People keep saying this but until he has used those attributes against some of the best defenders in Europe week in week out, it's impossible to tell.
My problem is the baseline level of analysis on him and other players. Very few want to talk about what he is good/bad at.
Let say Haarland came to the PL from Portugal. He scored a hatful in Portugal and broke records in the PL like he did for City.
Because he was the "last cab off the rank" im sure the narrative on Gyökeres would have been very different.
But the one that came before was Nunez so it is assumed that Gyökeres would flop.
Go back to when we signed Hojlund. The narrative was very different. It was on the back of Haarland doing so well at City, so the narrative was that United have their own big Scandinavian forward, so what could go wrong?
If you watch Nunez, he is actually a good player in many aspects. Hold up is good. Gives defenders a tough time. Makes really good runs, gets in behind and his movement is good. He has even scored some great goals. Problem is, he fluffs his lines quite often which is why his xG is so far in the negative. He isn't getting outmuscled by defenders and he has more than enough pace, power and time on the ball.
That could be a confidence thing, it could be pressure. Who knows? But does it mean that Gyökeres will suffer the same fate and all of a sudden start missing sitters like Nunez has?
I would hope that clubs are analyzing the players attributes rather than just looking at prior players from
And why do we just knock forwards from the Portuguese league because of strength of opponent? Were people doing this for all the great midfielders that have come from Portugal?
Very few players arive in the Premier League at 27 and become top players off the back of playing in mid tier European league's though.
Very few players have taken Gyökeres path.
In the same way very few players took the Jamie Vardy path. He won the PL Golden Boot at age 33.
Just accept that not every players comes via the academy route.
It feels like exactly the type of mistake we've made time and time before. Signing a player because he looked good for a manager in an inferior league or signing someone that the majority of the fan base want to sign.
I dont think we have signed players just because the fan base wanted them.
And again, just because Ten Hag signed some duds from former clubs, doesn't mean Amorim will. The two things are not interlinked.
