the player attempt a tackle, and did their side end up with the ball?" that combines the two above methods, this year he's at 6/11 (54.5%), last year 43/84 (51.1%), and at Lille 31/55 (56.4%). And if you go with players actually getting past him, this year it's 4/11 (36.3%), last year it was 12/84 (14.3%), and at Lille 7/55 (12.7%).

Edited to add: There's a "challenges" section on fbref, which I'm not totally clear on how the numbers differ, but it shows that he's at like 42% in the early part of this year, and was over 70% each of the last couple years.
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His tackling stats seem to be higher than expected. But this got me curious, Do we have a way to tell how many of these were like standing vs. sliding tackles? I have a feeling that most of his tackles are those where he slid in but recovered quickly mind you. I think his reading the game enough to avoid having to slide in will help him. I mean my belief is that standing tackles>sliding tackles when teams do not dominate possession but sliding tackles>standing tackles when teams dominate possession.
 
KMC said:
Perfect example of the piss-poor recruitment policy...

Big bucks for a player that is counted upon to develop in the next few years but this team needs players who can perform NOW...
Click to expand...
Exactly, and why did we pay so much for a player with so little game time, was there any other club prepared to pay over £30M for him?
 
Cameron Manning said:
Exactly, and why did we pay so much for a player with so little game time, was there any other club prepared to pay over £30M for him?
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Yes West Ham. I think he will come good but say we get £50m for him next summer when we spent over £30m for him with a sizeable sell on clause and inflated wages for his current ability then it has not been a great investment. He would need to go for £60m + really.

That is why you really need to get these guys like Brighton have done on the low initial fee before selling on. Buying a Gnonto for £30m is not going to be a good strategy for us. We are unlikely to get great initial impact in terms of performance and eventual return on investment is likely to be modest
 
jonnyboy316 said:
Yes West Ham. I think he will come good but say we get £50m for him next summer when we spent over £30m for him with a sizeable sell on clause and inflated wages for his current ability then it has not been a great investment. He would need to go for £60m + really.

That is why you really need to get these guys like Brighton have done on the low initial fee before selling on. Buying a Gnonto for £30m is not going to be a good strategy for us. We are unlikely to get great initial impact in terms of performance and eventual return on investment is likely to be modest
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I couldn’t agree more, the Brighton way of doing things is the way to go, I thought the Gnonto deal was a smokescreen and a non goer from the off, Thelwell seems to be a lot more conservative with his buys and hopefully we will not be wasting huge amounts on players with ridiculous wages and long contracts.
 
Everything he does do, he does well, sometimes very well this season. He’s clearly been told to look forward when poss, and not just pass to the nearest full back or wall pass with Tarks for no reason. It’s resulted in a handful of very nicely spotted and perfectly weighted penetrative passes. It’s what he doesn’t do that’s the issue, and it’s stuff your average or even technically below average midfielder does without being told to.
 

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