Well whatever those stats are referring to, I see the guy run with the ball at his feet quite a bit when Bournemouth play. Has very good close control, low center of gravity, and is very hard to knock off the ball from my limited viewing.

Qwiss! wrote:

flobaba wrote:

He looked extremely limited today. They were up two players with loads of space to exploit and I didn’t see him once take on his man or try to do anything other than whip in a cross, and he only got in two accurate ones the whole game. No variety or diversity to the crosses either, and we don’t have a Giroud type where that would make sense. We’ve been crying out for a “world class” winger all this time. If Ryan Fraser is it, then i’ll be hugely disappointed.

Wanting a world class winger is nice and all but with the amount of holes in our squad and the limited budget afforded to us you have to make do with a few players who are effective without being world class like Fraser.

TBH I think this is our reality and what the club is probably expecting so far as our potential market targets, however this does not mean that I agree with it and IMO the club are bigger bottlers than the players.

Qwiss! wrote:

flobaba wrote:

And maybe we take the punt and his cross only skill set

You've decided this after watching him just this weekend?

Yes. I don’t have to watch a player 50 times to get a good idea what he is about. Again, they played a Spurs team that was down two men basically the entire second half, and not once did he try to dribble past his man. Not once. What sort of “winger” is that? How can such a player improve us significantly? I’ve got huge doubts.

Gazza M wrote:

nor do we counter attack well.

Thats usually because the AMs are either too slow or fuck up the last pass. Things Fraser is good at.

Fraser would be a good Cazorla replacement centrally, not sure about him out wide though.

He’s nothing like Cazorla!

flobaba wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

You've decided this after watching him just this weekend?

Yes. I don’t have to watch a player 50 times to get a good idea what he is about.

Tbf I'm pretty sure Arsenal's scouting team operate on a similar model.

flobaba wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

You've decided this after watching him just this weekend?

Yes. I don’t have to watch a player 50 times to get a good idea what he is about. Again, they played a Spurs team that was down two men basically the entire second half, and not once did he try to dribble past his man. Not once. What sort of “winger” is that?

I haven't watched the game but that's exactly what he should have done. Why would you want to dribble past a player when you're up not one but two men? Let the ball and the opposition run then pick a gap to move through, would be furious if one of ours lost the ball trying to dribble in that scenario.

I’m quite confused now. Anyhoo, I pray we don’t get him if that game was any indication of his “quality”

Confused about what? He's saying that dribling isn't something that becomes much easier when the opposition has two men less, but that passing around them most definitely is, and that it therefore would be stupid to try to drible more when the opposition has two red cards.

It's strange, I want to laugh at the Liverpool fans, and I could not stand them if they won it - the poetry and smugness that would come, but at the same time fuck City. It would probably be better for Liverpool to win....

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Confused about what? He's saying that dribling isn't something that becomes much easier when the opposition has two men less, but that passing around them most definitely is, and that it therefore would be stupid to try to drible more when the opposition has two red cards.

Well he said he didn’t watch the game, which is why I said I was confused as to the definiteness of his statement. Passing around players when they are a few players down is all well and good in theory. In actual fact what happens is most teams would sit back and compress into a compact formation barely venturing forward and forcing you to try to break them open with incisive passes. Which means you have to try to pull the defensive structure out of shape as much as possible to create good quality chances. This can be done via overloads on the wings, or driving at your man to force an extra player or two to commit and then picking out a free option.

All my man Ryan Fraser did was camp outside the box for 90 minutes hooking crosses in.

Now were some of the crosses accurate? No doubt about it, but the defence gave them that much room because they would not commit to closing down crosses. Even Cech would have been able to put a few good balls in with the lack of pressure on the ball at that stage. So what do you do? Continue and hope you get a corner and the last one finally finds a target in the 90th minute, or try to beat your man and see if you can create more room and higher percentage chances?

i agree flobs. spurs were packing the box and effectively letting fraser bomb crosses in. if he'd sucked 1 or 2 of them out of the box by running at them he could've created more imo

Gazza M wrote:

i agree flobs. spurs were packing the box and effectively letting fraser bomb crosses in. if he'd sucked 1 or 2 of them out of the box by running at them he could've created more imo

Alternatively draw them out and look to either create overloads and or get in behind to the by-line and play for the runners from deep.

Only a year left on his contract. Offer them a swap deal for Chambers maybe?

I do think £30m is on the expensive side if he only has a year left. Bournemouth love buying Englishmen on the fringes so I guess Chambers could be used in a deal.

30m far too much, he’s not even English. Should be closer to 15-20m for a player of his standard in his last year.

30m would be a fucking piss take regardless of contract. Hazard and Brandt cost less than that ffs