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Fuck off.
:contelol:
Don’t think we’ll get both, but Richarlison and Gordon and such sensible signings and show that Conte has a real grasp on what works in the Premier League.
Pace, power, fitness, competitiveness, and work rate translate in the Premier League and Liverpool and City have lapped the field making signings in that mould. Liverpool’s success in particular has totally changed the way I view the transfer market. Jota, Wijnaldum, and Robertson were all players I’d watched at their previous club and I thought they were such meh signings. But each of them has the work rate and physicality to play at a high level in the Premier League and when combined with an elite tactical mind they just fit the league perfectly. Same goes for VVD and Mane, both who I thought were good players but Liverpool was paying over the odds. They’re just the perfect level of physicality and work rate for the league.
Conte has been so clear about this and has said as much talking about how the Premier League differs from the continent, most notably in his withering take on Gil, “For this reason when you go to sign a new player, you have to consider many aspects. Not only one aspect, if he shoots well or makes an assist, you have to consider a lot of situations because this league is very difficult. You can be good with quality. You can be a creative player, but at the same time you have to be strong physically. You have to run a lot, to be resilient.”
We used to be stocked with strong, pacey, resilient players who ran their socks off and never got bullied under Pochettino like Dembele, Wanyama, Walker, Rose, motivated Dele, Vertonghen and then they slowly fell out of the side and were replaced. Take Lo Celso and Ndombele, I think they are both tremendously skilled footballers and they shown that in spurts at Spurs, but they just don’t have the physicality, fitness, or pace to keep up with the match speed week in and week out in the premier league.
Bissouma and Perisic are clearly shifts towards a different profile of player. Both are in peak physical condition, physical, and have immense work rates. For me, Richarlison and Gordon also both fit that mix of mentality, work rate, and physicality that makes Premier League football different. Bremer would be another great fit and Spence has the tools. Kulusevski and Bentancur are also examples who have taken well to the fast paced and physical PL style well.
Most of those guys don’t have a pretty YouTube compilation that could hold a candle to Ndombele, Lo Celso, that Portuguese kid Woolwich bought, but they have the traits that are proven to work in PL. Almost all our serious targets so far have fit that mould and for me it is clearly Conte’s vision and understanding of what makes PL football different that’s driving our recruitment.
They’re also all competitive bastards who give a shit. Gordon and Richarlison could have rolled over during Everton’s relegation scrap, like much of the side, and gotten an easy move back to the PL in the summer. No skin off their ass on an individual level. But they didn’t, they scraped. That’s the mentality Conte is reinstalling and he’s bringing in players in that mould.
Pace, power, fitness, competitiveness, and work rate translate in the Premier League and Liverpool and City have lapped the field making signings in that mould. Liverpool’s success in particular has totally changed the way I view the transfer market. Jota, Wijnaldum, and Robertson were all players I’d watched at their previous club and I thought they were such meh signings. But each of them has the work rate and physicality to play at a high level in the Premier League and when combined with an elite tactical mind they just fit the league perfectly. Same goes for VVD and Mane, both who I thought were good players but Liverpool was paying over the odds. They’re just the perfect level of physicality and work rate for the league.
Conte has been so clear about this and has said as much talking about how the Premier League differs from the continent, most notably in his withering take on Gil, “For this reason when you go to sign a new player, you have to consider many aspects. Not only one aspect, if he shoots well or makes an assist, you have to consider a lot of situations because this league is very difficult. You can be good with quality. You can be a creative player, but at the same time you have to be strong physically. You have to run a lot, to be resilient.”
We used to be stocked with strong, pacey, resilient players who ran their socks off and never got bullied under Pochettino like Dembele, Wanyama, Walker, Rose, motivated Dele, Vertonghen and then they slowly fell out of the side and were replaced. Take Lo Celso and Ndombele, I think they are both tremendously skilled footballers and they shown that in spurts at Spurs, but they just don’t have the physicality, fitness, or pace to keep up with the match speed week in and week out in the premier league.
Bissouma and Perisic are clearly shifts towards a different profile of player. Both are in peak physical condition, physical, and have immense work rates. For me, Richarlison and Gordon also both fit that mix of mentality, work rate, and physicality that makes Premier League football different. Bremer would be another great fit and Spence has the tools. Kulusevski and Bentancur are also examples who have taken well to the fast paced and physical PL style well.
Most of those guys don’t have a pretty YouTube compilation that could hold a candle to Ndombele, Lo Celso, that Portuguese kid Woolwich bought, but they have the traits that are proven to work in PL. Almost all our serious targets so far have fit that mould and for me it is clearly Conte’s vision and understanding of what makes PL football different that’s driving our recruitment.
They’re also all competitive bastards who give a shit. Gordon and Richarlison could have rolled over during Everton’s relegation scrap, like much of the side, and gotten an easy move back to the PL in the summer. No skin off their ass on an individual level. But they didn’t, they scraped. That’s the mentality Conte is reinstalling and he’s bringing in players in that mould.
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Depends if they force it (which they probably won’t) De Jong doesn’t want to go United but looks like they are pushing him out.
He's had one of his best seasons ever, with 8 goals and 7 assists from wingback. So what if he's 33, Benzema is going to win the Ballon D'Or at 34 this season. Chelsea signed a 36-year-old Thiago Silva last season and won the Champions League. Luka Modric has played an integral part in bringing Real Madrid to the final at 36.
This guy is a treble winner, has worked with Conte, and is definitely going to be starting over Sessegnon.
You mean 180?
Really don't want us to sign him now because of the length of that post.
The stunning evolution of Weston McKennie
Weston McKennie, the American international midfielder, played his first minutes for Schalke in the ...smarterscout.com
The stunning evolution of Weston McKennie
Weston McKennie, the American international midfielder, played his first minutes for Schalke in the Bundesliga at age 18. As if that statement weren't remarkable enough, the multitalented McKennie has since shifted to an entirely different position, one in which he's thriving like never before. Will he soon take over as the USMNT's midfield anchor?
McKennie started out as a combative CM who was good in the air but didn't offer much going forward. That may not have been too surprising for a teenager gifted with height (1.85m) and athleticism, but it was actually a denigration of McKennie's true talents. That became clear once he started getting regular minutes in 2017-18. Although McKennie seemed to have most of the skills necessary to play box-to-box, in our metrics he looked like a DM being forced to play further forward. The youthful head coach Domenico Tedesco usually played three at the back with a high line of five ahead of them, allowing Benjamin Stambouli, nominally a CB but more naturally a DM, to step up when necessary. And it was often necessary, since Max Meyer – more often thought of as an attacking player – didn't exactly excel in his defensive responsibilities in the middle of the five.
Still, somehow this unusual formula, with only 53 goals scored, was good enough for second place in the Bundesliga. (Sometimes when you score is as important as how many, as Alan Pardew can attest!) Tedesco stayed on for 2018-19, but the wheels finally came off and Schalke finished 14th.
Enter David Wagner. The Frankfurt-born American coach apparently saw what we saw after returning to Germany from his eventful stint at Huddersfield. He initially stuck with three at the back for the last two months of the 2018-19 season, but then switched to a back four for 2019-20. This allowed McKennie to play in a more orthodox two or three in midfield, and the club started the season with only three losses in 15 matches, all but two of which featured McKennie.
So how different was it? Just have a look at McKennie's smartermaps at CM in 2017-18 and DM in 2019-20:
At both positions, McKennie had a tendency to get forward on the right, providing short passes in the channel and occasionally entering the box to shoot. But as a DM, he takes most of his touches behind midfield, often looking for longer passes but also dribbling up the right flank from deep. The change is evident in his playing style, too, relative to other players at DM and CM in the Bundesliga:
At DM, McKennie looks like a triple threat – pass, dribble, or shoot – who can storm into the box but still fulfills his defensive responsibilities. He's still well above average in every kind of duel, too. By comparison, at CM he appeared relatively ineffective on the ball in attack and a hugely aggressive defensive specialist.
And it gets better. McKennie's ball retention is actually rated much higher at DM, which has a more challenging standard than at CM, showing just how much his game has matured. There can often be a tradeoff between ball retention and attacking output for young players; they either play too safely or fast and loose. But McKennie is generating excellent attacking output for a deep-lying midfielder even as his ability to maintain possession has improved.
In our view, the change in style has changed McKennie's career prospects as well. These are the CMs from Europe's top five leagues who managed 950' or more (the equivalent of ten full matches) playing a similar style to McKennie's at CM in 2017-18:
It's not quite a list of names to set the heart aflutter. Sure, McKennie was very young at the time, but he wasn't projecting as a Champions-League-level star. Now check out the DMs with similar styles to McKennie's in 2019-20:
Fabian Ruiz, the outstanding Spanish international, appears three times at two different clubs. And there's also some late-period Luiz Gustavo, a player whose name is used enough in recruitment meetings to merit the title of cult hero. Let's see how the new model McKennie stacks up to those two midfield monsters:
McKennie is a more aggressive defender than either of the other two. While his ball retention still has a way to go in order to match them, his attacking output is already on par – and the trend in his development is certainly encouraging for his ball retention as well. He can't yet finish like Ruiz, but, then again, Ruiz is launching the sort of long-range strikes that only an ICBM designer can truly appreciate.
So the future is bright for McKennie, brighter than ever before, providing he can avoid injury. He also needs to stay in Wagner's plans despite Schalke's recent poor run of form. Not a few American fans will hope that McKennie is holding down a similar spot in midfield during the 2022 and 2026 World Cups... perhaps even with Wagner as the coach!
P.S. Did we mention that McKennie is also a righteous dude?
Yup , he’s not going to want to learn another language at his age