2021/22 Lucas Digne

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MikeH72 said:
Again, as much as we don’t like it, selling DCL in the summer is inevitably going to happen and is going to look fantastic on our books because we’ll be making a colossal profit on him. He’s our only hope of anywhere near such a profitable sale. It’s simply going to happen so we have to trust that whoever the manager is in the summer spends the money right on a young striker who is both ready to step into our first team immediately and has similar potential for a huge resale in the future. It’s just the way we have to do business for the foreseeable future and it’ll be the same after the stadium is built for about 5 years while we pay off the debts from that.
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Yeah I agree. And Benitez was brought in to be a 'stable' safe pair of hands while that happened.

Unfortunately, as a few of us pointed out, despite initial hopes we've quickly realised he's anything but a safe pair of hands in 2021-22. I'm not kidding when I say now Solskjaer, Farke, Xisco etc have been sacked I reckon we have the worst manager in the league. I can't think of anyone worse. He has no man management skills unless you count motivating his teacher's pet Townsend, demanded we sign a 32-year-old from China all summer and has shown no tactical nous that we were supposedly getting as the trade off for his many other flaws.

I'll credit him with signing Gray, who has got him out of immense trouble, and giving Gordon a run. I think the latter is more through circumstance than design however and it's not like Gordon has been amazing. He's something like the 76th/80th worst wide player in the league when it comes to end product - but he's young and it looks like that performance and assist he got v Chelsea did his confidence the world of good.

This bloke cannot be the man who gets to reshape this team. At least Mykolenko and Patterson had been scouted by the club before so it's not like Benitez has gone and found these players himself. They are young enough not to end up wedded to one manager's system.
 
BlueToff said:
Gray has only just overtaken Digne for chances created this season in the league though, mate... He's just now onto 23, having played four games more. Digne's on 22 - he's still our third-most creative player (and based on minutes played he'll be our most creative) and even though he was taken off set-pieces after the Burnley game, has still created the most chances that led to a shot from set-pieces in the squad - so it basically shows that Townsend and Gray's quality from set-pieces is really, really lacking because I think Digne's corners have been pretty crap since about March last season tbh.

But when you say he 'hasn't performed well' it's just not true. Not for the last couple of seasons. I'll give you this season, and maybe a bit of last towards the end when the whole team was playing poorly, but he was brilliant at the start of last season. He was very good in 19-20 and he was excellent in his first season with us.

My issue with allowing a fallout this manager to dictate any business at the club is because this manager should never in a million years be here. We will look back at this time in a few years and genuinely think 'what the f*** were we doing', mate.
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Is he the best defender? Is he Baines level of performance in going forward and defending? We have a replacement who could be even better. I would be annoyed if we were selling him without a replacement
 

BlueToff said:
Yeah I agree. And Benitez was brought in to be a 'stable' safe pair of hands while that happened.

Unfortunately, as a few of us pointed out, despite initial hopes we've quickly realised he's anything but a safe pair of hands in 2021-22. I'm not kidding when I say now Solskjaer, Farke, Xisco etc have been sacked I reckon we have the worst manager in the league. I can't think of anyone worse. He has no man management skills unless you count motivating his teacher's pet Townsend, demanded we sign a 32-year-old from China all summer and has shown no tactical nous that we were supposedly getting as the trade off for his many other flaws.

I'll credit him with signing Gray, who has got him out of immense trouble, and giving Gordon a run. I think the latter is more through circumstance than design however and it's not like Gordon has been amazing. He's something like the 76th/80th worst wide player in the league when it comes to end product - but he's young and it looks like that performance and assist he got v Chelsea did his confidence the world of good.

This bloke cannot be the man who gets to reshape this team. At least Mykolenko and Patterson had been scouted by the club before so it's not like Benitez has gone and found these players himself. They are young enough not to end up wedded to one manager's system.
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He will not be here come the summer, I am absolutely certain of that.
 
ForeverBlue92 said:
Prior to FFP dat mate.

Would be silly doing dat these days unless FFP wasn't a problem for you.

Sadly for us we are close to the limit - Digne oot and 3-4 signings in makes sense ultimately.

Just got to hope the new signings are of a good quality.
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I don't think you could be more wrong. Selling a player for £25m and replacing them at the same level for £5m with that £5m spread over the cost of the contract is almost the perfect scenario for ffp. Distin stayed for 6 seasons and played over 200 games the fact he was 31 when we signed him is completely irrelevant. People get so obsessed with what they think ffp means that they become incapable of seeing the reality.
 
phil_t98 said:
Is he the best defender? Is he Baines level of performance in going forward and defending? We have a replacement who could be even better. I would be annoyed if we were selling him without a replacement
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Baines was a pretty weak defender tbh, but Moyes' system generally covered him.

No good teams focus on full-backs defending as a first priority anymore. It's why 433 is so in vogue, or a variation of it, so that teams can get width from their full-backs and the midfield cover, or like City, one full-back tucks in (which madly, is what Coleman should have been doing with Digne getting forward but under Benitez we've attacked more down the left)

Mykolenko is not better than Digne. He might go on to become that but right now he is far off that quality. He's going to need 3-4 months to settle into the league first,
 

Groucho said:
Richarlison is probably better than Pienaar and Digne a little below Baines all round, but I reckon creatively Baines and Pienaar were superior. It’s all subjective of course.

Greater than the sum of their parts and that.


PSG and Man U wanted him
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Probably right on both counts, Baines better than Digne and Richarlison better than Pienaar, as a pair Baines an Pienaaar were almost telepathic at times. Like to think though Richie and Digne brought the best out of each other, but not as good as a pairing than Bainaar.
 
BlueToff said:
I don't trust the bloke in your avatar to make that decision until it's too late tbh. I think the only way he goes is if we go down.
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He’ll cave as soon as we get to within a couple of points of the relegation zone. If we go down, his stadium and chances of selling the club at a profit goes down in flames too. His retirement fund rests on us staying up for the next 3 years.
 
BlueToff said:
Baines was a pretty weak defender tbh, but Moyes' system generally covered him.

No good teams focus on full-backs defending as a first priority anymore. It's why 433 is so in vogue, or a variation of it, so that teams can get width from their full-backs and the midfield cover, or like City, one full-back tucks in (which madly, is what Coleman should have been doing with Digne getting forward but under Benitez we've attacked more down the left)

Mykolenko is not better than Digne. He might go on to become that but right now he is far off that quality. He's going to need 3-4 months to settle into the league first,
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Digne didn’t need 3 or 4 months to settle, its been one game so far for our new left back and he did ok. We have Godfrey as cover if that’s the case. The ideal centre back partnership at the moment is Mina and Keane if fully fit anyway
 
mahermi1 said:
Thought myself Mike that was when we got the best out of Digne, I'd actually love us to play 433 like Liverpool do with Richarlison, DCL and Gray switching positions, that would allow us 3 in midfield Allan, Doucoure, possibly Gomes.
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Digne's best by a long way was when he had Bernard in front of him and they linked up like Pienaar and Baines did. Thats how good teams set up with players designed to get the best out of eachother not just sticking 11 players on the pitch but after Silva left we abandoned that plan and Digne's never been as effective since.
 
MikeH72 said:
But it’s a fair point though. Digne is a great example of why you should buy players young, we’ve had 4 years out of him and are still going to sell him for a profit. We’re crippled as a business essentially from buying 28 year olds for massive money and releasing them on frees.
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A lot to do with managers wanting quick fixes, they don't get long to get it right, so obviously it suited the likes of Koeman for instance to want to buy players at their peak 27/28. One good thing about Benitez, if there was one, he's took a chance and bought two young fullbacks. ( if it was Benitez who bought him)
 

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