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Transfers Summer Transfer thread - 2024

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How Dry should our Powder be?

  • Total voters
    57
Starks said:
Bissouma:

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Sarr:

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Maddison:

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interesting.

So Bissouma despite being the "6" has spent just as much time closer to the oppositions penalty area as he has ours.
His heat map is typical of what people refer to as a "box to box" midfielder (ie an 8) then a traditional 6.
 
kingdawson said:
interesting.

So Bissouma despite being the "6" has spent just as much time closer to the oppositions penalty area as he has ours.
His heat map is typical of what people refer to as a "box to box" midfielder (ie an 8) then a traditional 6.
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It's because we are a possession-dominant team and the majority of games we play the oppo is sitting deeper for a higher % of the game than us. If you did a heat map for Viccario my guess it would be more or less on the D of the penalty box.
 
Guido 🇺🇦 said:
It's because we are a possession-dominant team and the majority of games we play the oppo is sitting deeper for a higher % of the game than us. If you did a heat map for Viccario my guess it would be more or less on the D of the penalty box.
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yes so the requirement of this magical "6" that is going to be an absolute rock defensively and is just going to sit back and hold his position by staying just in front of the defence is an absolute myth when it comes to Ange and the way we play.
 
kingdawson said:
You're missing the point. He "targets another 8" in your eyes but in Ange's eyes he targets another centre midfielder that can contribute defensively, be effective in regards to ball retention and can contribute in an attacking sense. He targets well rounded central midfielders in order to share the workload . The "6" is still required to contribute in the attacking phase of play, the "8" is required to contribute defensively.
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Ange has said he hates the idea of 6’s and 8’s, we are all (myself included) struggling to take him on his word.

What he wants is CMs that rotate to share responsibility. But then Maddison has more creative responsibilities further forward even if he has to drop and take the ball off the CBs vs the press.

I guess CM is just the most demanding role in this team along with FB so he wants plenty of them who can do it physically. It really wouldn’t be a shock if we went back for Gallagher now and he changed his mind after this fiasco
 
Guido 🇺🇦 said:
We already have one of the best #6's in the league.....
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Both he and the CBs are all we leave back, if an oppo has transitioned against these 3 we are limited to its effectiveness, this is how we have chosen to play. BUT we can affect the oppo by not allowing that transition to build, this is where a better, more aggressive and cunter #8 comes in (BTW I think Bentancur is actually got a lot of the attributes I'm looking for here, he's better than Sarr on the ball and he's more aggressive than him too, I'm not sure he has Sarr's legs to get up and down the pitch and provide 3rd man runs behind oppo but I'd start him ahead of Sarr in a heartbeat).

By the end of last season, Kulu was playing as a Centre Forward or false 9 and we were better for it.

Again, this isn't saying we shouldn't get better wingers, we absolutely should, I also think the Club acknowledges this as to why Werner is on loan and not permanent. All I'm trying to articulate is where can we make our biggest improvement, and having got Solanke we've fixed a huge number of areas upfront with just one hire (this isn't the end but it should have a huge uptick for us both with and without the ball) the other big area dealing with our biggest weakness, putting Rodri in as #6 wouldn't change things, he will still be dealing with multiple transitions with just him and 2 CB's, but having a player in front to snuff or disrupt oppo transitions before they begin is transformative, and will prevent 10-15 gaols against us (being able to defend and score from set-pieces is also right up there too).

Solanke improves our press, which also improves our defence but because of how we commit numbers forward I'm convinced we go a very long way to addressing our biggest weakness which in turn means has the biggest impact on us winning more games.

It doesn't mean in any way I don't want a dribbly winger, I absolutely do but I don't think it has as big an impact/transformative on our performances as getting a better #8 than Sarr (and I stress I love Sarr).
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Also we need to get better at tactical fouling, a la Pep and Arteta.
 
Im going to forget my own feelings on Gallagher for a second here but if this is the end of our window Ange can have no complaints:

Kubo
Gallagher
Locko

Wouldn’t be my choice but it feels like that might be the general ideas.
 
Rebrov_Likes said:
Also we need to get better at tactical fouling, a la Pep and Arteta.
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We seemed to do it a fair bit at the beginning of last season but everytime we did it we got yellows for it. (whereas Woolwich and City seem to get away with it).

Bissouma and Maddison in particular got yellows a fair few times for doing so if I remember correctly (hence why Bissouma clocked up so many yellows)

Then when the suspensions came rolling round, we seemed to stop doing it.
 
Starks said:
We seemed to do it a fair bit at the beginning of last season but everytime we did it we got yellows for it. (whereas Woolwich and City seem to get away with it).

Bissouma and Maddison in particular got yellows a fair few times for doing so if I remember correctly (hence why Bissouma clocked up so many yellows)

Then when the suspensions came rolling round, we seemed to stop doing it.
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The key to it is not doing it when you look like you’re desperately trying to stop a counter. It’s got to be early in the play so the ref doesn’t have an excuse to do it.
 
Starks said:
We seemed to do it a fair bit at the beginning of last season but everytime we did it we got yellows for it. (whereas Woolwich and City seem to get away with it).

Bissouma and Maddison in particular got yellows a fair few times for doing so if I remember correctly (hence why Bissouma clocked up so many yellows)

Then when the suspensions came rolling round, we seemed to stop doing it.
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That’s why we need every player to chip in but we couldn’t risk the yellow last year because we didn’t have rotation options for every position.

If we get at least a LB rotation for Udogie.
 
kingdawson said:
interesting.

So Bissouma despite being the "6" has spent just as much time closer to the oppositions penalty area as he has ours.
His heat map is typical of what people refer to as a "box to box" midfielder (ie an 8) then a traditional 6.
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Not necessarily. You would expect him to be spending a fair amount of time in their half when we have a high line in possession, we're squeezing the pitch.

TBH, his heat map is exactly what I'd expect to see for the role he plays. When we're building from the back, you'd expect to see him between our box and the halfway line, receiving the ball and progressing it forward. But that's not the end of his involvement, as you'd expect him to then advance, as the backline pushes up to the halfway line, to support the attack.

What would be interesting is to see his heat map in conjunction with the frontline. When he's in that area between halfway line and penalty box, the heat map of the forwards you'd expect to see in advance of him, i.e. in the box. That's a fairly simplistic way of looking at it I'll admit, as fluidity in our movement isn't as cut and dried as that, but you get my drift I hope.

I pretty much have the same view of midfielders as Matt1882 does though. The way we play, you don't have rigid structure, it's fluid, so whilst we may have midfielders starting games in a specific position, they don't rigidly stick to those positions throughout a game. Some evidence of this is when Bissouma goes on those foraging runs through the opposition backline. He's given license to attack space when the opportunity presents itself. Anchoring him into a rigid DM position wouldn't allow that. It's when he does that that his midfield partners need to fill in behind him. I'm not sure that discipline is currently there though, which might go a little way to explain why we are countered on so quickly, as his position is vacated and not filled by another.
 
kingdawson said:
yes so the requirement of this magical "6" that is going to be an absolute rock defensively and is just going to sit back and hold his position by staying just in front of the defence is an absolute myth when it comes to Ange and the way we play.
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He does by and large sit in front of our two CBs, this is our shape, better demonstrated by our passing maps. There is and should be rotation, you see this when both Romero and VdV join attacks sometimes, same with Biss who will rotate often with Madders who likes to drop into that pivot but not too much with Sarr (which I would like to see).

We have one of the best #6's in the league already playing for us, so I'm not in that ilk of mythical number 6's or myths. In Ange's system, the 6 plays one of the key roles of drawing the oppo onto us and Biss is fucking great at this. It's not about being some brick-wall hulk of a defender who doesn't move more than 20 yards from a fixed position.

But there is a very clear structure in how we set-up and that has Biss as our deepest midfielder and we consistently leave our CB's behind him, everyone else is pushed way up in advance of them.
 
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