Raphinha

[GlosYid]

I find it ironic that people are making fun of Arsenal for trying to sign a player they seemingly do not need instead of a midfielder, when it's the exact same case for us.

Right now, we have a front three of Son, Kane and Kulusevski. Three world class players. Do we need depth? Yes. Should we be spending upwards of £60m on depth? No.

Meanwhile in our midfield, with Winks, Lo Celso and Ndombele leaving, we are left with just:
Bissouma
Skipp(coming back from a long-term injury)
Hojbjerg(not good enough for a title challenging team)
Bentancur(a bit of a weird player, might not be strong enough defensively)

If Bissouma goes down, all of a sudden we're left with a significant weakness in midfield relative to the title-challenging teams. (Arsenal have a similar problem when Partey gets injured). We are still short on both depth AND starting 11 quality when it comes to midfield.

If we're looking to spend big money, starting 11 signings should come before rotation/depth signings. With the squad in its prospective state, I find it baffling we're looking to spend big on Raphinha of all players when there is such a glaring need for a top quality midfielder. We should be hunting down a player like Ruben Neves or Milinkovic-Savic before even thinking about spending £60m on Raphinha.

Surely the same argument you are making regarding midfield can be pointed at our attack as well no?

3 main attackers if one of them goes down we are left with Lucas. I love Lucas for what he did in Amsterdam but he's no where near productive enough in goals or assists to play a consistent number of games.

 

[McFlash]

I find it ironic that people are making fun of Arsenal for trying to sign a player they seemingly do not need instead of a midfielder, when it's the exact same case for us.

Right now, we have a front three of Son, Kane and Kulusevski. Three world class players. Do we need depth? Yes. Should we be spending upwards of £60m on depth? No.

Meanwhile in our midfield, with Winks, Lo Celso and Ndombele leaving, we are left with just:
Bissouma
Skipp(coming back from a long-term injury)
Hojbjerg(not good enough for a title challenging team)
Bentancur(a bit of a weird player, might not be strong enough defensively)

If Bissouma goes down, all of a sudden we're left with a significant weakness in midfield relative to the title-challenging teams. (Arsenal have a similar problem when Partey gets injured). We are still short on both depth AND starting 11 quality when it comes to midfield.

If we're looking to spend big money, starting 11 signings should come before rotation/depth signings. With the squad in its prospective state, I find it baffling we're looking to spend big on Raphinha of all players when there is such a glaring need for a top quality midfielder. We should be hunting down a player like Ruben Neves or Milinkovic-Savic before even thinking about spending £60m on Raphinha.

Simply, how many forwards have Liverpool got and how much did they just spend on the last two? £60 odd million each.
Big teams spend big money on big players for their squad.

If we want to be a big team, we need to stop thinking about 11 players and get quality throughout the entire squad.

The same issues that seem to concern you about our midfield (for which we have recently signed 2 players who strengthen it) should also concern you about our front line.
If one gets injured, we're incredibly short and if we're relying on what we have for 60 odd games, someone is going to get injured.

We have 4 quality players for the 2 midfield positions but currently, just 3 quality players for the 3 forward positions.
Adding quality options to that is surely a no-brainer?

 

[What Lies Beneath]

we are not gonna seriously bid for a player if he's dead cert on arsenal to end this with its the whole package . lets see what happens now

 

[razor1981]

If Bissouma goes down, all of a sudden we're left with a significant weakness in midfield relative to the title-challenging teams.

If Bissouma goes down, we've still got the midfield pairing that helped get us into the top 4 (as 2022's top PL goalscorers) plus Ollie Skipp as a rotation option.

We currently have 4 good quality options for 2 midfield positions, but the same can't be said for our 3 forward positions.

 

[GetKaned]

we are not gonna seriously bid for a player if he's dead cert on arsenal to end this with its the whole package . lets see what happens now

I believe the "package" also involves lure of CL football

 

[taidgh]

If Bissouma goes down, we've still got the midfield pairing that helped get us into the top 4 (as 2022's top PL goalscorers) plus Ollie Skipp as a rotation option.

We currently have 4 good quality options for 2 midfield positions, but the same can't be said for our 3 forward positions.

bUt WhaT iF tHeY ALL geT inJUred????!!!

Panic everyone!!!!

 

[Fredo]

That just makes it more baffling to me.
Kulusevski scored 5 goals and 8 assists for us in half a season.
Raphinha scored 11 goals and 3 assists in a full season.

Being an assister is particularly valuable here because it's a good counterbalance to the goals we get from Kane and Son. You only have to look at Ronaldo joining Man United to see that even a high quality goalkicker can upset the balance of a settled attack.

I don't care what anyone here says, Kulusevski is a better/more talented player than Raphinha, and should absolutely start over him in our best 11. Sorry, not sorry.

What? I think Kulusevski is fantastic, couldnt of had a greater impact for us. But to say hes better and more talented than Raphinha is just bias. Put Raphinha in a Conte team and watch him reach heights never spoken of. Believe he could get to the same level as Son after being fully integrated.

 

[npearl4spurs]

That just makes it more baffling to me.
Kulusevski scored 5 goals and 8 assists for us in half a season.
Raphinha scored 11 goals and 3 assists in a full season.

Being an assister is particularly valuable here because it's a good counterbalance to the goals we get from Kane and Son. You only have to look at Ronaldo joining Man United to see that even a high quality goalkicker can upset the balance of a settled attack.

I don't care what anyone here says, Kulusevski is a better/more talented player than Raphinha, and should absolutely start over him in our best 11. Sorry, not sorry.

Kulusevski at this moment is the better player for our team. Pretty easy to justify that because, well, he is actually on the team right now. I'll give you smarter, calmer, more composed, maybe more tactically astute.

But more talented? Raphinha has God-given ability and starts for the Brazilian national team (playing for Leeds fucking United I might add). Come on, man.

 

[Finchyid]

Has he signed for Arsenal ??

 

[LeStat]

Surely the same argument you are making regarding midfield can be pointed at our attack as well no?

3 main attackers if one of them goes down we are left with Lucas. I love Lucas for what he did in Amsterdam but he's no where near productive enough in goals or assists to play a consistent number of games.

No.
As far as our starting 11 is concerned, our attack is settled. Son, Kulusevski and Kane; three world class players. Raphinha does not improve our starting 11.

I agree we need depth there, especially with Bergwijn leaving. My problem is that in the midfield, we need both depth and starting 11 upgrade, therefore a big signing there should take far stronger precedence over spending £60m for freaking Raphinha.

 

[Timberwolf]

That just makes it more baffling to me.
Kulusevski scored 5 goals and 8 assists for us in half a season.
Raphinha scored 11 goals and 3 assists in a full season.

Being an assister is particularly valuable here because it's a good counterbalance to the goals we get from Kane and Son. You only have to look at Ronaldo joining Man United to see that even a high quality goalkicker can upset the balance of a settled attack.

I don't care what anyone here says, Kulusevski is a better/more talented player than Raphinha, and should absolutely start over him in our best 11. Sorry, not sorry.

Dunno why this is a Raphinha vs Kulusevski thing. The idea is to add depth and Raphinha is a proven very good PL player that can play on both wings. Kulu and Son cant play every game and the squad lacks creativity and direct runners if either of them are out. We're currently one injury away from Lucas playing every game and the drop off in how the team functions is huge when he plays over Kulu.

 

[JCRD]

I find it ironic that people are making fun of Arsenal for trying to sign a player they seemingly do not need instead of a midfielder, when it's the exact same case for us.

Right now, we have a front three of Son, Kane and Kulusevski. Three world class players. Do we need depth? Yes. Should we be spending upwards of £60m on depth? No.

Meanwhile in our midfield, with Winks, Lo Celso and Ndombele leaving, we are left with just:
Bissouma
Skipp(coming back from a long-term injury)
Hojbjerg(not good enough for a title challenging team)
Bentancur(a bit of a weird player, might not be strong enough defensively)

If Bissouma goes down, all of a sudden we're left with a significant weakness in midfield relative to the title-challenging teams. (Arsenal have a similar problem when Partey gets injured). We are still short on both depth AND starting 11 quality when it comes to midfield.

If we're looking to spend big money, starting 11 signings should come before rotation/depth signings. With the squad in its prospective state, I find it baffling we're looking to spend big on Raphinha of all players when there is such a glaring need for a top quality midfielder. We should be hunting down a player like Ruben Neves or Milinkovic-Savic before even thinking about spending £60m on Raphinha.

No such thing as a starting 11, its a starting 16 to 18. To get to that stage, we need better players than the likes of Ndombele, GLC, Winks, Bergwijn perhaps and Lucas (I love Lucas). I would question Raphinha as a buy in general but certainly dont question the type of player we need which is what he is.

I dont want to get into the other points as theyre not really related to this thread but do want to say, youre dismissing PEH which I find utterly strange and underrating him.

 

[lobob8]

No.
As far as our starting 11 is concerned, our attack is settled. Son, Kulusevski and Kane; three world class players. Raphinha does not improve our starting 11.

I agree we need depth there, especially with Bergwijn leaving. My problem is that in the midfield, we need both depth and starting 11 upgrade, therefore a big signing there should take far stronger precedence over spending £60m for freaking Raphinha.

Stop thinking about the starting 11. Conte wants a SQUAD. We literally have better depth in midfield than up front right now, Raphinha would remedy that.

 

[mil1lion]

They did have a 20 goal goalscorer in Aubemeyang. Yet Arteta simply took away his best qualities by shifting him about and wanting to be part of the build up.

This often gets overlooked when people say he was a disruption.

Arteta effectively took away Arsenal's goals by trying to mould Aubemeyang differently

Then Barca played him up top and although he didn't get involved much in general play he scored bags of goals

 

[Ben1]

Its almost as if some people are deliberately putting out doom and gloom in hope that someone responds to them and shows its all fine.

some people like to be constantly miserable so that if there’s bad news, they’re no more miserable than usual

 

[SambaSpurs]

No.
As far as our starting 11 is concerned, our attack is settled. Son, Kulusevski and Kane; three world class players. Raphinha does not improve our starting 11.

I agree we need depth there, especially with Bergwijn leaving. My problem is that in the midfield, we need both depth and starting 11 upgrade, therefore a big signing there should take far stronger precedence over spending £60m for freaking Raphinha.

We just did that by signing Bissouma, one of the most highly regarded CMs in the PL. Every single rival fan has been commenting on what a good deal £30m is. Which isn’t exactly peanuts.

Now we move for a forward, CB and RWB.

 

[npearl4spurs]

No.
As far as our starting 11 is concerned, our attack is settled. Son, Kulusevski and Kane; three world class players. Raphinha does not improve our starting 11.

Kulusevski can't be called world class yet. He's been here for 6 months. Let's see him do 10+ goals and 10+ assists next year and keep Raphinha/another forward signing out of the starting 11.

I agree we need depth there, especially with Bergwijn leaving. My problem is that in the midfield, we need both depth and starting 11 upgrade, therefore a big signing there should take far stronger precedence over spending £60m for freaking Raphinha.

But we just made a big midfield signing in Bissouma.

 

[GetKaned]

No.
As far as our starting 11 is concerned, our attack is settled. Son, Kulusevski and Kane; three world class players. Raphinha does not improve our starting 11.

I agree we need depth there, especially with Bergwijn leaving. My problem is that in the midfield, we need both depth and starting 11 upgrade, therefore a big signing there should take far stronger precedence over spending £60m for freaking Raphinha.

The case is same if Davies goes down. Or even Kulusevski goes down. The next person to deputise there will be a massive downgrade at the moment. You cant always do deals in linear fashion where you first fill one gap and only then move to next.

 

[Flobadob]

They did have a 20 goal goalscorer in Aubemeyang. Yet Arteta simply took away his best qualities by shifting him about and wanting to be part of the build up.

This often gets overlooked when people say he was a disruption.

Arteta effectively took away Arsenal's goals by trying to mould Aubemeyang differently

He seemed to want Aubameyang to do what Henry used to do for Barca under Pep and make the unselfish runs in behind to give the space to Messi, Xavi and Iniesta between the lines, except Aubameyang isn’t Henry and Arsenal definitely don’t have anyone capable of doing what Xavi, Messi or Iniesta were doing. I’ve long felt like he’s learnt a couple of tricks from Pep and has little tactical flexibility and it’s really showed from when they go behind they almost never come back, or it may actually be that they didn’t win a single match from behind last season. He’s a shit coach and will get found out, he’s lucky he has some talented young players to bail him out

 

[aliyid]

Did he drop off after Bielsa left? I seem to recall he was absolutely dedicated to keeping Leeds up. I mean he walked the entire length of the pitch on his knees after they stayed up, which obviously doesn’t show his work rate on the pitch but you can’t fault his dedication or commitment

Good question, my impression was that he dropped off and looking at the ratings on 'who scored' LINK appears to support that.

If you take the Spurs match as Bielsa's final game (21/02) this is the distribution of his ratings:

• Rating under 7/10 54% of the time during Bielsa spell
• Rating under 7/10 64% of the time after Bielsa left.
• Two very good games post Bielsa (rating 8.9 & 8.2) but his average performances dropped