And a 3rd: 90' - GOAL - Reading Under-23s 6 (Andrija Novakovich, hat-trick) Newcastle United Under-23s 0Novakovich grabs his third goal of the afternoon, tucking the ball into corner of the net. #NUFC— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) August 12, 2019
It's gotta be a let down to return to playing at that level when he barely even qualifies age-wise anymore and he's already succeeded in that and higher ones, so it wouldn't have surprised me if he laid an egg. Fook Reading. Get out of there ASAP. Maybe that's what this is about. Keeping him fit for his subsequent squad.
I think he's a little overhyped by people in the US fanbase, that being said, he should be getting more opportunities. He's done everything asked of him and even had a good loan spell. Time to move on, especially since they signed new forwards. Him and Horvath need new clubs.
Curious if there are any European transfer windows open right now? He's unlikely to get a loan in his last 6 months otherwise. ETA: Answered my own question -- Some obvious ones -- Scotland, Spain, Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Portugal.
He tied 6 other guys for 25th on the scoring charts. That's hardly amazing. We would have half a dozen strikers in the Eredivisie if our player pool all had European passports and were willing to get paid less than they do in MLS.
You're joking? Right? Name the six American MLS forwards you think could make it in the Eredivise right now. I can't think of one outside of JOZY.
I think you're substantially overrating the bottom half of the Eredivisie. Anyway, as always, this should be discussed here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-containment-unit-the-ya-league-comparison-discussion.2011515/
Agudelo scored three and assisted three in the Eredivisie in 883' playing for a weak team (Utretch). Nova scored 9 and assisted 2 in 2,353', also playing for a rather crappy team. That means Agudelo, who got no interest after his half-season, would have scored 8 goals and would have 8 assists in that same amount of minutes.
This isn't a league vs league comparison. I just can't think of very many American forwards even starting and scoring regularly in MLS. Zardes is another, but I can't see him succeeding in Holland. He's far too inconsistent.
Agidelo is the definition of a streaky, ill-disciplined player. Utrecht was his last stop before he stopped caring about soccer for a year, and near his peak as a player. It's just as likely that Agudelo would struggle in an whole Eredivisie season, considering he's never scored/assisted more than 13 G/A in a season of professional soccer, and he's been performing faaar worse than that projection, culminating in a move away from goal to more of a CM role. Sure, Agudelo had a good 1/3rd season with a mid-table Eredivisie club. Doesn't mean much.
Rubio Rubin scored 3 for Utrecht as an 18 year old and hasn't even scored 3 goals for any team combined since that point. I don't know if their are 6 Americans that would score 9, but I don't think it is far fetched to think that any American that scored 9 in MLS could score 9 in the Dutch League, so that would be around 9. Definitely think Zardes and Morris could do it. Obviously Altidore.
Bobby Wood was scoring for fun for Union Berlin. Goes to Bundesliga relegation-fodder teams, does nothing. Is Bobby Wood suddenly trash? No. It's extremely hard to do well on relegation-fodder teams. If you only watch MLS, it's hard to forget that the enforced parity of MLS doesn't exist whatsoever in Europe. It's why my Earthquakes can go from Wooden Spoon to an almost guaranteed playoff team with a couple of loan moves and a competent coach. And it's why teams beat on each other all the time, with only free-spending LAFC smashing the competition. Fortuna Sittard was a bottom-feeding Erste Divisie team (median finish of 16th out of 20 in the 16 years since their last Eredivisie appearance), till they got hot one year and finished 2nd (Jong Ajax not eligible for promotion). They barely survived the Eredivisie too, thanks in no small part to some very poor performances below them. Not many players are going to look great there.
I don't think it's far-fetched to think that any American who scored 9 in MLS might also score less than 9 goals in the Eredivisie, depending on the team they get on. Particularly when you take into account the streakiness of the players you mentioned who haven't spent any time in Europe/the Eredivisie: JoMo had a great freshman year with 12/4 G/A. Followed that season with an injury-shortened season with 3/1 G/A in 1800 minutes. Even projecting a healthy season, that's under 9 in MLS. Zardes looked really good with the LAG for one year, but was otherwise pretty mediocre there despite some talented LAG teams. Then he crashed and burned and was moved to LB before Columbus revived his career. Which Zardes shows up? The LB, or the ST? The recent Nova-bashing seems out of nowhere. He's a week into the new season, trying to displace a pair of newly-acquired strikers, and we've already got posts saying he "can't even get on the bench at Reading", like he's washed-up at 22. Lots of piling on for a quiet striker with zero hype who's practically unknown outside of Yanks Abroad.
I don't think there's any reason to bash Nova. But there were a few folks bashing Beerholder for not calling him up due to his "strong" Ered numbers. Nova was not poor in the Dutch league, by any means, and he played for a crap team, but neither did he light it up. But he'll have to look decent in the Champs as well to be taken seriously.
And Agudelo hasn't pulled up any trees in MLS since returning. Just because a guy is playing in Europe doesn't mean he's that great. And Eredivisie bottom third isn't much/any better than MLS bottom third. Nova did well enough - not great, but well enough - for his age to show that he can get 10 years as a pro, but if he was to be a lock for starter instead of depth in the Championship, he'd have needed another 3 goals and a half-dozen more assists.
No Nova ⏰ TEAM NEWSYour #Royals to take on @CardiffCityFC this lunchtime...#REAvCAR pic.twitter.com/iZzwmUFK6D— Reading FC (@ReadingFC) August 18, 2019
Didn’t Chevy learn that lesson in Mexico? Ha. Actually, the Nova sold quite well south of the border, but it’s such a good fable that I’d rather it be true!