In general I think if you´re looking for a winger around 20 who you think could be world class, he´s probably as good a bet as any in Europe right now.
He´s quick, strong, decently tricky and a goal threat with both feet. The doubt is if he can do it against top defenders, but perhaps he can. For me the Bundesliga is quite poor degensively. I watched him against Atalanta and wasn´t so impressed by his dribbling and have seen him against some other good full backs and he´s been hit and miss in that regard, but I think he´ll always be a threat.
I can´t think of another winger right now of a similar age we could bring in and I wouldn´t have doubts about. Only Ezzalzouli but he´s 24.
I would sign Diomande (I know, shocker) as I don’t see a better young winger out there. If PSG somehow nipped in ahead of us, that would presumably put Barcola in play, which I would see as a very solid plan B.
Diomande still has an awful lot to prove, and the price is unreasonable, but you have to overpay for elite potential. It has been trending that way for a few years now.
If we have the money, pay it, as I think he will show his worth. He is young and is poised to be very coachable to become almost anything Iraola wants. It just makes sense.
Mind you, we should be adding a second winger too.
He’s much better than average, but it is a fair comment that he can improve further.
The analogy I would make is that he reminds me of a young Stevie, before Rafa got hold of him and added more discipline to his play to make him even more effective. (Szobo doesn’t have the steel that Stevie had, and Stevie operated at a higher level, but that’s the sort of comp I see).
Szobo’s stamina means he gets all over the pitch, and in many ways it is eye-catching, but in an elite team, under an elite manager, it will need to be harnessed more effectively.
Not sure if there is previous and a lot of pent up stuff from that, but I hope you might be able to reconsider this.
We’re getting a new manager and we could all see it was needed.
Now is a time for a bit more hope and optimism, though fair play if you aren’t going overboard with it as we do have some issues to solve to build out the squad.
Still, I hope we can be better to each other as reds.
The only disappointment about Emre Can was that he was so often injured. When he played he was usually pretty good.
Karius was signed for 6m as a backup. He did OK in the run up to the CL final but obviously that was a catastophic performance. He wasn’t signed to be our starter though.
Degen was free, once again signed as a backup at a time when we were skint and Rafa was having to try and dig up serviceable players from thin air. Man of the match performance at home playing RW against Tottenham when half the team was out injured was more than I ever expected from him.
Andriy Voronin is similar to above. We wanted a backup to Torres at a time when we couldn’t afford to bring anyone decent in.
Samed Yesil? Are we really throwing him in to try and make a point? Signed for 1m to join the youth academy and immediately tore his cruciate. Is out for a year, comes back and does it again. That’s not a quality issue that’s just very unlucky to do serious injuries and miss multiple years of development at a key age.
Can was decent, yesil, degen, and Voronin were a)too long ago to factor into the current state of the league b) as far as yesil goes, youth signings not first team.
Forgot about Frimpong, id say jury out given how long he spent injued this year.
I think we should be able to spend around £250m (+ what we get from sales) and the books would still look more than good as long as we qualify for the CL.
