épieur

There is a combination of factors in play. Which have resulted in him presently being s***e. The question is to what extent we believe this is a blib or something he's unlikely to recover from. Or fully recover, at any rate. What I find concerning is all the lacks besides fitness. He looks utterly checked out mentally. Unfortunately, I don't struggle to see a scenario where he finds a bit of form to not be totally hopeless, but also never builds momentum to offer any kind of real competition to Ekitike. Besides the concern is my sheer disappointment with his signing. A record transfer, and he has probably been our worst player in the whole squad alongside Konate this season. His bottom level is absolutely shocking. There's a real danger of him becoming a genuine millstone round our neck. And he wouldn't be the first megatransfer who just never managed to re-discover the level that merited the big money in the first place.

He went to Spain to train on his own at the end of July when the rest of the Newcastle squad went to Asia. Then trained on his own for the next five weeks. He's been out for two weeks with an injury in late October/early November. I just don't get how that can translate into him looking less and less fit as the season progresses. Either he's training wrong or not training properly, or he has issues that the club aren't sharing, which seems dumb as it just adds to the pressure on him. But it's not just about physical fitness. I've seen unfit players low on confidence at least trying to get in the game, before running out of energy. Even in his sub appearances, he barely breaks a sweat. He plays like he's on f***ing sedatives. I don't know where his head is at, but it's not on the pitch when he enters it. He's the most expensive player in the league and part of the reason for that is that, out of all the signings we made, he was the profile meant to hit the ground running. Proven in the league, entering his prime. You'd be forgiven for thinking he's just signed from AIK as a fresh teenager.

I am actually starting to worry it's not going to happen for him here. With Ekitike looking like a player you want to build a team around, there's no Isak shaped hole in the team waiting for him to fill. And I don't know if he's going to be able to play himself into the kind of form needed to challenge that as things stand. What does his future look like in a world where Ekitike is the main man?

All the press when we signed Wirtz was about how Slot's pitch to Wirtz on his role in the team was a big selling point. At any rate, it doesn't matter. This is the setup we have and the remit he signed on for. It's his job to make it work with the signings the recruitment team makes. If the players are s***, that's on Hughes. If they aren't utilised properly, it's on Slot.

It's desperation borne out of tactical failure. And feeds into the same if they aren't instructed to not take desperate shots rather than work better openings.

Well, it kinda is if they are taking shots from positions they shouldn't be.

Brighton and we both had an xG of 2.1. The main difference in outcome is that we got the first goal.

Then make him fit. He's had four months. How is he not fit? It's not like he's new to the league.

You wouldn't begin to guess how we should play to get something out of Isak from his performances so far. He's shown nothing to even make you think "if we could get him in positions like that more often, where he can do some of that, then there's a player there." He needs to show he has some kind of talent before we can start making accommodations. Building tactical setups around him right now is asking for no repayment on that. Getting the ball to him in a standing position to finish in the box isn't a viable strategy.

The Torres effect. When he beats his man, he makes them look like he's tied their shoelaces together as he goes past.

Found someone else to take a swipe at so he didn't have to address his own actions. He's not wrong, but he's still a blert.

He's very little like de Bruyne. More of a David Silva type player. But Silva was basically the next best thing after de Bruyne.

That sounds very wholesome

before the wheels came off it was generally the case that when Jones replaced mac Allister, Wirtz found it easier to get in the game. And right now Jones ought to start ahead of Mac Allister anyway.

In my ideal summer (bearing in mind, I was always team Ekitike) we buy Ekitike and spend the 130m not spent on Isak on a left winger and a very competent forward. In the world where we went with Isak instead of Ekitike, that becomes a more difficult jigsaw puzzle, as you'd basically be spending the Eikitike money to get a proper winger and not much left over for a forward. But then you still have options like Jonathan David, Boniface on loan, Mitrovic, Abraham on loan. Someone better than nothing until you have more funds freed up next season. In yet another world, Slot and Hughes coordinated their needs and expectations properly, and Hughes' early brief about Ekitike signalling a desire to buy allround good footballers rather than specialists translates into Slot's tactical setup. We spent a lot of money for a centre forward setup that won't last that long anyway.

I was referring to the debacle of 2020 with regards to center halfs. But no, if you have two young world class centerbacks, I don't think it's prudent to spend big to go and buy another young world class centerback. At least, not unless you don't really have anything outstanding to spend your money on. You don't spend 69-79m expecting "competent". They've vastly overpaid if that is what they expected.

On the list of priorities it goes 1. First Centre Forward 2. Winger 3. Second Centre Forward. We didn't, and still don't, actually need both Ekitike and Isak. We'd be grand with one of them and a competent back up. What we have is nice to have (assuming Isak ever turns good), but not needed. We needed a top centre forward, a top winger and a competent second forward.

Ultimately, I think it also falls back on the collaboration between Hughes and Slot. I don't think the tactical roles had to be sliced the way they have been. Ferguson found a way to make it work with Rooney and Tevez. Rodgers found a way to make it work with Suarez and Sturridge. And when you look at his attributes, why should Ekitike, or Isak for that matter, struggle more with playing from the left than Jota did? It's also Slot's own failure of imagination to pidgeonhole the two of them into being alternating centre forwards.

I don't know either. And I suppose, following our "we will sign dead good players or none at all" policy set out by Hughes, it is possible that they concluded no options were in the market for the left wing. And I suppose it is also possible that getting Diaz to stay as long as he did was only ever possible through Hughes' intense efforts, and paying him a salary commensurate with his stature to get him to stay was never in the cards. Just like moving for Kvaratskhelia six months earlier was not an option, despite knowing Diaz wanted to leave. Or maybe the plan has been Semenyo in january all along. We were dead smart about our calculations when we went into a season with three centerbacks because no available ones were worth signing. I don't think this is materially different. At the end of the day, I don't think we were ever terribly interested in finding out if those players were available. By all accounts, we executed plan A this summer and the only hitch was Guehi not signing on deadline day. If all you have is someone like Gakpo for the left wing berth, you need someone who you believe can turn out better than him to compete for that spot. If you sign the second best striker in the league as your centre forward, you don't need someone to compete in the same way. You need someone who will do a competent job when the first choice is out and understands his role. We've jettisoned what we need in order to spend big on something that's nice to have.

I don't think the alternative was an either/or though. Don't sign Isak and those 130m go quite far. An 80m winger is still the kind of investment that should be able to strengthen the starting XI. And 50m should get you a very good striker for the mix. Or some variation on those numbers.

I imagine I'd be significantly less unhappy.

We had Origi backing up Firmino for ages. Are you genuinely less happy with just having one class striker in the squad than not having a proper left winger for the starting XI?

If we had spent another 70m on a winger this summer, I don't think I'd be complaining. That's puts us a lot closer to "unless you genuinely don't have much else to spend it on" that would make it not-stupid. But we didn't replace Diaz. And buying both Ekitike and Isak is obviously a major factor in this.

Then buy Ekitike and be happy with that. Or Isak. Then buy someone cheap or rubbish as backup. Or someone kinda cheap and decent enough to fill in as needed. The problem is that this isn't even a longterm solution. If they are both successful, there is no way they will be happy in the long run alternating for one spot. They are both too good to be second fiddle and they both need games. Which could, perhaps, be a nice problem to create for oneself. It's a stupid problem to spend 210m on creating for oneself when you also have problems elsewhere in the starting lineup that have been left unadressed. We actually sold our left winger for 65m and instead of getting another one we spent 75m on a backup striker. Creating real problems in the starting lineup in order to overspend on solving a lesser problem on the bench. This is obviously stupid. What we will be staring at sooner or later is one of them leaving to get more games. Ideally for a good price because they are both ace but one is clearly better than the other and the other knows he needs to leave to be first choice. In a setup like this, it is also quite plausible that one is leaving to get games, and we're selling at a loss because their level and stature in the game has dropped after being made second fiddle.

More like. We need two strikers, but we need a first team winger a lot more than we need a first team striker to alternate with our other first team striker. Because I thought there was a plan smarter than one-or-the-other. I was OK to miss out on Isak, as I felt Ekitike in time would turn out better anyway.