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James Maddison

Jakarta

Active Member
Adding Maddison to Tierney, Holdini, Chambers, Pepe, ESR, Willock and Saka - thats a real quality group of players there. More players of this quality instead of the likes of Elneny, Runarson, Partey and Bellerin level is the step in the right direction.

Are You High Excuse Me GIF by HBO Max
 

Mitch

Blonde Brigade Grand Wizard

Ignore social media reputations and fifa ratings and go on their peformances this season.

How many good peformances did Partey have? 3 maybe 4 max if we being generous? Was very poor for the rest. Whilst only probably Tierney produced more good peformances than Holdini this season. Chambers only got given his chance at the very end of the season but was fantastic.
 
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akhil

Well-Known Member
Good post. Let's be realistic about this though. If you pay £60m for any player there is absolutely no guarantee about making money back if they flop. It's far more likely that you don't in fact. There's maybe 10 clubs who pay those sort of fees and they do it when the hype is high, not low.

That said, I still get the logic in a Maddison. Kai Havertz may have higher potential, but the gamble Chelsea took is that he can develop that and transfer it to the PL. It takes time and he didn't really shine last season. Maddison's more likely to have an immediate impact and less likely to really struggle. He wouldn't be my first choice but he's decent and lower risk than some others.

I didn't mean we would make the entire 60 million in fees but the losses wouldn't be steep per se. There will be clubs willing to pay 30-35 for him in 4 years as well unless it's an exceptional circumstances with a debilitating injury or something.

If buying him get's us CL football, the fee is easily justified.
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
Ignore social media reputations and fifa ratings and go on their peformances this season.

How many good peformances did Partey have? 3 maybe 4 max if we being generous? Was very poor for the rest. Whilst only probably Tierney produced more good peformances than Holdini this season. Chambers only got given his chance at the very end of the season but was fantastic.

Holding is solid and fairly underrated on here I agree, though if we've got aspirations to really push on he shouldn't really be more than a rotation / squad option really.

Chambers is a jack of all trades type to me. Not good enough to be a starter in any position but a decent back up. Neither he or Cedric are good enough to be our starting RB long term. One of them needs to go along with Hector.
 

blrgooner

Established Member
Not really true.

Compare Buendía and Maddison's stats on FBref between Buendía's 19-20 season and Maddison's 19-20 and 20-21 seasons. Buendía's 19-20 looks better than Maddison's 20-21 despite playing in a side that finished 20th, and their 19-20 seasons are quite similar with Buendía again edging him in a number of categories.

Frankly, it's a bit hard to understand not signing Buendía if the plan was to go for Maddison. Makes it seem like the plan was really to go for Ødegaard (which is fine, if we had done our due diligence and were sure we could sign him), but that we then realised we couldn't and pivoted to Maddison. Which just smells a bit of incompetence.

Trying to keep my mind open about this signing, Maddison is a good player but for his price tag we really need a fine player--I hope he is that, but I am not at all convinced he is better than Buendía, or Brandt and Aouar for that matter.

The only reasonable hypothesis I can think of (other than the extremely unappetising one of us just not moving fast enough for Buendía and getting beat out by Villa for that reason only) is that our scouting of Buendía drew questions about his ability to play as a central #10, rather than an interior right (or left) winger as he has played. But I kinda doubt that, his skills seem translatable to the #10 to the highest degree.

Hoping I am wrong here and underrating Maddison, but from stats and the eye test it is hard to find anything that distinguishes him from Buendía, Brandt, or Aouar, and indeed I can find a good number of things in both the stat and eye test that seem favourable in those three.
Just curious. Do we have a comparison of stats of Buendia`s 19-20 season vs Maddison`s 19-20 season?
From what I remember Maddison was absolutely brilliant that season and had a much bigger impact than Buendia. So curious to see how Buendia fares better?
I think they are completely different kind of players and I can see why a team would prefer one or the other.
As someone mentioned before Maddison is more of a Erikson,Gerrard kind of no10 unlike Buendia(Or Ødegaard).
 

Barry

Definitely Not An Old Poster
I didn't mean we would make the entire 60 million in fees but the losses wouldn't be steep per se. There will be clubs willing to pay 30-35 for him in 4 years as well unless it's an exceptional circumstances with a debilitating injury or something.

If buying him get's us CL football, the fee is easily justified.
Oh yeah, I completely agree with that. Your saying that the risk isn't likely to be the whole £60m because we'd recoup at least half as long as the wages weren't crazy and he doesn't run down the contract or do an Özil
 

Barry

Definitely Not An Old Poster
You can go on Sqwawka and do a comparison between them. Imo Buendia looks equal or superior across most of the stats. The offensive stats are pretty similar with a few coming out marginally in favour of one or the other. Buendia stands out on his defensive game though, it's streets ahead of Maddisons.

Maddison has more goals and Buendia more assists (just one goal in that season). If you look at his progression in the Championship last season though there's no way that he just gets a single goal this campaign. Buendia is class and that's probably why people are head scratching about paying double for Maddison. Buendia looked better both in the Championship and arguably in the prem as well (playing for a dreadful Norwich team). We need to move on but I think he will shine this year.
 

AbouCuéllar

Author of A-M essays 📚
Just curious. Do we have a comparison of stats of Buendia`s 19-20 season vs Maddison`s 19-20 season?
From what I remember Maddison was absolutely brilliant that season and had a much bigger impact than Buendia. So curious to see how Buendia fares better?
I think they are completely different kind of players and I can see why a team would prefer one or the other.
As someone mentioned before Maddison is more of a Erikson,Gerrard kind of no10 unlike Buendia(Or Ødegaard).


Looking at xA, progressive passes, passes into final third, dribbles, key passes, etc. The only thing Maddison beats Buendía in for that season is shot creating actions, which makes a lot of sense considering how many more shots/g Leicester will have had than Norwich that season. The statistics are remarkably similar despite a huge gap in quality of team.
 

Football Manager

Copy & Paste Merchant
Just curious. Do we have a comparison of stats of Buendia`s 19-20 season vs Maddison`s 19-20 season?
From what I remember Maddison was absolutely brilliant that season and had a much bigger impact than Buendia. So curious to see how Buendia fares better?
I think they are completely different kind of players and I can see why a team would prefer one or the other.
As someone mentioned before Maddison is more of a Erikson,Gerrard kind of no10 unlike Buendia(Or Ødegaard).
Are you trying to insult Eriksen there putting his name next to gerrard? They are totally different players.
 

MartiSaka

Join my "Occupy A-M" movement here 🗳
Don’t think we’ll get him, but I don’t see why there is a downer on here with him. One he is good young player who will see his value explode if comes here and has a good season, and two it shows the club are making money available for Arteta.
I don't think he is a great player, somewhat inconsistent for me and in many categories isn't any better than players we can get for cheaper. All for it if it's a reasonable price but don't believe he is worth 70-80m we will have to pay.
 

Barry

Definitely Not An Old Poster
Are you trying to insult Eriksen there putting his name next to gerrard? They are totally different players.
They are different but I thought you'd quite rate Gerrard? He had a lot of technical ability to his game and was much more versatile than just being a goal scorer. KDB is the closest player I can think of in the league now n
 

Football Manager

Copy & Paste Merchant
They are different but I thought you'd quite rate Gerrard? He had a lot of technical ability to his game and was much more versatile than just being a goal scorer. KDB is the closest player I can think of in the league now n
KDB is phenomenal. Gerrard sucks.
 

MartiSaka

Join my "Occupy A-M" movement here 🗳

Looking at xA, progressive passes, passes into final third, dribbles, key passes, etc. The only thing Maddison beats Buendía in for that season is shot creating actions, which makes a lot of sense considering how many more shots/g Leicester will have had than Norwich that season. The statistics are remarkably similar despite a huge gap in quality of team.
Watching the gooners podcast, stat wise, Auoar is superior to Madison in almost all categories also
 

AbouCuéllar

Author of A-M essays 📚
Watching the gooners podcast, stat wise, Auoar is superior to Madison in almost all categories also


1622888481672-png.3158

Yeah, tbh, kinda feel like we should just go back in for Aouar. This graph reminded me of how damn good he can be, that is just elite.

In the end top talent is top talent and Aouar is top talent. Get him in and the manager's job is to make it work. We would lack a natural creative focal point but between ESR, Aouar, Saka, and hopefully a better version of Xhaka (Locatelli, I guess, would be the dream at this point, but more likely Neves, I suppose), hopefully our football would be good enough holistically to create enough.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
Ignore social media reputations and fifa ratings and go on their peformances this season.

How many good peformances did Partey have? 3 maybe 4 max if we being generous? Was very poor for the rest. Whilst only probably Tierney produced more good peformances than Holdini this season. Chambers only got given his chance at the very end of the season but was fantastic.

When you say good do you mean simply average and coasting 5/10 every week? Holding has been here for 5 years and we or he have never done anything of note.
 

blrgooner

Established Member
Are you trying to insult Eriksen there putting his name next to gerrard? They are totally different players.
Yes totally different players. I just put across an example which i read earlier in the thread. I can see how Maddison is somewhere between Eriksen and Gerrard though. All of them are more like a hybrid no8/no10 rather than a classic no 10.
I just don`t understand why there is so much negativity towards that kind of player though. I think he would improve us by a big margin.
 

Mitch

Blonde Brigade Grand Wizard
When you say good do you mean simply average and coasting 5/10 every week? Holding has been here for 5 years and we or he have never done anything of note.

No I mean good peformance to the point he was vital for us having the 3rd best defensive record in the league and we struggled to have a clean sheet without him. That Holding has a very good record against the top 6 since joining us showing us.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
No I mean good peformance to the point he was vital for us having the 3rd best defensive record in the league and we struggled to have a clean sheet without him. That Holding has a very good record against the top 6 since joining us showing us.

He has no standout attributes, he's slow and he turns like tank. We can improve on him immensely. One of many we can improve on.
 

SingmeasongSong

Right Sometimes
You can go on Sqwawka and do a comparison between them. Imo Buendia looks equal or superior across most of the stats. The offensive stats are pretty similar with a few coming out marginally in favour of one or the other. Buendia stands out on his defensive game though, it's streets ahead of Maddisons.

Maddison has more goals and Buendia more assists (just one goal in that season). If you look at his progression in the Championship last season though there's no way that he just gets a single goal this campaign. Buendia is class and that's probably why people are head scratching about paying double for Maddison. Buendia looked better both in the Championship and arguably in the prem as well (playing for a dreadful Norwich team). We need to move on but I think he will shine this year.

We need to ban the word Buendia on here, because it's just to soul crushing we spend double on a probably not as good player when he's been there for the taking.

We need to heal, robot barry.
 

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