1 hour ago, Victor90 said:

We can only hope that isn't the case though, can't we? I do think you have a point in fairness. I do remember many of us were hopeful of Werner and were extremely impressed with him initially. Before he turned into the reincarnation of Fernando Torres with his depressingly hilarious blunders in front of goal. 
 

While Torres did have his hilarious sitters his problem was totally different to Werner's.

As strange as it sounds I didn't think Torres was THAT bad finishing overall, his problem was he was so tactically bankrupt he'd get about 1 genuine scoring chance every 3 games and even that maybe being kind. If he was genuinely at bad at finishing as Werner (or Morata) he wouldn't have even made double figures for us.

To give my point some context when Torres had that 1 vs 1 against Barca he finished it pretty comfortably, now imagine Werner with that same chance 🤣

As someone who doesn’t pay attention to most of the off the field bullsh*t could someone explain this balloon nonsense?

Edited June 23, 20233 yr by Munkworth

 

5 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

As someone who doesn’t pay attention to most of the off the field bullsh*t could someone explain this balloon nonsense?

Same here, when i first saw it i thought it was that 'hippy crack' thing , but then thought it was pushing it during a match. 

27 minutes ago, Argo said:

While Torres did have his hilarious sitters his problem was totally different to Werner's.

As strange as it sounds I didn't think Torres was THAT bad finishing overall, his problem was he was so tactically bankrupt he'd get about 1 genuine scoring chance every 3 games and even that maybe being kind. If he was genuinely at bad at finishing as Werner (or Morata) he wouldn't have even made double figures for us.

To give my point some context when Torres had that 1 vs 1 against Barca he finished it pretty comfortably, now imagine Werner with that same chance 🤣

You are right, there was a combination of poor service (his first two seasons I don't think he got the best service) but his movement had just gone with his knees really. He did have some shocking misses though lets be honest. 

I think a better comparison probably would've been Morata, I don't think that bloke even finished a one v one here. 

1 minute ago, Victor90 said:

You are right, there was a combination of poor service (his first two seasons I don't think he got the best service) but his movement had just gone with his knees really. He did have some shocking misses though lets be honest. 

I think a better comparison probably would've been Morata, I don't think that bloke even finished a one v one here. 

I don't even think his movement was particularly great in his prime, was more his (underrated) strength and utterly freak burst of acceleration (only Carvalho out of our defenders could handle that) that gave him an edge over defenders and made him devastating in an open game.

I feel his struggle against deep defenses even in his peak was a big reason Liverpool suffered a fatal amount of draws in the 08/09 season which ultimately cost them.

35 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

As someone who doesn’t pay attention to most of the off the field bullsh*t could someone explain this balloon nonsense?

I read somwhere that his child like baloons. He keeps it in his sock while on the pitch 😅

37 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

As someone who doesn’t pay attention to most of the off the field bullsh*t could someone explain this balloon nonsense?

It's his trademark goal celebration.

1 hour ago, Amputechture said:

It's his trademark goal celebration.

On 03/06/2023 at 22:31, DidierDrogbalala said:

 

In my not very humble opinion he actually reminds me a bit of Willian

4 hours ago, Victor90 said:

We can only hope that isn't the case though, can't we? I do think you have a point in fairness. I do remember many of us were hopeful of Werner and were extremely impressed with him initially. Before he turned into the reincarnation of Fernando Torres with his depressingly hilarious blunders in front of goal. 

I'm hopeful of Nkunku, and you should be too. He looks good, of course we should be wary, but we can't just keep writing every player off because we've signed a load of sh*t ones. Something has got to give eventually. I am hoping the banter era of transfers is officially over, maybe I'm delusional I don't know. I just know that since 2017 our market activity has been utterly atrocious, here's to new beginnings! 

Nkunku was bought before we had the proper board and recruitment in place, thats why I have my doubts! 

Everyone we've seemed to go for after that though has been great (the jan signings and who we're targeting currently)

1 hour ago, Big Nigel said:

Nkunku was bought before we had the proper board and recruitment in place, thats why I have my doubts! 

Everyone we've seemed to go for after that though has been great (the jan signings and who we're targeting currently)

He literally won the Bundesliga golden boot despite being injured half the season. If anything we are lucky we snatched him up early otherwise half of Europe would have been all over him this summer.

10 hours ago, gruda1905 said:

I read somwhere that his child like baloons. He keeps it in his sock while on the pitch 😅

 

10 hours ago, Amputechture said:

It's his trademark goal celebration.

So he gets out a balloon and blows it up? Okayyyyy.... He'd better not get another kid who likes a hobby horse.

9 hours ago, Malta Blue said:

In my not very humble opinion he actually reminds me a bit of Willian

In my also not so humble opinion he's a totally different type of player.

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

 

So he gets out a balloon and blows it up? Okayyyyy.... He'd better not get another kid who likes a hobby horse.

I hope his next kid loves Scalextric....

10 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

He literally won the Bundesliga golden boot despite being injured half the season. If anything we are lucky we snatched him up early otherwise half of Europe would have been all over him this summer.

Bundesliga tax. Werner too looked great for leipzig and so did Havertz for Leverkusen. 

Guess there's no point talking about it until we've actually seen him play though

I believe the club was lining up to sign him while Roman was still here so technically he might be the last ever Roman signing.

I think he might just take the number 7 from Kante.

6 hours ago, dkw said:

I hope his next kid loves Scalextric....

I had to google that 🙂

Celebrations would take a long time setting this up

5 hours ago, Big Nigel said:

Bundesliga tax. Werner too looked great for leipzig and so did Havertz for Leverkusen. 

Guess there's no point talking about it until we've actually seen him play though

There's always that risk when you sign players from Italy, Germany, and France. 

But on the flip side there have been many gems coming from these leagues. Just look at Hazard, we could've easily said Ligue 1 tax, and I even had some concerns about Hazard before we signed him (I'll embarrassingly admit). 

The only thing that does concern me about Nkunku is that his international performances have been below average. If we get that player we've seen at Leipzig we are laughing, but I think it's important we play to his strengths more.

I know @nonotnowjim will love this one, but I do think had we played Werner in a side that suited his strengths things might have been different. His movement was a massive problem for so many teams and we just never exploited it. Hopefully, Pochettino fits him in perfectly. 

Edited June 24, 20233 yr by Victor90

33 minutes ago, Victor90 said:

There's always that risk when you sign players from Italy, Germany, and France. 

But on the flip side there have been many gems coming from these leagues. Just look at Hazard, we could've easily said Ligue 1 tax, and I even had some concerns about Hazard before we signed him (I'll embarrassingly admit). 

The only thing that does concern me about Nkunku is that his international performances have been below average. If we get that player we've seen at Leipzig we are laughing, but I think it's important we play to his strengths more.

I know @nonotnowjim will love this one, but I do think had we played Werner in a side that suited his strengths things might have been different. His movement was a massive problem for so many teams and we just never exploited it. Hopefully, Pochettino fits him in perfectly. 

Not even signing from the PL is risk free, as we've unfortuently found out to our cost on multiple occasions.

I feel the only absolute certain hits we've had in my lifetime are Hazard, Kante and Enzo, Nkunku isn't quite that level but for me he's next tier down given his profile.

21 hours ago, Argo said:

While Torres did have his hilarious sitters his problem was totally different to Werner's.

As strange as it sounds I didn't think Torres was THAT bad finishing overall, his problem was he was so tactically bankrupt he'd get about 1 genuine scoring chance every 3 games and even that maybe being kind. If he was genuinely at bad at finishing as Werner (or Morata) he wouldn't have even made double figures for us.

To give my point some context when Torres had that 1 vs 1 against Barca he finished it pretty comfortably, now imagine Werner with that same chance 🤣

Mmmmm dunno if I agree here. Torres was absolutely dreadful at finishing. That miss against utd was criminal and also the shocking misses Vs Palace away during the closing stages of the Slippy G season. It was that loss and the game against Sunderland that cost us the league.

Torres f**ked his own career as he refused proper rehabilitation to recover from his knee/hamstring injuries in the early part of 2010. Had to adapt his game as a result and we had the sh*t end of the stick form wise considering he became half the player he was. 

Still, ask him today he'll probably say he'd make the same decision given Spain went on to win the World Cup. 

16 hours ago, Victor90 said:

The only thing that does concern me about Nkunku is that his international performances have been below average. 

Called up to the French WC squad last year. Injured his knee in pre-WC training, missed the entire WC. You can't be below average if you're out injured.

17 hours ago, Argo said:

Not even signing from the PL is risk free, as we've unfortuently found out to our cost on multiple occasions.

I feel the only absolute certain hits we've had in my lifetime are Hazard, Kante and Enzo, Nkunku isn't quite that level but for me he's next tier down given his profile.

One good thing is that he already had a big injury, recovered and still looks like the same monster player.

I don't know who he reminds me of though, maybe Del Piero?

Needless to say I'm certain he'll do well

16 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Torres f**ked his own career as he refused proper rehabilitation to recover from his knee/hamstring injuries in the early part of 2010. Had to adapt his game as a result and we had the sh*t end of the stick form wise considering he became half the player he was. 

Still, ask him today he'll probably say he'd make the same decision given Spain went on to win the World Cup. 

That's the point, he couldn't because he didn't have a game once his burst of acceleration was gone.

Compare that to the Samuel Eto'o we had for example, far from the Barca/Inter version but still had the technical tools and football brain to impact games, Torres was a one trick pony who lost his trick.

17 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Mmmmm dunno if I agree here. Torres was absolutely dreadful at finishing. That miss against utd was criminal and also the shocking misses Vs Palace away during the closing stages of the Slippy G season. It was that loss and the game against Sunderland that cost us the league.

I'm not saying there wasn't shockers but generally speaking it was a lot less frequent than Werner/Morata.

For him as I said it was more actually getting the chances, for example I know it's 12 years ago now but can you think of a genuine scoring chance he had before he finally scored after 17(!) games?