Noni Madueke: There's Noni To Be Upset

[Mudi]

Sorry but Madueke for £52m is still an outrageous buy. We overpaid with £12-17m. Nobody can deny that and if we did not buy Eze, the outrage of buying Madueke as our only winger was very much understandable.

Buying Eze changed everything, we became a club that can spend £50m on a back-up player ...

 

[db10_therza]

Sorry but Madueke for £52m is still an outrageous buy. We overpaid with £12-17m. Nobody can deny that and if we did not buy Eze, the outrage of buying Madueke as our only winger was very much understandable.

Buying Eze changed everything, we became a club that can spend £50m on a back-up player ...

I don’t think we overpaid when you look at the prices paid for other players. maybe by 5m or something but not much more than that.

 

[Bogart]

I don’t think we overpaid when you look at the prices paid for other players. maybe by 5m or something but not much more than that.

Was gonna say this. Homegrown English player who’s genuinely able to fulfil all the responsibilities of a winger without needing any extra help from team mates and has the pace and stamina to burn is worth well in excess of 50 easy.

Maybe the risk of him having been benched and not found a consistent place at a circus club means we overpaid slightly at the point of purchase, but a soon as he confirms he can do the above on a consistent basis that price tag is a distant memory.

 

[outlawz]

Using hyperbolic words like "Crying", "LMAO" to what others are writing then telling people not to have knee jerk reactions.

Clearly the irony is lost on you.

If you had an ounce of perspective, it does matter. If we signed Özil/arshavin at the begining of the transfer window compared to the end. There would have been drastically different reactions.

We needed a CF, then a LW, and we go and sign a back up right winger for a big fee for a backup.

With our history of poor transfer windows, the reaction from everyone was completely justified.

When your argument boils down to 'I don't like the order of how it happened' like as if that is materially relevant, it's not much of an argument. The reaction was unjustified and you trying to rationalise it even now when it was proven to be an astute signing as soon as Saka injured himself on Matchday 2 makes you look foolish. Take the L and move on .

 

[Bogart]

Seen A LOT of posts about Noni rushing things in the box and not having composure / awareness / IQ.

Two things:

- How he held on to the ball showing composure and then anticipated Gyokeres coming round for the overlap and released him perfectly for his shot showing his IQ.

- How he held the ball and somehow (got a call?) knew Timber was arriving for an overlap and then released him perfectly, again show both composure and football iq. Rice really should have scored from that move.

It’s early days and it might go pear shaped but let’s not pretend like there’s no signs these attributes of his are both in fact present and developing.

Essay incoming, apologies. All just my opinion of course.

Agree again, it’s definitely not an iq problem in my book. The way he’s invested in and constructed his rw game off the field, how patient he can be as you say when he knows he has runs coming, and how delicate his touches can be in combination play makes me think this is an intelligent and humble young man who’s driven to succeed.

It’s not direct end product but the pressure he exerted on that right hand side and with his corner deliveries into the box definitely had a big part to play in why were able to dominate and score, so he definitely produced quality beyond just dribbling.

As far as direct goals and assists go, it’s not something I would associate with the idea of iq personally but obviously it involves your brain so I guess you could make some kind of iq argument. I think It’s more about developing a killer instinct specifically with the touch before the final action. Trossard and gyokeres are good examples of this (two players I don’t think most of us would asssociate with football iq). If they are dribbling, they will try to force a no-nonsense final touch that forces the whole defence to respond to them and opens up several dangerous options for them and they have a lot of striking purchase on the ball.

The problem with players like that is that they often have no idea how to hide or protect the ball and find something else if that direct no-nonsense option isn’t available to them.

The beauty of someone like bukayo at his best is that he’s able to integrate those two approaches to the game (he’s the only player we have that can, maybe eze too now). He can hide the ball when it’s appropriate and take decisive, ambitious touches to open things up when it’s appropriate. Øde is an example of someone who’s much better at responding to the defence or hiding/protecting the ball than being the protagonist who takes touches the defence has to respond too.

All that’s to say that I think noni has the potential to do both those things (hide the ball and commit to decisive touches) and to some extent when he’s taking people on he does, but I think he needs to really learn how and when to commit to the final touch before his final action to really Increase his options and ramp up the pressure on the defence in that high stress moment. And I think he should look to his team mates gyok and trossard as to how to do that and saka as to how to integrate it for consistency.

I think with minutes and faith he can put these things together and become and absolutely deadly winger but I’m not necessarily certain he will get all that Arsenal, and may just be a very very useful squad player for a period of time.

 

[db10_therza]

When your argument boils down to 'I don't like the order of how it happened' like as if that is materially relevant, it's not much of an argument. The reaction was unjustified and you trying to rationalise it even now when it was proven to be an astute signing as soon as Saka injured himself on Matchday 2 makes you look foolish. Take the L and move on .

It’s not relevant after the fact of course, anyone still moaning about it is silly.

But at the time the order does matter because it’s all we have to go on right? The two options are “suspend all emotion until the window closes” or “react to the knowledge you have available to you at the time”. The latter is arguably the more sensible of the two options.

 

[Mudi]

I don’t think we overpaid when you look at the prices paid for other players. maybe by 5m or something but not much more than that.

We definitely overpaid and we cannot deny it. Chelsea bought him for €35m a year and half ago, he did not perform well as expected, they bought a replacement and wanted to ship him because they have Neto and Estevao for the RW position. And we paid the full asking price for him while Man utd was doing the same for Garnacho and they paid up to £40m for him. We could have got him for the same price.

But again, it is not the price even. Just the order of the transfers. If Eze was not bought, we were in big trouble. It is that simple. Madueke was a luxury signing and we needed a LW more than a reserve RW.

 

[razörist]

I'd say that this has to do also with the squad depth he has now.
Same thing like with rotation.

Maybe he feels much more confident now.
Arsenal starting lineup today was without Saliba, Rice, Havertz, Saka, Martinelli, Ødegaard from 18th minute, and you didn't notice it.

Could you imagine Arsenal lineup without all these players last season, or 2-3 seasons ago?
Wouldn't we notice that we are without them?

This would have been the line-up last season with the injuries / rested players yesterday. Funny thing is you don’t even count Jesus anymore.

In defense its stil good but the attack is really bad. We made really good steps this window and I really hope we use the depth to make sure we minimize the chances of our players getting injured. We are basically in an injury crisis now its just that the additions like Madueke are really good.

 

[Trilly]

It’s not relevant after the fact of course, anyone still moaning about it is silly.

But at the time the order does matter because it’s all we have to go on right? The two options are “suspend all emotion until the window closes” or “react to the knowledge you have available to you at the time”. The latter is arguably the more sensible of the two options.

It’s not even arguable, idk who he thinks he is trying to regulate people’s reactions.

If you’re calm and patient enough to wait till the window ends then fair play to you, but let’s not pretend that our transfer team had earned that right prior to this year.

 

[Gooner Zig]

We definitely overpaid and we cannot deny it. Chelsea bought him for €35m a year and half ago, he did not perform well as expected, they bought a replacement and wanted to ship him because they have Neto and Estevao for the RW position. And we paid the full asking price for him while Man utd was doing the same for Garnacho and they paid up to £40m for him. We could have got him for the same price.

But again, it is not the price even. Just the order of the transfers. If Eze was not bought, we were in big trouble. It is that simple. Madueke was a luxury signing and we needed a LW more than a reserve RW.

We did not overpay based on comparative moves within the PL.

We overpaid in the sense that we had some leverage over Chelsea with their Uefa squad cost situation which we didn't take advantage of I'm assuming because Arteta wanted him in ASAP.

 

[Hleb's Sirush]

Sorry but Madueke for £52m is still an outrageous buy. We overpaid with £12-17m. Nobody can deny that.

What year are you living in. Probably not 2025 where bang average wingers like Gittens who has done a lot less than Madueke cost the same price. Or Anthony Elanga who has so much to prove still cost more than him. Heck, even a teenage winger who showed some potential but was mostly anonymous last season cost Everton £40m (Dibling). To get a full England international who was Chelsea's best winger (his problem was consistency, not that he had a bad season) for less than Elanga and Gittens is unrealistic.

I thought for us he was too expensive, simply from our point of view as I thought he was coming in to be Saka's back up. Not the greatest use of our limited funds (little did I know Kroenke was ready to authorise some serious spending). In terms of his value to any other team I didn’t think he was expensive at all. This was the going rate for any decent winger.

 

[Mudi]

What year are you living in. Probably not 2025 where bang average wingers like Gittens who has done a lot less than Madueke cost the same price. Or Anthony Elanga who has so much to prove still cost more than him. Heck, even a teenage winger who showed some potential but was mostly anonymous last season cost Everton £40m (Dibling). To get a full England international who was Chelsea's best winger (his problem was consistency, not that he had a bad season) for less than Elanga and Gittens is unrealistic.

I thought for us he was too expensive, simply from our point of view as I thought he was coming in to be Saka's back up. Not the greatest use of our limited funds (little did I know Kroenke was ready to authorise some serious spending). In terms of his value to any other team I didn’t think he was expensive at all. This was the going rate for any decent winger.

Come on, Madueke has the same output as Martinelli. And I don't believe that we could offload Martinelli this year, because offers coming to us where not that high.

Or in other words, if we could have offloaded Martinelli for £52m, we would be screaming out of joy that we could get so much for him.

And no Madueke was not Chelsea's best winger. It is like saying that Martinelli was our best winger because his output was higher than the rest. Madueke was hot/cold and lazy meaning not helping out defensively. He wasn't even our first choice as we wanted Mbeumo as cover for Saka.

Again this signing is turning out great because we got Eze. Without Eze, this signing would have been one of the worst, just because our need of LW was much more than a luxury cover for Saka.

 

[Hleb's Sirush]

Come on, Madueke has the same output as Martinelli. And I don't believe that we could offload Martinelli this year, because offers coming to us where not that high.

Or in other words, if we could have offloaded Martinelli for £52m, we would be screaming out of joy that we could get so much for him.

And no Madueke was not Chelsea's best winger. It is like saying that Martinelli was our best winger because his output was higher than the rest. Madueke was hot/cold and lazy meaning not helping out defensively. He wasn't even our first choice as we wanted Mbeumo as cover for Saka.

Again this signing is turning out great because we got Eze. Without Eze, this signing would have been one of the worst, just because our need of LW was much more than a luxury cover for Saka.

I'm one of Martinelli's biggest supporter but even I had to admit he has been atrocious for a while now. Madueke has been a lot better than him.

We might struggle to sell Nelli for similar price but only because he is on high wage. If he wasn't no problem we could sell for £50m.

I said Madueke was Chelsea's best winger not because of output but because most Chelsea fans said so and also how I felt whenever I watched Chelsea. 2 games that have stayed on my mind where he was unplayable were a game against us where we trashed them yet he was a thorn in our side and a game at the bridge against Liverpool in which he was toying with their fullbacks that was hard to believe.

Mbeumo cost £70m, highlighting what a proper replacement for Saka would cost, £48m for Madueke seems a lot more reasonable.

And yes if we didn't sign Eze the Madueke signing wouldn't have made sense. But that would be a criticism of our transfer strategy rather than Madueke's price tag.

 

[Mraven]

You're not. I've seen you on multiple occasions talking rubbish. Saka's 'injury trend' being just your latest.

I’ve spent the entire summer in the trenches defending Madueke as a good signing. Especially with Saka’s fitness issues. Now we are four weeks in. Noni is an important player and Saka has done his hamstring. I’m ecstatic the club has been proactive for once

 

[StefanB]

I’ve spent the entire summer in the trenches defending Madueke as a good signing. Especially with Saka’s fitness issues. Now we are four weeks in. Noni is an important player and Saka has done his hamstring. I’m ecstatic the club has been proactive for once

I'm so happy that the club basically went out and addressed almost every single weak link in our squad. Getting Madueke to backup and challenge Saka was a good move and something that was a big hole in our squad.

Being able to have a player of Madueke's quality to be able to step in for Saka is massive compared to other seasons where Saka basically was the only player we could play.

Madueke also allows us to use Saka centrally while still having quality on the right wing.

Just need to do the same on the left wing now. Eze and someone like Semenyo or Nusa would be amazing.

 

[Penn_]

For years we complain about the club leaving things until the end of the window instead of overpaying a little to get them in earlier. We do just that and apparently now we should've waited? For the sake of 10–15M the club have been vindicated in their approach given the early injury to Saka.

Next step will be whether Arteta actually trusts Noni enough to ease Saka back, rather than rushed and quickly thrown in.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Really strong start from his this season.

I'm delighted for him. He's playing with a point to prove and a bit of swagger.

Keep it up and that £50m is looking cheap.

 

[Xln]

For 50m he's a steal. We haven't even seen his best form yet.

 

[grange]

The good news is that we've reached the bottom of the barrel for complaints. "We didn't sign the players in the right order that allowed me to go in pubic and not be shamed by rival fans, "We overpaid by 5-10m in an already inflated market" blah blah blah.

The guy is quality and was on the cusp of breaking out. We haven't missed a beat with him playing. That's all I care about. He can get even better too.

 

[outlawz]

The “bítchboys” didn’t want to spend £50m on a Saka backup when we had needs in the starting XI.

A Saka backup was much needed and was consistently stated as a requirement for years . Just because there were competing priorities, doesn't mean there wasn't a need to protect the team against our biggest key man risk.

Let's be real - the backlash wasn't because we spent money on a backup RW. If we had bought Akliouche - no one would have said ****. It's because he was a Chelsea player. Short of signing Palmer, the reaction would have been the same had we bought any player from there regardless of position.