What I find weird is that he first burst onto the scene as a clinical goal scorer with the U20s (or was it U17s?).
It's really not that weird. He's been clinical in cup matches against 2nd/3rd tier sides and limited B2 appearances. When his team is as good or better than the opposition, he scores quite a bit. When his team is worse, he is not scoring very much. Nor are any of his teammates. Norwich has 2 goals in 6 EPL games, 1 was a penalty I think. The bigger concern is his USNT performances, but 1. this isn't the thread for that, 2. the NT offense has been just about as bad as Werder/Norwich.
PSG's Mauricio Pochettino: Superstar squad under construction, need time to win trophies (espn.com) Pochettino needs 'time' for his 3 of the TOP 5 forwards IN THE WORLD in his lineup and a wealth of talent supporting....they need time to 'jell', even though 2 of fantastic forwards played together the last 2 years, and the other is as good a player that has ever existed in football forever......and yet we can't give Sargent some time to learn to combine and grow in confidence with (much more inferior) teammates after less than 3 games played? (counting total minutes) And those forwards mentioned above, Messi, Neymar and Mbappe are aged 34, 29 and 23 and have massive experience at top levels. And those guys 'need time'? And our boy is 21 1/2 and fresh into his career....and we kneecap him with our criticism on our timeline? Seems quite the contrast! Hey, if Messi, Neymar and Mbappe need time.....I suppose it is not unrealistic to think our boy might as well.
With the limited striker options, we all should be praying (or whatever we atheists are supposed to do) for Sarge to do well.
On a side note Josh needs to be more assertive and start taking chances because his Norwich comrades don't appear capable of the kind of service he may have been expecting.
Boy howdy, when this Norwich team gels, look out. I can't wait until Sargent settles in and starts banging them in just like he did back in... <checks wikipedia> 2018-19 in Regionalliga Nord.
Hate to disappoint you, but if you are playing striker for any bottom 10 club in any of the top 4 leagues- a run rate of 1 goal every 4 games (or 8 or 9 over a course of a season) is a good rate. But most of those goal scorers take penalties, so if you eliminate them (assuming Josh doesn't take them), 6-7 (run of play) goals for someone like Josh is a good rate. Starting now (excluding his transition period and assuming no major injuries), that translates to 5-6 goals rest of season overall as a target for Josh. Those are just the facts of life if you are playing striker in the top 4 leagues in the world, but at a bottom 10 club. Do we need to get into how many 21 year old strikers in top 4 leagues and bottom 10 clubs do (and have done), because the numbers I stated INCLUDE veteran strikers (25-32 years old) from whom you would expect more, naturally. For 21 year old strikers, you even discount from the figures I listed. Expectations out-of-whack on this thread. If you want to create some fantasyland where 21 year old strikers at bottom 10 clubs bang in lots of goals- go ahead and look for your unicorn. Even Mbappe was at a strong (not bottom 10 League 1) Monaco side, etc.
I'm pretty sure neither our criticism nor our timeline will substantively affect Jesus Sargent in any way whatsoever. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give an ounce of rotting herring and stale challa what we post here (at least I sure hope he don't!)
Relegated clubs last season: Fulham Strikers: Mitrovic 3 goals, 3 assists in 27 games Maja 3 goals in 15 games Aboubakar no goals, no assists in 309' West Bromwich: Grant 1 goal in 21 games Callum Robinson 5 goals in 28 games Diagné 3 goals, 2 assists in 16 games Sheffield: Rhian Brewster no goals, no assists in 27 games McBurnie 1 goal, 1 assist in 23 games Mousset no goals, no assists in 289' At this point Norwich is closer to Sheffield than to the other two. We shouldn't expect more than 2 or 3 goals for Sarge this season.
This reminds me so much of Jozy and some of the talk with him at Sunderland/USMNT. It was much the same phenomenon. The context is so important. It has me thinking that the next guy who has the opportunity to join a small club in their dream league or a big team in a slightly smaller league should really make some serious quality of life calculations. I'd rather be the man at Ajax, bombing Utrecht and Hereneveen into oblivion, than go to Burnley and live or die on the one decent touch I will get all day. To be fair, Bremen have a pretty good history and were worse than you would've realistically expected, independent of Josh's role. Signing there was probably smarter than going the huge team route, but just didn't come off.
Why is that weird? I know plenty of people who are skilled at a sport before they play at the highest level. Then they aren’t so good when the competition increases. For every Lewa, there are 100s of Gedion Zelalem or Julian Green. You should also be careful about overweighting youth tournament play. Yes, Sargent scored a few nice goals against youth teams of Senegal, Ecuador, and New Zealand. But how many of those opposing players made it in the EPL or another top 5 league? Very few I imagine.
Yes because relegated teams typically don’t have good attackers. You have the causal relationship reversed.
Not sure he gave a causal reasoning. Just laid out facts which were that josh will likely score very few goals this year.
Mitrovic is Serbia's all time leading scorer, I believe. Some seem to have this absurd idea that there is some kind of hard line between an "EPL striker" and a "Champs" or "MLS" striker, when the reality is it's generally situational. It takes an exceptional striker to get Pukki number goals on a Norwich level team. And if you can do it a couple of seasons in a row... you're not going to be on a Norwich level team much longer.
people can't simultaneously say Josh plays for "an EPL side" and also hand waive away his poor goal scoring record at the same time. pick one. either he's a championship level striker (so was Dike) or he's not. norwich is a EPL side in name only. It seems from available evidence that Norwich made a panic buy and it doesn't look like it's going to work out for anybody any time soon.
Yeah and Lewy was playing in the Polish 1st Division at Josh's age and was being recruited by mediocre Premiership sides so what your saying makes no sense. NO ONE could have predicted what he became. But of course you will use him for your argument regardless.
I don’t think you understand how statistics work. For every 1 Lewa, there are dozens of hot youth prospects who flameout and go nowhere. That’s how statistics work. That’s the group Sargent would be more likely to fall in, according to the numbers. And that’s how it looks like he’s turning out.