Jean-Philippe Mateta

If Gyokeres is truly out of reach, Mateta is definitely my second choice. Very good player, experienced striker, in the Premier League no less. Exactly what is needed. Get him and keep Hojlund, who I think has more to show. Would be a very good lineup. Forget about Delap.
 
I really like him, big solid and can shift as well.

Look at the end of the day he's obviously not where we aspire to be in 3 years time but for the rebuild he's physical and a presence.

I'd love him at United.
 
Teja said:
It's not just Cunha right? We need a midfielder, goal keeper and potentially a wing back depending on where we stick Amad to improve the general play.

The sight of Ugarte being the deepest midfielder who is supposed to execute that GK -> #6 - > Right Center Back bounce pass terrifies me. You need someone with perfect touch / control in that position to improve our build up. e.g., in a typical goalkick situation like this

------------------- Maguire --- Ugarte -------------
------ Yoro ------------------------------------- Maz --
---------------------- Onana -----------------------------

You need the ball to go from Onana to Ugarte / Maguire (both of whom are almost double marked by a pressing team with their front 3). Ugarte / Maguire need to draw some pressure before playing the pass to the LCB / RCB to give them the opportunity to run forwards with the ball. That's never going to work with either Maguire / Ugarte so we almost always avoid that pass.

Look at the build up efficiency charts like: https://markstats.club/teams-eng-24-25/ - The "LOS" column has the number of times a team lost possession in the danger zone as a proxy for how good the build up play is. We're the 3rd worst in the league - I'm actually surprised we're not the absolute worst because shit teams like Southampton know they're shit and just kick it long. The danger is a side that has aspirations of being a good side attempting to play it out while they're still shit.

Obviously having a good striker has knock on effects on things like build up. With a guy like Mateta, we might actually have a hope of winning the header when we go long where as with Hojlund it's an automatic possession loss. But that can't be your excuse for why the build up is so shit. Having a Mateta, maybe will improve things by 10%. It won't make us 2x better.

If everything else is good (Cunha is a start) a WC striker can be the last thing we do. Other than the RvP example that everyone likes, I haven't seen a single striker signing revolutionize an otherwise dysfunctional side.
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Maguire and Ugarte in that double pivot during the build up phase is very scary structure. Hence why I also believe that CCB and midfielder are among the top 3 list positions we must sort out in the summer. I still think striker is also important among the top 3 list because GK, CCB, Midfielders and Striker are the spine of the team.
 
I would prefer Wissa to Mateta if we were going that sort of route. He's also only got a year left on his contract. Ideally we will sign 2 strikers and a 10 while shifting Hojlund either on loan or permanently with clauses in case he develops into a good player.
 
Apokalips said:
I would prefer Wissa to Mateta if we were going that sort of route. He's also only got a year left on his contract. Ideally we will sign 2 strikers and a 10 while shifting Hojlund either on loan or permanently with clauses in case he develops into a good player.
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Not signing two strikers that's for certain
 
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dovaris said:
Video: Mateta’s role in bypassing Man City’s high press to hold it up vs Gvardiol. It was reminiscent of Marcus Thuram causing Barca’s CBs big issues with his hold-up play. Elite club CBs have been prioritised for other traits & don’t like strikers bullying them.

This is just an example which shows how frustrating Hojlund's hold up play is and how much are we suffering because of it.
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Good post that succinctly describes an issue we have that we could solve.

I’d also throw in Evan Guessand as a player capable of doing this at a younger age, with a great physical profile that we should be looking at.

I’m happy with Delap mind.
 
I've thought he should be a top target for a while. Still do, ticks a lot of boxes for where we are currently
 
Shinjch said:
I've thought he should be a top target for a while. Still do, ticks a lot of boxes for where we are currently
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Yeah he certainly does, unfortunately club only see him as a backup target to Delap which is insane but that's INEOS
 
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croadyman said:
Yeah he certainly does, unfortunately club only see him as a backup target to Delap which is insane but that's INEOS
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That’s your perception. We don’t know what our targets actually are, and certainly in what order of priority.

It’s all speculation.

We can’t blame the owners because you don’t like speculation journalism and social media ‘insights’.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
That’s your perception. We don’t know what our targets actually are, and certainly in what order of priority.

It’s all speculation.

We can’t blame the owners because you don’t like speculation journalism and social media ‘insights’.
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I have been blaming owners since last summer, they should have learnt lesson from Hojlund experiment of buying young strikers but looks like they haven't.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
That’s your perception. We don’t know what our targets actually are, and certainly in what order of priority.

It’s all speculation.

We can’t blame the owners because you don’t like speculation journalism and social media ‘insights’.
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Ye this could all change though after 1 result. A victory Wednesday night and we could have completely different targets as we’ll be banking an extra 80m+
 
dovaris said:
Video: Mateta’s role in bypassing Man City’s high press to hold it up vs Gvardiol. It was reminiscent of Marcus Thuram causing Barca’s CBs big issues with his hold-up play. Elite club CBs have been prioritised for other traits & don’t like strikers bullying them.

This is just an example which shows how frustrating Hojlund's hold up play is and how much are we suffering because of it.
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Thuram moved on a free if I remember correctly, to a team that wasn't much better than us. It looks like David is moving to Napoli, another team we can compete against.

We could do with either player. Instead we went for Mount and ZZ in successive summers, players that we had no need for.
 
croadyman said:
I have been blaming owners since last summer, they should have learnt lesson from Hojlund experiment of buying young strikers but looks like they haven't.
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There’s a lot we can blame the owners for. But let not give them pelters based on transfer speculation!!! Let’s see what actually happens.

Frankly it’s good that we don’t know too much. Fans don’t need to know until a transfer is either don’t and dusted, or a transfer agreed with a club.
 
Varun1 said:
Thuram moved on a free if I remember correctly, to a team that wasn't much better than us. It looks like David is moving to Napoli, another team we can compete against.

We could do with either player. Instead we went for Mount and ZZ in successive summers, players that we had no need for.
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What stopped us going for him? He seemed like such obvious choice while he was at gladbach and his contract was running out
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
There’s a lot we can blame the owners for. But let not give them pelters based on transfer speculation!!! Let’s see what actually happens.

Frankly it’s good that we don’t know too much. Fans don’t need to know until a transfer is either don’t and dusted, or a transfer agreed with a club.
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Yeah it would be good if we did a deal for a proven striker and CM under the radar
 
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