Nice red herring-ad hominem combo there. Not gonna try to address the points? And if I may add, Gyokeres would cost a lot less while being technically better and more hardworking than Haaland. Either way all of this is an exercise in futility. Mbappe is here to stay as a CF, Vini is here to stay as LW (if this is the premise, given Vini's age, history, affection etc. he very unlikely to leave) and any new manager will need to start from there to complete the puzzle. Neither Haaland nor Gyokeres are going to help in that.
Completely ignoring Gyokeres, it's very very very wishful thinking to pretend that Haaland will be fine with a handful of touches, and also track back and help defensively. This is a total prima donna star player.
There's obviously hyperbole in my reply to the original post. If we couldn't sell him and his father on that style of play then so be it, however we were able to tell Mbappe, another prima Donna himself, he'd be getting just as much action and he was apparently fine with our package and offer. The point still stands, if the club thought our two Brazilian wingers were the way forward why not get someone with the profile to maximize them?
Kane was about the closest. Or trying to find a cheaper option, since the club loves to penny pinch, that fits the Joselu mould. A CF dummy runner that allows Rodrygo and Vini to breathe and do their thing. That way we don't have to pay the guy a 100ME signing bonus. Honestly, Jude probably fits the bill.
What if i told you, the club signed a player so close to Benzema that he might be a clone from a data driven model? Benzema to Harry Kane: Benzema to Haaland: Benzema to Mbappe: Funny enough, a decision that people consider an emotional pursuit is suppored more by the data than the emotion.
using 2022/23 stats for Kane and Mbappe are not the same. I’d be interested in seeing how they stack now.
1. That is Kane's last season at Tottenham, and as such, the window that we would have looked into when the decision would have been made to sign him. 2. The comparison is not about pure numbers, it's about playing style and tendencies. If i would want to compare numbers, i wouldn't have posted the spread. Going by what Mbappe did with the ball, he looked a far more logical Benzema replacement than Haaland or Kane. That's what the data shows us.
I don't care what the data says, I've watched Kane, Haaland and Mbappe and I know which of the 3 most closely matches Benzema
Hence why we're both writing on a forum while other people actually have jobs in the sport. If what we see would be worth paying for, neither of us would be here. Kane is so different to Benzema that Lineker once got into an argument with Zidane about it how Benzema does more for the team than just score goals.
Until Haaland starts to run down his contract (he still has 2.5 seasons left), it's a pointless discussion and a wholly irrelevant comparison to Mbappe's signing.
When I was saying these words by Zidane around 2012, the entire forum laughed including yourself. Maybe I should have a job in the sport then? Since this data says nothing about the light years of difference between Mbappe and Benzema in terms of strength, holdup play and close ball control.
My reply would be that data is important to decision making, but is not the end all be all in decision making without proper context. Mbappe's data might show that he plays like Benzema, but the eye test says different never mind the fact that the UberEats league is a joke. Psychological and personality evaluations need to be taken into account as well. Moneyball'ing football can work but only to a certain extent.
He could be what we need in central defense. We don't know what formation Xabi (or whoever comes) will use but 3ATB would be perfect for him since it gives him the freedom to drive forward with the ball and find those line-breaking passes.
If you're willing to take shit pay for a ton of hours, be my guest. Personally i couldn't be bothered to work the entire saturday/sunday/weekend for fastfood work wages anymore. Was a fun experience though. I mean, your counter argument is "i just know better, trust me". This wasn't to compare Benzema to Mbappe, rather to present what they do on the field in comparison to others, but the Mbappe thing has got people in their emotions so much it's impossible to discuss without any angry response. It's certainly better than the "just trust me bro", which led to Florentino Perez leaving the club in shame the first time around.
Mbappe at the age of 24 has 49 UCL goals and 11th in all time list tied with Di Stefano, Salah and Ibra. Ten players ahead of him are Ronaldo, Messi, Lewa, Benz, Raul, RVN, Sheva, Muller, Henry and Inzaghi. Players just behind Mbappe forming Top 20 are Eusebio, Aguero, Haaland, Drogba, Neymar and Del Piero. Even if people want to disregard his Ligue 1 record, Mbappe is one of the most prolific scorers in CL history at a young age just like Haaland. Despite his struggles adapting to a new team which several RM greats also had at the beginning, he has 9 league goals from 15 games. His finishing has been way below his usual level too so I don't buy the narratives that he doesn't make the runs etc. He could have a lot more goals with his usual finishing level itself. Penalty misses were due to low confidence as well. I remember in 2022 when Benz missed two penalties away at Osasuna and he got out of that phase with a Panenka vs Man City. So even proven RM greats have had low confidence phase. Benz lowest point after his first season was 2017-18 with mere 5 league goals.
Van Nistelrooy said: "Scoring goals is like holding a bottle of ketchup upside down. Sometimes you have to hold the bottle upside down for an eternity and nothing comes out, sometimes there's no stopping it." Mbappe is a sleeping giant. We are a sleeping giant. The question remains: when will we awaken?
But you know that Benzema and Mbappe don't do the same thing on the field. I'm a quantitative type of person, but qualitative knowledge is not inferior, just different. And the quantitative approach is easy to abuse and manipulate by dishonest people. In the end those people still reached that point by proving they know what they are doing, which is what you refer to as "trust me bro".
I know they don't match Exactly, but Haaland and Kane don't match AT All. The data just maps like that because you have Benzema and Mbappe both being ball dominant players while the other two are target men. With Kane I would even say the player that I liked more than Kane for us (although there is no demand or need any more) is Son. Proper complete player. The striker I would have liked to replace Benzema with even if for a short while is Lewandowski, who could have cooperated with Vinicius and Bellingham the way he did with Müller and their wingers at Bayern but unfortunately the timing didn't match for us.
Kane would have worked better in the Benzema role than Mbappe regardless of what that chart shows. Haaland wouldn't, but if you want to make Rodrygo a full time starter on the right and change the tactics from the current potpourri to give players defined roles, then he would be a goal per game player too. My preference for Osimhen due to his energy and heading ability is well known, and hes a better linkup player than Haaland too, so he would be better than Haaland. Son is an interesting idea, but if you really want a hipster solution that would turn out to be an absolute hit it would have been Solanke. But yeah hindsight is 20/20 in this case, missed this one because I don't follow England that much beyond the top teams.
I simply disagree, just on the basis that there's absolutely nothing to justify saying that. Plus, if I'm honest, when it's all said and done, I almost feel like Luca Toni will leave behind a bigger Bayern legacy than Kane.
Kane is way closer to Benzema then Mbappe, this ain't even a debate. Kane has the class to come and pick up the ball like Karim did, can also thread a pass, hold up the play, you name it. Both Karim and Kane are smart with their movement man, picking the perfect time to enter the box and their off the ball work was good as well and both can create a chance with their passing or dribbling (Karim way more than Kane) Karim's fave area to score was just behind the defenders when they track back on the penalty spot as he was so smart with his movement. Kane is relies more on service then Karim, though he was always a great creator and wore the 10 at Spurs. Just goes to show how good Karim was. Mbappe is closer to Vini if anything. them Gut-esque back heels. Man also played as a CF at one point and scored 20. Just one more cause it always comes to mind when thinking about complete CFs. These sorts of CF's were shat on back then, yes even Karim.
Kane is a lot older and doesn't show up in big games for club or country. When the likes of ZZ, Mbappe after winning the World Cup join Madrid and experience the pressure of expectations hard to cope in initial months, one can only imagine Kane at his age leaving comfort zone would do. Kane has the numbers, but even Vardy proved more clutch than him when title was on the line. Benz as a youngster was impressing in CL KOs aganst Man Utd who were the best team in 2007-08. He still had his struggles adapting at RM, but the ability to be difffrence maker in big CL games translated so well at RM too even when he was having quiet league seasons. No bigger example of that than the moment against Atletico in 2017 when they had RM rattled with a 2-0 lead early on in the first half.