Big bad Berta: Page 13 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One more in the Tolly

Big bad Berta

JazzG

awooga83 Not every transfer is going to be a hit so we just have to accept some of them we will get wrong. He clearly needs to improve and I think he will.

Arteta and Tuchel both put their trust in him, but of course others clearly know better.

awooga83

JazzG you know people who might work in an area can be wrong and people who don't can make observations that are fair. Otherwise your saying no manager can be wrong. Tuchel in particular it's not a great case because there is no question good managerial decisions most recently were the specific cause of a bad outcome. So yes others can know better sometimes.

Tam

JazzG When Havertz was fit

How many did he score from the physios table?

You asked who is available who could do a better job. I pointed one out. You've also helpfully pointed out two more middling players who had as a productive a year in 25/26 as Havertz has ever had in terms of goalscoring, that would have cost a lot less in an overall package.

And to be clear, I don't think 14 goals from Gyokeres is good enough for a club of our aspirations. Neither is what Havertz is producing, nor his availability.

JazzG

Tam You asked who is available who could do a better job. I pointed one out.

Your point about his availability is valid but Havertz record as CF is something like 0.8 G/A per 90 which speaks for itself. To suggest any of them would improve on Havertz is laughable. Havertz has not had a full season a CF which comes back to your point about his availability.

Claudius

Qwiss the Madueke situation was obvious to everyone who watched him at Chelsea. People who read blogs and look at stats instead of watching matches convinced themselves it was some sort of 4D chess move but here we are. He's exactly what we said he'd be. His price is a side issue, we shouldn't have signed him at all.

it is said coaches everywhere love this guy. but something is not clicking. hopefully, he gets it together. 50m fee and 7.5m wages, and d given how badly we needed forwards, is not a big disaster

Qwiss

Claudius as I said his price is less of an issue than his presence. I try not to complain about him too much because he's here, he seems like a good guy and there was no chance he was going this summer but he's way off the standards and I believe we'd have been better off just not signing him and giving Ethan his minutes.

awooga83

Qwiss the reason I make a point about the price is this idea Arsenal are really disciplined at saying no for that player this is too much and we won't just match what the selling club want. The fact is everything we knew about Madueke (and I agree I think he didn't meet what we needed) but if you want to go for him he's inconsistent, coming off a poor time at Chelsea, no real ability to execute in the final third there are plenty of red flags to say to Chelsea you might want 50 but this guy isn't worth that and it's a big risk for us. Essentially to apply this supposed valuation discipline but we didn't which makes me think it didn't actually apply. Not to mention some of the argument was that's just what these types of English players cost. But in the Rogers scenario well we don't care what the market says you don't pay that, it's totally inconsistent reasoning.

Tam

JazzG 0.63 G/A overall across all his minutes for Arsenal, so I doubt he's getting to 0.8 as a CF. Regardless, it only speaks for itself if he's available. If we're talking scoring goals, we want to see goals scored, not hypothetical goals based on an average.

I'm not saying they're better players than Havertz, but if they'd only replicated their form for mid-table clubs at the league Champions, they'd still have outscored Havertz's best season. So going back to your earlier point, suggesting Isak as the only player in the last year who moved who can do a better job is...laughable.

Bernard Woolley

awooga83 The only mitigating factor that I can think of is that the club perhaps thought there was a high risk of a prolonged injury-driven absence for Saka and hence, they absolutely needed a PL-ready RW.

DiabyKungFu

Qwiss He's exactly what we said he'd be.

To be clear, this really isn't what happened.

At the moment of the deal, the anti-Madueke people said something like: "He has good underlying stats but look at how much he underperformed his xG. The underlying stats don't matter if he keeps underperforming his xG and everybody knows he's going to keep underperforming his xG. This is a big waste of time."
And the pro-Madueke people said something like: "G - xG is a random variable with mean 0. This is a stupid thing to get hung up on. Systematically under- or over-performing xG is not a thing for 99% of players."

Then what happened in reality is that Madueke outperformed his xG (vindicating the pro-Madueke argument) but his shot rate completely fell off a cliff (an anti-Madueke thing that absolutely no anti-Madueke person pre-registered as a hypothesis as far as I remember).

Either way, he's a perfectly cromulent backup right winger. If we can solve the mystery of what the hell happened to all of his missing shots, then he can be a legitimately really good player.

QuincyAbeyie

DiabyKungFu tldr he's been just as shitty as anti-Maduekers thought but he found a different way to be so. In fact, his new type of shitness sounds much easier to maintain on a consistent basis.

Qwiss

DiabyKungFu nah you were banging on about his shot numbers. Most others were going on about his "progressive carries" cos that guy with the blog wrote about it. The reason he had so many chances at Chelsea was because no one was afraid of them, they played on the counter and all their forwards streamed forward without many staying back. That was how they played that season, was never going to work here. He's always been poor with his final ball, that's still his issue.

Those of us against the signing said he was desperately inconsistent and wouldn't be good enough. That has proven true.

Gurgen

As shit as he is he was a non-corrupt referee away from winning a penalty in the CL final.

Sicario2

Big bad Berta needs a big summer. So far fuck all.

TambourineMan

Second season syndrome.

USArsenal

We definitely wont be signing as many this summer as we did last summer. Last summer, we went all out to secure somewhat capable backup with a couple of starters sprinkled in. Zubi and Vik were the only starters we signed, the rest were backups. (Hincapie could be considered a starter or backup). And we won the title. This summer will be about alternatives (i.e. Bruno G) or ceiling raisers (i.e. Vini or someone of the like). Tzolis is a Tross replacement. Our new keeper is, well, 3rd choice at the moment. Maybe we look at a CB/RB cover, but not sure what else we're gonna be going after.

awooga83

USArsenal I don't think it's as easy as Tzolis is the Tross replacement. That would be a big risk and quite possibly wet would have lowered the level since last season as Tross was in the top players for G/A for the wings and his technical ability added another dimension to the team. Now Tzolis may so that bit is a huge risk to take if that's what the club think is the swap in.

Klaus

People need to chill a bit. Bruno is imminent and would be the, what, third or so biggest signing in the club's history, both in terms of stature and transfer fee? Tzolis is done, a defender is coming in. Perhaps people feel it's a risk to replace Trossard with a guy from the Belgian league, but it's the club's job to judge the quality of these players that are being brought in.

samthegooner

Judge the window at the end. When will people ever learn? We are literally two signings away from Berta playing a masterclass but everyone wants instant results. It doesn't happen like that unless you're Chelsea and just pay the market rate every single time. No thanks. If we end this window with Guimaraes, Vini, Tzolis and a right footed defender then that's as close to a 10/10 window for our needs as you can get. Have some patience and some faith....

Bernard Woolley

samthegooner Agreed. I’d also like to see extensions for Rice and Timber. We have 4 players (these 2 and Ode and Havertz) with 2 years on their contract so time to extend Rice and Timber. Can put Ode and Havertz on wait and watch in my view.

Klaus

Just look at the other teams in England: City are a sentencing away from working on the chain gang, Liverpool are repeating all the newbie mistakes that led to them going 30 years without a title, United are stocking up on bang average players for the third year running... meanwhile we're adding a top 5 Premier League midfielder to what's already the best midfield in the league. Stuff of champions, which we are.

Claudius

Klaus United are about to send those bang average players into a champions league campaign

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