Funny thing is, if you actually want someone like Fergurson to become top class - like a lot of the Irish fans want, the best thing he can do is have a full season (i'd even say 2) with you and nail down the centre forward spot and start racking up the numbers. He gets European exposure, he gets consistency in his development with yourselves and at the end of it we can come in and throw you a small fortune to take him off your hands
.I used to highly rate Ben Yedder and thought he would have been the perfect type of striker signing a few years ago - somebody who could compete for a starting spot and be good enough to be the main starter if Martial's form dropped off (which unfortunately did happen) but would also likely be happy off the bench if Martial kicked on to the next level. I guess that's the thinking behind all the names you listed as well (except with Hojlund instead of Martial), and probably is what our plan needs to be if we do want to bring in one of these young strikers and an experienced option as well.
Goal goals as opposed to not goals!?
People were talking about him 6 months ago. The masses weren’t talking about him 6 months ago because he was 19 years old and not yet performing on an international level. When you are that young 6 months can change everything.
There’s no comparison between Vlahovic and Hoijlund. Vlahovic has had a groin injury for the majority of the season and it’s been an underlying problem. Before that his stats stack up. So I don’t agree there.. but Muani I can agree with. Might point being these guys have way more experience than him and I wouldn’t want to have a guy who’s only played a season for Atlanta leading our line. It’s amateurish.
Hahhaa, well said
You are probably right. We have not challenged for a decade, might take a good while.
Is that what we need? Very few teams have two +25 goals forwards and we already have one. I would say that what we need is a consistent +15 goals striker that is well rounded.
We want that. We don't need that. Not next season, at least.
In my opinion it would be terrible business. Players like Hojlund are at a point of their career where they need to be trusted and given starter minutes anything else you are ruining them and should leave them alone.
Agreed.
He’s 20 years old and has attracted one of the biggest sides in the world. You can still progress as the second option!
I’m not sure what I would want to do with Rashford. If he could improve as a CF that would be ideal with Sancho and the emerging Garnacho more than enough for the left. But Rashford has been better from the left than CF.
Think Kane could be very good for us but that is the only option that makes sense in my head.
Hojlund trajectory is on the up, it will be his fourth season at professional level, it's not the time to stall his progression. You trust him or you let him stay on his current trajectory somewhere else. I don't actually know a single player in a similar situation that managed to develop properly while not adding minutes.
Can you take Murthough's job?
I'd say there's a mid-ground. Everyone seems to be focusing on him being either our undisputed main striker that we are relying on or him being an undisputed backup behind a Kane or similar.
We do. We don’t already have one - we have a player who’s had two 17 goal seasons in the Premier league in his entire career and has an average of 12 league goals per season. Whilst I’d love him to score 30+ in all comps next year, it’s certainly no guarantee.
I agree with that but you are describing a potential starter in a competition with someone else. You are not talking about a player signed to be a backup behind an undisputed starter. If we sign Kane then the young player that we could sign should be a long shot, not someone that is not only expensive but also at a crucial point of his career where starting minutes are crucial. If you have Kane he is playing every minutes where he isn't injured or close to that.
For context, only 12 players have scored more than 20 goals in the top 5 leagues this season? 5 of them have scored 25 or more goals.
Notice the 2 of those that actually were sold for those crazy fees have been absolutely terrible transfers, even after having a far better goalscoring record prior to joining. €50m for a striker with 8 league goals seems very high to me. Martial has the same goals as him in all competitions. We'd definitely need a Kane or an Osimhen to come in as well to be 1st choice. Anyone getting less than 15 league goals is not ready to be our 1st choice right now. If we could get him for €40m it would probably be worth it as long as it didn't stop us upgrading other areas. The last 2 big money youngsters we signed have been our biggest flops so far in Sancho and Antony. It's very rare that big fees for young players work out imo. The examples that tend to break that trend tend to be absolute superstars like Haaland (and the fee for him was actually ridiculously lower than it should have been even for his level at Dortmund).
That's where context matter, it's 8 league goals in 1700 minutes. While it's a high fee, it's a high fee for a 20 years old striker that has registered the equivalent of 16 goals over 38 games. At the minutes players with more goals are linked with moves that are close to 80m-100m.
Looking at his stats, he seems to have finished the season well after an underwhelming few months when he was on the bench a lot.
You could make a similar argument with Martial. 6 league goals in 987 mins would be equal to about 20 goals in 38 games. It's rare that players with less mins actually maintain that goalscoring rate as they play more mins. It's a concern that he's already not fully trusted to be 1st choice for a far worse team in Atalanta.
They took the risk that he’d adapt to a top 5 league. We could’ve picked him up for 15m, but we were probably too busy chasing Igahlo or something. I guess that 60m includes their finders fee.
Yeah, this guy seems very talented but a bet on him is completely about his upside and growth potential, not his current level of production, which is not particularly impressive by any reasonable measure. He had .51 non-penalty goals plus assists per 90, which is 19th in the league and behind strikers like Jovic, Brahim Diaz, Giroud, Berardi, Sanabria, etc. And that is for a side that plays a pretty open, high-intensity style of play by Serie A standards that makes for above league average goal output in general. Good for a 20-year-old but its all about where he goes from here in terms of the growth in his game.
Well the supposed quote is around 55 mill euro's so it's actually not far away from what you say. Other than that he is 20 years old and a rising star, with a contract until 2027, so what you want them to hand this player over to us on a silver platter despite the fact in a season or two he could easily double or triple in price if he continues to trend upwards? Extremely weird mentality, it's like saying we should sell Garnacho for 35-40 mill which i'm 100% sure you would say no we shouldn't.
Dolberg is a completely different personality and player type.
The reality though surely is in those 2 years he will be bought by some other big team or his price will double/triple, which is what we always seem to wait to happen before we make an approach
He does hold the ball reasonably well and isn't afraid to get physical with the defenders but you're right that from the videos he seems a bit loose with the ball.Videos remind me a bit of Darwin Nunez.
