I love all (yes, all) of the Cornetto trilogy, and Hot Fuzz is an undisputed classic. But Shaun will always be my favorite.
I've had that feeling for awhile now. There are weird vibes coming from Lucas. It's not clear he's happy here.
Due to excellent peformances from say Sept through Dec last year, Torreira already has made it here in my book. Certainly he deservea a place in the squad any maybe even a place on the teamsheet. The negative with Torreira imo is that we asked more out of him than he could deliver at this point of his career. Specifically, he got triple-whammied in the course of his first year at Arsenal. First of all, the EPL is well known to be a much more physically demanding league, game for game, than Serie A. Then, Arsenal plays a lot more games as well. I looked it up on Wikipedia, the year before Torreira transferred, Sampdoria played 41 _total_ competitive fixtures (38 Serie A, 3 in one domestic cup competition, not in Europe at all). Roughly there's 50% more fixtures in the Arsenal season. Finally, about this time Torreira has emerged as an automatic selection for Uruguay as well. It's useful to remember that during the last World Cup he came off the bench in almost every match, and since then I think he's started pretty much every match. In short, he plays well when he plays well. He just hit a rookie wall (same with Douzi too imo, though not the international thing).
The other thing is that his ability to get the ball to the forwards is kind of a fools' gold. The technique and the game intelligence is there, no doubt, but he also lacks composure. Eg, if he has the ball five yards on our side of the midfield stripe, and he's looking downfield for a pass and there's any kind of pressure on him at all, that might be the best goal opportunity for Newcastle the whole day. The reality is, even the bottom half EPL teams don't give you any time at all to sit on the ball in the midfield. Xhaka needs more time and space than he'll ever get here. In the big picture. imo our biggest weakness right now is lack of creativity (and lack of numbers) in the midfield. I can't say that I _like_ the defense to keep clean sheets all season, but there's a lot of legit options to try if things aren't working well. (Except for Leno, that is. We definitely need him healthy and on good form.) In the midfield though, there's fewer choices. We've got a few good young players who can hold the ball and cover a lot of space for us, but not enough playmaking going forward. The hipsters have to book the loss for stanning Ozil all this time, but this season there's a legit role and need for him if him and Emery can kiss and make up.
I think he just involves too many compromises. He isn't defensively good enough to be a 6 and not mobile enough to play at 8
Xhaka is a Riquelme level athlete in a sports world that athletic ability constantly trends to the absurd. He seems to have the hip mobility of a man 10 years his senior. It wouldn't be bad if he played like Maka, but he thinks he's Ramsey.
Interesting Ted was also somewhat down on Iwobi in the Statsbomb podcast Doesn't show up in XG or in defensive actions. So a cog player. But maybe just better to play a genuine winger who does have XG+XA and a high quality CM who can defend and link play This is how I felt with so many of our midfielders in the last 5 years or so. Too many bitsy players, or players with serious flaws.
I think this has more to do with how far away from goal he was asked to play, and his roll in advancing the ball to a position where the eventual (usually an overlapping) winger would play the ball into a scoring zone. I think he was probably the best we had to play there and got straight jacketed into the position rather than it being the position he would play the best for us. Which isn't a problem unique to Iwobi.
I think he is yet another example of a player who wasn't quite good enough. It's been the same with the midfield for a decade now. No matter how you shuffle them, we haven't been able to create a coherent 3 or a stable 2. Santi really was the best moment.
That’s why I want us to copy Liverpool But without a false 9 In regards to xhaka, he is a great dlp in a slow league like Italy but he’s not worked here because he’s slow, reckless and has poor reactions He’s also only good at moving the ball forward which is fine, but when we play a pressing side he is exposed badly Imo willock, guen, torreira is our best 3 unti we see what cabellos can do. The most important area for us attacking wise is width and striker which we have now. When tierney and bellerin are fit and Pepe is in his stride, we should be very decent
Basically, and he doesn’t have enough power or explosiveness to make up for his size. At least with Guendouzi (whose athleticism I’ve also questioned), he should be able to add some of that power just by filling out his frame. Anyway, if the rumors of interest this summer from Italy were true and we could’ve gotten close to £40m for Torreira, I’d have cashed out.
Last season he trailed only Zaha and Hazard in the number of times he was fouled per game. They're dribblers, Torreira isn't. I'm not sure he'll stay healthy in the premier league.
Not sure if you meant to do this, but you twisted my words a bit. I didn't say it was clear he was unhappy, I said it was unclear that he was happy. Little, potential clues: Not seeming to integrate with the culture of England/London, including not learning (much) English. No obvious signs of buddies on the team. Rumor over the summer that his agent was shopping a move back to Italy. Hopefully I'm wrong, and he's perfectly happy playing in N5. But my intuition says maybe not.
Fair enough. Although he said back in June amidst the Milan rumors that the transition hadn't been easy but that he was happy at the club.
Torreira said the weather wasn't as nice as Genoa...which should come as no surprise to anyone. I don't remember if he mentioned food, but we can't blame him there either. He's happy here.
Step one to becoming a Londoner complaining about the weather, step two the food is not terrific. The amount of big brand American beer on draught is shocking and disappointing.
Torreira will be a full fledged starter as soon as he's fit. Put him in a midfield without Xhaka and he's going to shine even more. He's only one man damn it! He'd need 4 lungs to cover for Xhaka and Ozil.
I find it weird that people complain about food in London. True, English food is not for everyone (I don't like it either) but London is so metropolitan, there's definitely something for everyone.
English food is a crime of the same order of magnitude as colonialism. But ethnic food in London is amazing. You’re welcome.