Even the price tag isn't comparable, Arsenal paid £75m for Pepe, Leipzig want a reported €65m for Nkunku.
They're night and day in terms of talent, Arsenal have had their pants down with Pepe and will take a massive hit on him whenever they sell.
Christopher Nkunku to Chelsea | Confirmed
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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They're night and day in terms of talent, Arsenal have had their pants down with Pepe and will take a massive hit on him whenever they sell.
Thanks! ........not even the price tag.
Many recent Bundesliga exports like Sancho, Werner, Haller, Havertz and Jovic have had those kind of numbers.
They have all failed to replicate anything like it in England or Spain.
Figures alone shouldn't be why we'd look at him though. While the French league in general is weaker, the Bundesliga is known for having higher defensive lines and as such a lot of young attackers score more goals there then they would in other leagues. Especially when you play for teams like Dortmund and Liepzig.
What's really needed is to properly watch and assess if he'd be the kind of player we need. We don't really need another LW, but if he's special enough of course we'd look at buying him. I watched Sancho a lot for example prior to us buying him, and whilst he had good figures I could see his lack of pace and his inability to dirbble past players more often than not would be a big issue. I don't know anything about Nkunku really nor can I be bothered to watch him properly, but I hope our scouts properly assess the player for once rather than just going after the new hot thing because of goals.
Yes it is, and we need this type of player here.
It is down to the manager and whatever kind of play he wants to bring to the team. I honestly think this player would fit into most top teams in the Premiership. You have got to take a chance sometimes, then it is up to the manager to bring out the best in a player.
Lots of players we never heard of before they came to premiership, are now starring for their clubs. We always seem to go for the big stars and then they fail to show.
PSG scored 105 goals in Ligue 1 that season and a young attacker like Mbappe scored 33 goals. I can assure you that he didn't score many of those against low block defenses...
Pepe played 100% of his games on the right wing for Lille, so not very versatile either.
Nkunku has done well in all 5 positions he's played in (FC, SS, CAM, LM and RM) for Leipzig this season and he's been delivering great numbers in the CL (7 goals (3 against City) and 1 assist in 6 games in a group with City and PSG) and EL KO's (Just scored both to send them to the semi in the 0-2 away win against Atalanta) as well. He has been overachieving this season for sure, but even if he delivered just on par with his npxG and xA he would have miles more to show for than Pepe had back in 2019.....or Martial back in 2015.
He can play any position across the midfield and attack and would be less of a gamble most.
Too early to write off Sancho, my friend.
Ligue 1 is definitely a low block league.
This is so irrational on so many levels. First of all, Sancho achieved top speeds >34 km/h multiple seasons in a row. At the EC he was measured at almost 35 km/h which is not slow but very fast. For comparison, the fastest players in the Bundesliga like Haaland, Diaby or Davies achieve top speeds of around 36 km/h.
Second, the goal inflation in the Bundesliga. While it may be true that there are more goals on average in the Bundesliga, the top clubs in the EPL (Liverpool and City) score just as much or even more than Dortmund or Leipzig. Let me put it like this, if Heung Min Son, de Bruyne, Firmino and Gündogan, can rival or even outperform their most productive Bundesliga seasons in the EPL, then Jadon Sancho is not only capable but likely to do so as well. That aside, did anybody talk about goal inflation when Madrid and Barcelona scored 100+ goals season after season between 2009 and 2018? I don't think so.
Finally, do you realize that Liverpool is coached by a Bundesliga manager whose squad features 6 former Bundesliga players (7 if you count Origi), many of them were/are key players for Liverpool, like Firmino, Matip or Thiago. I mean, what kind of twisted logic is it to take a clear loss against the team which is probably connected to the Bundesliga most closely as evidence that you should be careful to sign Bundesliga players?
What you should really be looking at is that Liverpool operates like a Bundesliga club with a huge emphasis on tactical setup in their recruitment, scouting and so forth while United is the EPL top 6 club that is the furthest away from it. Don't you think that this kind of cultural difference might play its part in why so many Bundesliga players flop after you signed them?
Only Sancho had similar numbers close to the ones Nkunku has this season actually, and there is many cases of players who make it.
- Werner and Havertz both CL winners (Havertz with almost identical numbers for Chelsea as he had for Leverkusen)
- Haller CL topscorer with Ajax this season and - 0,41 npG/90 for Frankfurt vs. 0,34 npG/90 for West Ham......wasn't trusted and didn't fit in.
- Jovic, well yeah. He flopped hard, but never really got a fair chance either.
- Özil, Son, Kroos, KDB, Aubameyang, Sane etc. are examples of players who have translated well to PL/LaLiga
Good post!
The Bundesliga is not a stronger league. It's a nicer league, better stadiums, more money, but it's not superior as far as difficulty. You've got all kinds of stats, and this is probably difficult to get, but I'd be curious to see how Ligue 1 attacking players making the move to the Bundesliga fare? I have examples I can think of, like Nkunku, Dembele, or Ribery if we go further back, and they all quickly became one of, if not the best players in the Bundesliga coming straight from Ligue 1, but it's anecdotal at best. I just think the Bundesliga is as easy as it gets in the top leagues for attacking talents.
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Bundesliga is a superior league overall operation wise. While Ligue 1 can have higher level of raw talent pool (NKunku came from Ligue 1 from PSG youth, too!), Ligue 1 doesn't do well enough collectively to attract multiple high profile managers at the same time to elevate the league level. Bundesliga has been doing this for a while, and earning themselves more CL spots, help maintaining this status by the CL money getting put into the league (Bayern as a traditional European powerhouse doing well in CL also a big help). Ligue 1 is behind in this, which leads to issue with bleeding talent prematurely and underpriced.
Entertaining wise, I myself prefer Ligue 1. Bundesliga teams are more uniform and robotic in their approach. With Ligue 1, there are more playing style in display.
You must have had my post quoted for a bit, I edited my post for clarity, I meant it's not a stronger league as far as difficulty for attacking players moving from ligue 1 to Bundesliga. There's nothing in what you wrote I disagree with, my point was using his stats in the Bundesliga and tagging it as a more difficult league, I don't think it is for attacking players coming from Ligue 1, I actually think they thrive there but I'd love to see more data to back that up than my few examples or my eye test when watching the two leagues in comparison.
You really need to relax a bit with the pro Sancho and Bundesliga stuff. My point is simply that Nkunku may or may not be a good fit for us, but it shouldn't be based on goals alone, which should be contextualised by the team and league he plays for. The profile of player he is is more important, and our scouts should look at that, is the point I'm making.
For example take Sancho - Liverpool signed Luis Diaz not long after we signed him - would they have signed Sancho if given the opportunity for a cheaper price? I don't think they would have (you'll probably disagree I know), Klopp prefers fast, dribbling wide players (Sancho may have a fast top speed if your stats are correct but he rarely blitzes past players with the ball from a standing start). Which is what I think we need, I don't know if Nkunku is that or not, I haven't watched him, so he could be, or he could be like Rashford (prior to this season) in that he's very clinical around the box but not really a technical dribbling wide player.
Also fyi since you've repeated it in different threads, for Mikhi, Kagawa and probably now Sancho, they're good players and yes United has been in a mess post SAF. But equally I believe the calibre and style of those players aren't really suited to United, so there's equal blame on both club and player. For instance if you put Mane at United I don't think it really matters how bad the team is, he would shine, because his qualities would be good at pretty much any team in the world. There are players like that out there, so the point I'm making is to properly evaluate Nkunku outside of goals and see what kind of player he is and where he could end up.
This is a discussion forum so I think it's normal to have your opinion contested. Especially when some of your claims are factually wrong.
Klopp would love Sancho and obviously would have taken him over Luis Diaz. Suggesting anything different is almost absurd. Klopp even said as much himself and named Sancho as one of the best talents in the world besides Mbappe.
And why is it important whether or not a player shines in any team, dysfunctional or not? I mean, your goal isn't to build a dysfunctional team, is it?
Besides, I'm confident there's no player in the world who wouldn't look at least two levels below his best in your team right now.
Because:
1) We don't have probably the best manager around today (and in my opinion one of the best ever) in Jurgen Klopp managing us
2) We don't have Liverpool's god like recruitment department
Hell we haven't even had an average level when it comes to recruitment or managers, so getting to Liverpool's level where most players look good is a stretch (though not all - players like Minamino and quite a few attackers at City don't work out). Ragnick's said similar, that Liverpool are 6 years ahead of us and that's where we need to get to, the thing is anyone can tell you that, the problem is fixing it.
We can start, by making sure each of our individual signings is heavily analysed in all aspects of their play, making sure they fit into the the style of play a team a top team has. That's all I'm saying. As I've said, I've not watched Nkunku at all but can't judge, I watched Sancho a lot at Dortmund specifically for him so could judge (and I may be right or wrong). For me there's three profiles of wide forwards these days, the Mane like technical dribbler, the Rashford like converter striker, that's great at scoring but not great against low blocks, and the slower play maker that contributes more with assists but also occasional goals. I don't know what style Nkunku is but in my opinion we need more signings in the first mould. We've been stuck with too many slow playmakers and converted strikers in attack for too long.
Good post!
Sancho is a world class talent but he does lack acceleration pace and the intensity Diaz has, I don’t think Klopp takes Sancho over him at all, intensity is the key quality all his forwards have and its a quality that Sancho lacks however taktned he is.
Any rumours or just debating 15 pages on how shit the Bundesliga is?
No chance Klopp would take him. His long ball/kick and rush style wouldn't suit Sancho at all.
It sounds like Nkunku could be best suited leading the press as the striker. Operating as somewhere between Firmino and Luis Suarez as a pressing forward.
With links to Tchouameni and Antony the front 6 could be transformed quite dramatically.
If ETH was going with his 4-2-3-1 from this season then something like
Tchouameni Fred
Antony Bruno Sancho
Nkunku
Sign a right back and centre back and we’d be on our way again.
With links to Tchouameni and Antony the front 6 could be transformed quite dramatically.
If ETH was going with his 4-2-3-1 from this season then something like
Tchouameni Fred
Antony Bruno Sancho
Nkunku
Sign a right back and centre back and we’d be on our way again.
Best you stay away from Nkunku. We don't want another Sancho situation.
Your Jedi mind tricks won't work here
I think last summer he’d have taken Sancho over Diaz. Based on this season he’d take Diaz over Sancho. Longer term who knows who winds up better. Diaz has come into a well oiled machine while Sancho is trying while we are a mess.
Whoever responsible for the Pepe deal left Arsenal already. Arsenal overpaid for Pepe that is for sure.
Outstanding post! We can’t keep ignoring that we set up and have the combativeness of a bottom half team. It’s almost impossible to judge the players individually whilst the club has such a lack of a plan. It’s impossible to compete when there are no systems in place and no patterns. This isn’t a recent thing either. Barring a couple of months under LVG we’ve been reactive and any player just thrown into the middle of it will look worse than they did at their previous club.
Same was said about Thiago
Thiago is actually pretty aggressive ,decent tackler and plays the game very intense off the ball, not really comparable to the profile type Sancho is.
Thiago is actually in the Veratti Modric mould of great players technically who are tenacious but the way he plays on the ball may fool people to misconstruing the other side of his game.
Sancho would fit into most top teams because he has a high level of talent, but he does need to improve his intensity, aggression off the ball and movement in relation to scoring goals.
Some of the posts in here are ridiculous, Bundesliga isn't a farmers league where anyone can go in and tear it up. Some of the best players playing in PL today have honed their craft in Bundesliga. We have been an utter mess since Fergie left and haven't had a modern manager or system in place.
Sancho hasn't set the PL on fire, but it's absolutely ludicrous to doubt his talents. He's one of the few superstar talents around and Klopp 100% would've loved to sign him if the financial package worked out. Diaz is a good player but he's playing in a team full of confidence and with a group of players who are completely settled in a system. Sancho under Klopp would've been one of the best players in the PL. Pretending he'd prefer Jota/Diaz over him is asinine.
Sancho hasn't set the PL on fire, but it's absolutely ludicrous to doubt his talents. He's one of the few superstar talents around and Klopp 100% would've loved to sign him if the financial package worked out. Diaz is a good player but he's playing in a team full of confidence and with a group of players who are completely settled in a system. Sancho under Klopp would've been one of the best players in the PL. Pretending he'd prefer Jota/Diaz over him is asinine.
Sancho could end up being a better player and still not be 100% suited to Klopp, I think this is the point as a winger he lacks pace and intensity to thrive like Diaz or maybe even a lesser talented Jota would, it’s all about characteristics and profile, some players and some types are suited to certain managers more regardless of natural ability.
This is where recruitment comes into place and why certain players with lesser names get picked instead of players with bigger ones.
Good post, and I'd just like to add that I find the constant focus on Bundesliga defending a bit misplaced. It's true that German sides seem to favour a more attacking approach across the board, but even then subjectively I'm seeing that trend has actually somewhat subsided with more teams moving away from that post-Klopp ultrapressing monotony. Coincidentally that trend seems to be going slightly the other way in the Premier League with examples like Southampton and Leeds (who one poster I can't recall, fittingly said couldn't be more midtable Bundesliga if they tried). But I digresss..
My main annoyance with that argument is that the flip-side just gets completely ignored. Lots of the attacking players who have shined in the Bundesliga in recent years haven't simply done so because they allegedly only face amateur defences, but because they themselves played for very good attacking teams. These teams may not be elite quality from front to back, but clearly they've been some of the better or more cohesive attacking teams around from a tactical or at least risk-taking perspective, even when some of their squads aren't littered with star players. So as usual, for me anyway, people for some reason overstate the importance of the opponent at the expense of evaluating the player in the context of that player's own team. Synonymous to how every transfer to the PL always gets talked about in terms of "can he adapt to the PL", when the question whether a player can adapt to their own new team is so much more important.
So for me the argument that there's an inherently higher risk that a high-performing Bundesliga attacker will fail against impenetrable Premier League defences just doesn't seem very plausible. The average style in Germany might bolster the numbers somewhat, but in my opinion the more relevant factor is taking a player from a (moderately to very) functional attacking side and then throwing them into a dysfunctional, or just less attacking side. After all, the high profile attacking players signed from Germany are usually from teams that have done very well in the preceding season, and over the past years unless they went to City or Liverpool they've often not found themselves in equally as attacking sides. Even Chelsea under Tuchel for the most part focussed on defence first, and hence didn't get the best out of their attacking players, Bundesliga imports or not.
Sure some people might see that as a sign that such a player wasn't all that good all along, that perhaps that player can only thrive in a specific or attacking setup, and hence looked better than they really are. Though I'd argue that when those conditions are met, that is how good they can be. And ultimately if you're a top team you should strive towards playing cohesive attacking football, that would get the best out attacking players in general, rather than always hoping a player can pull off individual moments of brilliance. Of course to some degree there are a few players who possibly could stand out no matter what, but is that really the end goal? I mean even a player like Bruno Fernandes who hit the ground running, now has some question marks over his play style, i.e. whether he can shine in a more systematic approach (under ETH perhaps?) rather than the individualism he's used to. I'd say unless the gap in player quality between two teams is vast, a better system usually wins out over a season.
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Ten Hag very very likely will be the new United manager, i fancy he’ll know how to use him + Sancho in his system
What's the situation?
Ironic that his nickname is Hansi Flick mispelled, yet he doesn’t us to get any players from the Bundesliga.
Don't you think this sounds a bit vague? And moreover, isn't it Klopp's system that makes players look more "aggressive" and explosive?
Let's not forget that Klopp won his first Bundesliga title with a starting line up featuring Götze, Kagawa, Sahin and Kehl. Four players who aren't very physical or explosive to say the least.
Sancho for instance absolutely thrives in transitional moments because he loves it when the opponent is out of formation so that he can dribble off players making runs or find space for one twos. And what's probably even more important, Liverpool's players make the right decisions more often than not. Part of the reason Sancho looks so anonymous is that he makes the right decision and plays an easy pass into dangerous space when necessary but then one of his team mates does something dumb. He would've looked better/get more attention if he instead went for a dribbling or cross even if that would have been the worse decision.
Funnily enough, that's also what Liverpool does extremely well: Find the player between the lines with a pass and then accelerate the play. That's pretty much where Sancho excels at. So I have to fully disagree that Klopp wouldn't absolutely love Sancho.
I don’t think the system could make you more explosive, pace and athleticism is something you either have or you don’t, Klopp isn’t a magician he signed these players because they already had these qualities since they’ve been professional footballers. The one player I’ve seen actually add more pace as explosiveness to their game is Foden who actually has a sprint coach.
Most managers would love Sancho but would he excel in his system as a wide forwards as much as Mane Salah Diaz? I’m not sure the one thing these players have in common is pace, I could see Sancho playing in a midfield three(AM) in a lot of games under Klopp. I think Pep would value him more but both managers would love to have a player of the quality of Sancho of course.
I don't even think they have as much pace as you assume. Salah's 33 km/h top speed for instance is almost average. Great timing, movement and transitioning makes players look fast. If you actually look at the goals they scored against you, none of them involved outpacing the defenders. Also, look at how easy it was for Diaz to get his goal and assist. He could keep it very simple. When was the last time one of your attackers just needed to keep it simple to create a great chance? Sancho needed to take out 4 players through dribbling and passing to create that chance for Rashford while at Liverpool, the transitional moments seem so orchestrated. They make the right runs with the right timing and the players know which passes they have to play at which moment and with which urgency to get into the dangerous areas. They see when there's an opportunity to pass to a player between the lines and then accelerate the play. I mean, look at the first Salah goal, that's the perfect environment for Sancho - one player coming short, play it into his feet and get it back, another one running inbehind with the right timing, etc. And all this isn't new, it's the same recipe that made Dortmund so successful under Klopp.
If Sancho would be playing for Liverpool, he'd start at LW 100% with Mané playing false 9. He'd flourish in this system to an extent less talented players like Dias or Jota aren't capable of. And he'd look much faster and aggressive than he currently does for you. Klopp always had players like Dias at Dortmund (albeit with lesser quality), like Kuba or Großkreutz for instance but the ones to really excel under him were the technically excellent players great in tight spaces like Reus, Götze, Gündogan, Lewandowski, Kagawa, etc. Typical Pep players actually.
Good post but the top speed thing isn’t really representative of anything, the Leicester defender(not Fofana) was said to have the fastest top speed of all players in the pl one season and anyone with two eyes could see he wasn’t even top 30 fastest players in this league, you’re eyes are literally a better judge of top speed in this occasion and anyone can see that Sancho doesn’t have the pace Salah or Mane have, pretty easily.
Im not saying Sancho won’t be good just saying that Klopp prefers he’s wingers to be technically excellent which Sancho and Diaz are, but also be aggressive and have high end athleticism which Diaz Mane Jota have but Sancho doesn’t. By the way Sancho isn’t more talented than Diaz at all if we’re talking strictly technique, Diaz is very South American like with his ball playing ability.
Diaz Mane Salah in this comparison are the prototype wide forward because they tick all the boxes, good technique athleticism and strength plus aggression stamina and intensity, Sancho and Jota don’t, Sancho has great technical ability probably the most technical alongside Diaz in this comparison, but doesn’t have the intensity strength or outright crazy pace.
Jota has limited technique but has pace intensity and movement, Klopp could fit him in but it’s no surprise as soon as Diaz came who ticks all the boxes Jota has been more on the bench in the bigger games.
The truth is most top wide forwards in the modern game have pace and intensity, Salah Mane Mbappe Vinicius Jr Neymar, for Sancho to truly be a top player in the Pl he would need to add certain things like stamina pressing and movement in behind to compensate for his lack of top level pace. I rate him and feel like he could be one of the top 10 players in the world still but looking at his game I can see why he hasn’t completely took to the PL like many thought he would have outside of United being dysfunctional, he still needs to work on certain parts of his game off the ball.
A player like Saka is another comparison of a player lesser talented on the ball but fits into PL football a bit more at the moment because of how much work he is willing to put into pressing driving at defenders and off the ball movement.
Saying that to stick to the thread title Nkunku seems to be a player who presses and has incredible off the ball movement as well also so I think the concerns with Sancho wouldn’t be the exact same with him even though he doesn’t have top line pace also.
But if anything Sancho's acceleration is his best "pace attribute", so if that one is high and his top speed is good, he can't really be slow can he?
I also disagree that top speed isn't telling much. Top speed captures how hard it is for a defender to catch a player once he's broken through and if you take a look at which players have the highest top speeds it reflexts the eye test quite well. E. g. Mbappe with over 38 km/h or in the Bundesliga Diaby with >36. Thing with the eye test is that some players look much slower than they actually are, Kai Havertz is such an example and IMO Sancho is another one. There's also the dimension of how long a player can maintain his top speed, Tuchel calls that "Tempohärte" ("pace toughness") in German. And the eye test can also be tricked by antagonistic movements. Still, Sancho is very hard to catch when he's broken through. It's just that it rarely happens with United because you have few high wins of possession (=bad high pressing) and also bad movement in transition.
I also don't think that Diaz is equally as technical as Sancho, not by any means. I also believe he's currently the flavour of the month and it remains to be seen how people look at him a few months down the road. Let's not forget the guy is already 25 and just had his break through at the top level. I checked a few weeks ago and at that point in time, Sancho had a better scorer/minute rate than Diaz despite playing at United. The ironic thing is, people love talking about how Dortmund elevates the level of average players but ignore that it was primarily the Klopp effect which is now at work at Liverpool. Diaz for example has the luxury that patterns of play are basically in front of his feet and he doesn't need to make outrageous plays like Sancho has to get on the scoring report.
Finally, I don't think it is the players that have to adjust tontge reality of the EPL. Look at City. Good teams make the opponent play their game, not the opposite. You'll be amazed how much less physical your opponents will seem and how much less pressure they will put on your players once Ten Hag has implemented a functioning positional play.
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