Bundesliga Gameweek 26 | #Footback keep this thread football only (Covid free zone)

[FootballHQ]

He was overrated. Ability-wise he's fine (though not as good as was hyped) but his decision making is atrocious. I also can't see any development whatsoever. Paulinho, Diaby, Wirtz, Palacios, Tapsoba, Brandt and Tah all are more talented players than Bailey ever was, if you ask me. He still has time, but right now, I'm totally fine with him leaving us next season.

A premier league club will easily blow 40m on him given his age and he does have decent pace so will fit into the counter attack nature of many clubs here.

 

[Peyroteo]

He was overrated. Ability-wise he's fine (though not as good as was hyped) but his decision making is atrocious. I also can't see any development whatsoever. Paulinho, Diaby, Wirtz, Palacios, Tapsoba, Brandt and Tah all are more talented players than Bailey ever was, if you ask me. He still has time, but right now, I'm totally fine with him leaving us next season.

Has Tapsoba been good so far or is it too soon to judge? I rate him very highly

 

[hasanejaz88]

Is the jamaican dude bailey overrated or just struggling a bit at the moment?

He had a few months of great performances but was never consistent enough to make it into a class player.

 

[do.ob]

Anyone watching? Had no idea Werder is in relegation zone. What happened to them, they used to be good.

Their glory days were built on a fairly risky strategy, relatively high fees for tier 2 talents, a wage bill that relied on CL/EL income, then they had a couple of flops in quick succession: Carlos Alberto, Arnautovic, Wesley, Ekici and Eljero Elia and they went into a downward spiral pretty quickly. These past couple of years it actually looked like they restructured successfully and were ready to play for EL football again, Kohfeldt especially looked like a very promising coach, who had a very positive approach for a team of limited means. Last season they came quite close to qualifying for Europe, Kohfeldt was supposedly a candidate at bigger clubs like Dortmund. This year they actually aimed for top 6/7 with sizeable transfer spending, but at the beginning of the season they had a horrible injury crisis that spanned well into winter and it looks more and more like that period broke something. Kohlfeldt doesn't seem to have any answers anymore for months, but the club is very reluctant to sack a coach who until then looked much better than they could have hoped to sign outright.

 

[Acrobat7]

He was overrated. Ability-wise he's fine (though not as good as was hyped) but his decision making is atrocious. I also can't see any development whatsoever. Paulinho, Diaby, Wirtz, Palacios, Tapsoba, Brandt and Tah all are more talented players than Bailey ever was, if you ask me. He still has time, but right now, I'm totally fine with him leaving us next season.

I agree. Bailey is a bit a poor version of Douglas Costa.

 

[Zehner]

Has Tapsoba been good so far or is it too soon to judge? I rate him very highly

I'm really, really impressed so far. He fits in perfectly in Bosz' system. Great tacklings and just excellent on the ball. He wins many duels, intercepts passes, reads the game well and the way he keeps the ball in play is brillant. His vision reminds me a little bit of Hummels. The players and the staff also praise him regularly, some even said things like "I've got no idea where they found a player like that for this money" etc. His style may prove to be too risky, though. It remains to be seen and right now it works out and maybe it'll remain that way. But chances are that with a little more bad luck, he could have some very dangerous possession losses every other match.

He had the best start of a Leverkusen player every, by the way. I think he's currently at 11 wins, 1 draw in 12 games or something along those lines for us so far.

 

[ForEverEleven]

Has Tapsoba been good so far or is it too soon to judge? I rate him very highly

He has been superb so far, just so calm. At the moment he has pushed Tah out of the starting 11.

 

[Zehner]

A premier league club will easily blow 40m on him given his age and he does have decent pace so will fit into the counter attack nature of many clubs here.

Maybe. I've still got my doubts about that. No offence, but you guys regularly underestimate Bundesliga players moving into the EPL, so when they turn out good, you're surprised that they actually play well in England. But with Bailey It's actually the other way round. He profited from the hype around Dembele when he had completely outstanding 2-3 months and that image remained in many people's heads, I suppose. There are quite a few young players in the BL at least on his level so I guess many would be surprised that he doesn't look as good as he predecessors. As I said, he's a very decent talent but you see his flaws when you observe him more closely.

Anyway, I do agree that EPL clubs will be after him and if he moves for 40m, I think most Leverkusen fans will be okay with that sum. Maybe that's also what he needs because when he's focusing himself on the basics, his pace, good ball control and finishing can be a real weapon (see this season's match against Bayern).

 

[Peyroteo]

I'm really, really impressed so far. He fits in perfectly in Bosz' system. Great tacklings and just excellent on the ball. He wins many duels, intercepts passes, reads the game well and the way he keeps the ball in play is brillant. His vision reminds me a little bit of Hummels. The players and the staff also praise him regularly, some even said things like "I've got no idea where they found a player like that for this money" etc. His style may prove to be too risky, though. It remains to be seen and right now it works out and maybe it'll remain that way. But chances are that with a little more bad luck, he could have some very dangerous possession losses every other match.

He had the best start of a Leverkusen player every, by the way. I think he's currently at 11 wins, 1 draw in 12 games or something along those lines for us so far.

Not surprised at all to hear that. He was a beast at Vitoria and everyone loved him, it was obvious he had potential to be one of the best in the world in his position as he's still so young and had many great performances against the top clubs here.

Leverkusen definitely seem to have a lot of top young talents, do you think they'll be able to keep them together and challenge for the title in the future?

 

[Zehner]

Not surprised at all to hear that. He was a beast at Vitoria and everyone loved him, it was obvious he had potential to be one of the best in the world in his position as he's still so young and had many great performances against the top clubs here.

Leverkusen definitely seem to have a lot of top young talents, do you think they'll be able to keep them together and challenge for the title in the future?

I hope so, but in all honesty, I don't really believe it. I also had high hopes for this season since the second round of the 18/19 season was absolutely sensational. I never felt that confident watching Leverkusen games since everything was under control and we were producing chance after chance. Like a lite version of a Guardiola side. IMO we looked stronger than Leipzig and Dortmund during that time so I thought that maybe time has come for us with a full season under Bosz. However, we started quite slowly into this season and looked nothing like the top team we were just a few months ago. Now our level is very, very high again but I think it was naive to think we could sustain that quality throughout a whole season. Our best players are always inexperienced and our experienced players are decent but not exceptional. Meanwhile our growth potential while Dortmund has everything a true top club needs, Leipzig has a much better financial support (+location advantages) and Bayern are out of everybody's reach, anway. So the chances are there but many things have to turn out perfectly for us.

That being said, Bosz always openly claimed that he wanted to win titles and rumours said that his determination to win trophies was part of the reason the extension took so long. Our management is very reluctant to ambitious goals and usually tries to calm down press and fans before expectations get too big. Now it seems the club has finally committed itself to those ambitions. We signed Palacios and Tapsoba on top of the summer transfers Amiri, Demirbay and Diaby and shortly after, Bosz extended his contract. The players also seem to buy into Bosz' philosophy. Top talents and accomplished players alike don't complain when they're benched for a period (Bellarabi, Demirbay, Alario, Paulinho, Diaby, Dragovic, Bailey), are a real unit on and off the pitch, speak ambitiously in interviews and in recent years, many of our best talents stayed longer than expected. Havertz is the most recent example, but Brandt could also have moved one, two or even three seasons earlier. The same goes for Tah and many others. I haven't seen such a trajectory at the club until now so I'm really happy with how we develop. So yeah, who knows?

 

[Pep's Suit]

He was overrated. Ability-wise he's fine (though not as good as was hyped) but his decision making is atrocious. I also can't see any development whatsoever. Paulinho, Diaby, Wirtz, Palacios, Tapsoba, Brandt and Tah all are more talented players than Bailey ever was, if you ask me. He still has time, but right now, I'm totally fine with him leaving us next season.

Sounds like future Arsenal / Everton signing.

 

[do.ob]

That being said, Bosz always openly claimed that he wanted to win titles and rumours said that his determination to win trophies was part of the reason the extension took so long. Our management is very reluctant to ambitious goals and usually tries to calm down press and fans before expectations get too big. Now it seems the club has finally committed itself to those ambitions. We signed Palacios and Tapsoba on top of the summer transfers Amiri, Demirbay and Diaby and shortly after, Bosz extended his contract. The players also seem to buy into Bosz' philosophy. Top talents and accomplished players alike don't complain when they're benched for a period (Bellarabi, Demirbay, Alario, Paulinho, Diaby, Dragovic, Bailey), are a real unit on and off the pitch, speak ambitiously in interviews and in recent years, many of our best talents stayed longer than expected. Havertz is the most recent example, but Brandt could also have moved one, two or even three seasons earlier. The same goes for Tah and many others. I haven't seen such a trajectory at the club until now so I'm really happy with how we develop. So yeah, who knows?

To be honest that's just too little too late. If Bayer were able to make that pledge 3-4 years ago they could have been able to present a challenge this season or the last, but now? Bayern have ended their little Kovac experiment and despite all the shit we've talked about BRAZZO and the Hoeneß/Rummenigge infighting their rebuild seems to be going quite okay. If Bayern fail you have Dortmund, who basically basically had a similar shift in expectation to Leverkusen, only that they are always buying players one category above Bayer's targets. And of course there is Leipzig. I think sadly for them Leverkusen could be the best they've been since the Ballack days, yet still only play for fourth or third place. Looking at contract expiry dates one would also expect Volland (2021) to move on this summer, together with Havertz that's Bosz's two most effective players gone and perhaps half a season lost yet again to integrate their replacements.