Mendes pretty much controls the incomings and outgoings over there so if he decides Ruben Neves is going to leave, Wolves aren't going to stand in his way as it screws them over with future players. Same as Diogo Jota last summer.
Ruben Neves | Signed for Al Hilal (SA)
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They sold Jota? A great player.
They sold Doherty? A very important player for them.
Fred's decent but not top tier, which is the issue. He's in the mid 80's percentile for most passing stats, but 56th percentile for key passes. He's in the 12th percentile for getting dribbled past, but upper 80's/low 90's in terms of pressing and tackling. He's in the mid 20's for being dispossessed and miscontrols, which makes sense. He also provides almost nothing in terms of shooting.
So overall you get a good passer but not a top 10% one, not super creative, gets stuck in a lot but gets dribbled past often, and has a bad tendency to lose the ball. When you play as the deepest midfielder who tends to get a lot of touches, and you have a tendency to be sloppy on the ball, it's not exactly ideal. But the stats pretty much say what he is pretty well. A good player offensively and defensively albeit not particularly creative, not that great at stopping runners and a bit sloppy which leads to turnovers in dangerous positions.
They play almost identical roles (Moutinho and Neves) and pretty much just share it. Moutinho is more creative, Ruben Neves progresses a bit more from deep. It's actually a bit funny how their charts overlap.
Tielemans is worse defensively and a bit better creatively but generally I'd say he's somewhere between Moutinho and Neves but with dribbling ability, which neither of them have. Here's how they rank (percentiles) compared to other midfielders (#6/#8) around europe.
I see him as a Portuguese Xhaka with better shooting ability. He can spray passes around the pitch when given space, but he doesn't dribble and isn't all that quick, so he isn't that press resistant, and he doesn't have the athleticism to cover ground quickly and defend in transitions.
I don't think he is what United need. Wolves play a system that covers a lot of his flaws, because he is never really expected to defend against counter-attacks and the team isn't looking to dominate possession so they are happy to boot speculative balls forward rather than having midfielders who can hold the ball against pressure. United want to go in the opposite direction, to be able to confidently throw more players into attack and to be able to keep possession even against the best pressing sides.
I don't think he is what United need. Wolves play a system that covers a lot of his flaws, because he is never really expected to defend against counter-attacks and the team isn't looking to dominate possession so they are happy to boot speculative balls forward rather than having midfielders who can hold the ball against pressure. United want to go in the opposite direction, to be able to confidently throw more players into attack and to be able to keep possession even against the best pressing sides.
What? You don't even have an argument, you just call it a bad thing, without even having any argumentation whatsoever. By that logic I can just dismiss any post by saying it's a "very bad thing"
Clearly there's arguments for not buying players who are not having momentum. When is it a good thing to buy a player that is not performing and might have lost it?
Some obvious reasons that comes to mind:
1) It's a risk that the player can't perform to the same levels again. Simply by not having the motivations / hunger anymore or just not having kept his skills sharp and lost it (Torres, Falcao?)
2) You could risk losing money if the player performs like last season or having him on a big wage no one wants to over-take (I.e Sanchez, Schweinsteiger)
3) If you want to go for a title challenge, it's probably a good solution to keep it safe with hungry players nearing their peak. Not the opposite.
There's plenty of examples in Worldwide football too if you want it backed up as anything else than "anecdotally-based".
Falcao, Sanchez, Schweinsteiger for us. It's common sense really and Fergie did this a lot.
I'm not sure how that shows they are similar. That's highlights how different their roles are. It really emphasizes how different Neves and Tielemans are.
That graph seems shows Neves is much more like a Carrick type. Moutinho is quite well rounded though but clearly plays higher up the pitch applying the press more(more like Fred)
I do have an argument: You don't draw general conclusions from one, or a few, anecdotal cases. About anything, in any field. Which means that having had a couple of bad experiences with buying players without momentum is no basis for seeing that as a problem. My beef is with the basis of your argument, not with your conclusion. I'm not saying you can't make a case for it, I'm just saying that this would require a more extensive basis in experience.
And this is by no means self-evident. Anecdotal decision-making in sports is endemic, and is fed by reputational risk being inflated by emotional fan reaction. If there's a question of signing an established star player in his late 20s who's been struggling lately, everyone remembers Alexis Sanchez and if it all goes tits-up, the club gets it because they didn't learn their lesson from the Sanchez debacle. But there is no lesson from the Sanchez debacle, other than that signing Alexis Sanchez was the wrong decision. Same in other sports. There are NHL clubs who won't draft Russians in the first round even if they're clearly superior to other available options because there's been Russian prospects who wouldn't sign, despite all experience pointing to this risk being entirely insignificant compared with the risk they accept by drafting an inferior prospect.
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Mendes runs their dealings. They won’t want to piss him off. If he & Neves want to move on they won’t stand in his way.
It shows they're similar with minor differences. Moutinho yes plays higher so does fewer passes into the final third compared to Ruben neves who is passing from deep, while Moutinho will play the more passes that lead to shots, but generally they aren't that different of players, they're just being asked to play together so take slightly different roles. Both are somewhat similar in terms of pressing and defensive stats without really being good at stopping runners get bye them, both pretty good at not giving it away carelessly or being dispossessed, neither attempt to dribble past players... pretty confident they'd be able to interchange roles just fine.
Barcelona when Pep managed them were probably the best pressing team I've seen and they did bigger all high energy sprints.
I liked ‘Portuguese Darren Gibson’ better (kudos to whomever came up with that one).
Even if that isn’t accurate and we’re underselling his ability, £35M isn’t exactly pocket change in the post-covid economy. That’s about what has been rumored for Tchouameni who has more promise, albeit in a different role.
There's a reason they play the roles they do, because that's what they are better at.
Neves is better at playing deeper, making interceptions, playing long balls and making tackles(by quite a bit).
Moutinho is the more creative, I think he's actually played deeper this season though since they've gone to a back four, which doesn't suit him and he's been less effective.
Very clear to me that Neves is much more Carrick like.
I’m impressed, 7 pages and not one link to United
Bruno hasn't said anything about him either. We should only sign players that Bruno likes
7 pages on a player who most don't watch consistently and then proceed to using stats, which sends them them deeper down the rabbit hole.
I heard the Wolves fans singing his name before.... "we've got Neves".....
It's was catchy.
Is he any good
It's was catchy.
Is he any good
35M for a 24 year old central mid capable of playing in double pivot isnt that much really. Even if he turned out into a "dud" signing we can always recoup most of the fee. His ability to distribute the ball from deep position is what we've been looking for from McFred. It's no a brainer unless better options like Tielemens or Bellingham are available.
While you are well articulated, I just don't agree. There is a mountain of evidence of why signing players that doesn't have momentum most often is a bad choice. Balotelli, Torres, Sanchez, Falcao, not gonna list a 100 players though. My point being is that there's more evidence of this than evidence that the opposite is true, hence you can make this overall assumption as the sample-size is not just 1-2 United players. How many players can you think of that had a 1-2 year old slump and came back to their great standards? I can't think of many. At least not as many as the opposite way.
Hence is why I was annoyed about your response. I didn't just drag a conclusion out of my arse based on one Sanchez signing. There's so many cases of this that the sample-size should be note-worthy, and Fergie's reign maybe showcases this the best, as he had great succes (great motivator, yes) but always bought up and coming big talents and never the other way around. But yes, in general you cannot draw a final conclusion about anything. That much is clear. You can however make some pretty good assumptions and create criterias for what is the best signings risk-wise. Signing a player who's not hitting it, is a risk. An unnecessary risk imo, as you have to find the odd one out that does become great again.
Reading this makes you think Neves is about to reach the end of his prime! He is the same age as Rashford. It’s possible we haven’t seen him at his best yet.
And again we haven’t been linked
Well then, if there's mountains of evidence, then that's fine. But you didn't refer to mountains of evidence, you just wrote that we'd had a couple of cases of this turning out badly, as if that proved the point and which is what I commented on. In other words we agree, as far as I can make out.
I find it hard to judge him because of the system wolves play. Curious to see how he'd fare in a less compact team.
Very good player. I do agree he was overrated massively at one point but for £35m it’s a bargain for whoever is interested.
Could see us potentially going in for him if we can't negotiate a deal for Rice at all
Again no links whatsoever
Neto is their biggest goal scorer and Jiminez is number two with four goals and has been injured since November. Wolves have struggled all season.
A fresh start may galvanize him, but it's a risk.
For the reported price is worth it imo. At the very least we know he can pass.
Yeah worth a punt for that in my opinion
Uh huh someone revisit this thread when we are actually linked to him. Until then it’s a lot of chat about a player who might be sold and who might cost around 35m according to one tweet
His mobility isn't good enough imo. Slow and not really a good dribbler.
How are these numbers supposed to be interpreted?
Is it like Pointless where the lower number wins?
Any links? Nope
Sounds like someone Everton will sign and who will be sucked into the void that is their squad and become just another forgettable player.
Tidy player but vastly overrated.
He’s Matic levels of slow as well.
He’s Matic levels of slow as well.
Well, we were discussing how dispossession and being dribbled past stacked up against recoveries for different players, and I thought it might be useful to look at the net balance of those as a reference point. But you're right, it's not really a very good combined stat is it.
What, for that table you mean? It uses stats already discussed further up. From footballcritic, as I recall.
I chuckled
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