Summer Transfer Window 2025 Thread

den said:
Moyes was forced to rely on Doucoure, Harrison and Lindstrom, and likely avoided starting Alcaraz so as not to force the purchase, leaving the club in a position to make a decision. But I think he would have run with Ndiaye, Alcaraz, and McNeil behind Beto if he could have, and I think he will very likely use them in these positions together in
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Moyes had opportunities to play those three together after Alcaraz option was void but didn’t.
He may be more keen on starting them after pre season once he’s happy he’s drilled them enough to do what he wants out of possession, but I think the only reason he didn’t start them when he could was because he didn’t want to.
 

den said:
Let's look at some numbers for those who've played across the front behind the striker, strictly under Moyes. I'm going to list them in order of goal involvements against minutes played. The number in parentheses is total minutes divided by goals and assists.
  1. McNeil (58)
  2. Alcaraz (159)
  3. Ndiaye (169)
  4. Doucoure (259)
  5. Harrison (586)
  6. Lindstrom (675)
It's no surprise that the bottom three are gone, but it may surprise you, as it did me, to realize that McNeil was used by Moyes on the right almost exclusively. He's been successful when used there over the last two years, though mostly played on the left throughout his career. Moyes played Ndiaye almost exclusively on the left, and Alcaraz as the 10 (a little on the left when needed due to injuries). They all had relatively few minutes. but were all very effective in their roles in the minutes they had.

Moyes was forced to rely on Doucoure, Harrison and Lindstrom, and likely avoided starting Alcaraz so as not to force the purchase, leaving the club in a position to make a decision. But I think he would have run with Ndiaye, Alcaraz, and McNeil behind Beto if he could have, and I think he will very likely use them in these positions together in the future.

And so I think the biggest need for the club by far is right back. Obviously they need a lot of players in a lot of areas, but aside from depth, and considering how often Moyes has emphasized that they can't do everything right away, the biggest impact will be an attacking right back to overlap with McNeil.

Alcaraz driving the ball and feeding Beto, McNeil's deceptive screamers and creative passes on the right, Ndiaye's magic on the ball on the left. There's enough there to be excited about. Baines working with Mykolenko, etc. Of course, they should work to improve anything and everything, upgrade if and where they can, introduce competition, bring in versatile squad players — all of it. But nothing is more glaring or could have a bigger impact than a major investment at right back.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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In all my years I've never heard of the word parentheses. Had to Google that one, learn something everyday i guess
 
Bedfordblue said:
Moyes had opportunities to play those three together after Alcaraz option was void but didn’t.
He may be more keen on starting them after pre season once he’s happy he’s drilled them enough to do what he wants out of possession, but I think the only reason he didn’t start them when he could was because he didn’t want to.
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Think Alcaraz would be the one needing work,the other two put the yards in.
 

Bedfordblue said:
Moyes had opportunities to play those three together after Alcaraz option was void but didn’t.
He may be more keen on starting them after pre season once he’s happy he’s drilled them enough to do what he wants out of possession, but I think the only reason he didn’t start them when he could was because he didn’t want to.
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i think mcneil needs a real right back behind him. Jack was better support for Young and so he went with him.
 
PeregrineT said:
So then how do you judge his general play? In your watching of him what does he do well and what does he not do well?

And often times stats are the outworking of the nuances. It is evidence of results. Not proof, but hard evidence.
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Stats don’t pick up quality or weight of pass. They don’t pick up positioning. They don’t pick up off the ball movement that creates a space for others. There are lots of nuances in football that can’t be covered statistically. Stats are not necessarily sticky. They are dependent on circumstances and can often be random.
 


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