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2021/22 Vitalii Mykolenko

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Neiler said:
Honestly think it’s mad that we thought, loosing Jamo, Digne and Gylfi that we’d be alright.

That’s a hell of a lot of chance creation gone out of the team and look where we are.….

Our last four goals in our last theee games came of two defected shots and two penalties.

Those losses have been massive for us, DCL hasn’t touched a ball in the six yard box since 2020.

Whatever anyones opinion on individual players, taking a scalpel to any progressive player we had in the squad was stupid, all of them lunacy (Gylfi excluded) and the results are apparent to my mind.
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It was the replacement of those players that wasn’t handled properly.

James is one of the worlds best when fit, absolutely unbelievable, but it became clear we couldn’t afford his wages and he wasn’t fit enough for us so he had to go.

Siggurdson speaks for itself.

Digne was a prime candidate to move one, declining in form, declining in fitness, at the peak of his value. We sold him at the right time.

Unfortunately Dele, VdB, Townsend, haven’t replaced the attacking output these players had in terms of chance creation.

I still think long term though we are better off as a club without Digne and Siggurdson, the odd moment of class yes but so many inconsistent performances so often.
 

Saint Domingo said:
It was the replacement of those players that wasn’t handled properly.

James is one of the worlds best when fit, absolutely unbelievable, but it became clear we couldn’t afford his wages and he wasn’t fit enough for us so he had to go.

Siggurdson speaks for itself.

Digne was a prime candidate to move one, declining in form, declining in fitness, at the peak of his value. We sold him at the right time.

Unfortunately Dele, VdB, Townsend, haven’t replaced the attacking output these players had in terms of chance creation.

I still think long term though we are better off as a club without Digne and Siggurdson, the odd moment of class yes but so many inconsistent performances so often.
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I think prime time for Digne sale was this summer or last, not in January. Yes he was in poor form, not really questionable but when we were in dire straights, losing week in week out, and it's evidently taken us untl early April to see Mykolenko looking like a premier league full back.

I agree we were probably in that stage wher it was do or die for Digne. Sell now while stock is high or keep him and know that we probably wouldnt get top money at any point. I just think it was a disaster selling him in January.


Agree with Siggurdsson as well. Even though in my mind I probably think we'd have got more points with him in the team this season. For some reason I think he'd have popped up with some important goals. Long-term it wasn't working though. (We are still lacking a creative number 10 type). Despite having signed about 230 number 10's in 5 years.
 
Saint Domingo said:
It was the replacement of those players that wasn’t handled properly.

James is one of the worlds best when fit, absolutely unbelievable, but it became clear we couldn’t afford his wages and he wasn’t fit enough for us so he had to go.

Siggurdson speaks for itself.

Digne was a prime candidate to move one, declining in form, declining in fitness, at the peak of his value. We sold him at the right time.

Unfortunately Dele, VdB, Townsend, haven’t replaced the attacking output these players had in terms of chance creation.

I still think long term though we are better off as a club without Digne and Siggurdson, the odd moment of class yes but so many inconsistent performances so often.
Click to expand...

I think in isolation, all of those assessments are fair. James was a fantastic player, but he couldn't stay fit, was on enormous wages and is one of the slowest players I've ever seen play for us. Even now in a more progressive system, I'm not convinced Lampard would rely on him.

Digne was declining, it seemed (although context here about the system and style we were using), but also on big wages and Villa fans have complained about his fitness too

Sigurdsson, quite apart from anything else, wasn't loved by many and I think it's fair to say we all expected he'd be released at the end of this season anyway.

All well and good, but the two problems here are firstly taking all that creativity out of the team in one go (more or less) was always going to be problematic and secondly, the recruitment has to be spot on. We (or more specifically Benitez) didn't seem to take either into account.
 
So far I dont think he's great positionally, tbh. Probably because he's being asked to add an attacking side to his game and he's struggling to do that and in synch with his team mates.

This will improve with better English and communication with his team mates too...and not being in a relegation threatened mess of a team.

I'm hopeful for him rather than expectant, tbh. What I've seen so far doesn't suggest he'll be top notch though.
 

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