Ruben Neves

[Kysus]

Why not all those things + pace. I never said pace is better than brains, positional awesomeness or technique. I’m saying pace is better than slow while some of you saying pace don’t matter. If both players are technically and tactically great. The better athlete is better player. Pace is a very useful tool that can make life much easier for player. Defender having recovery pace is a big +.

Football like life is always a balance. You can't have it all.
Slow players are generally better technicans and have better positional awareness because they had to adjust in that direction from an early age.

 

[drippin]

I do. I’ve seen enough to know he’s decent but nothing special and certainly no better than Xhaka. The thing is, we have Xhakas replacement in Partey. We need someone a little different next to him more of an off the ball player.

Only problem is that Partey wanted out of Atletico in part because Simeone played him too deep for his liking. He wants to be more of a CMF as far as I know.

Of course you can fool a player and buy him, and play him against his will anywhere, but it should be obvious that the player will not be happy and as such his performances will not be so good. In addition to what it does to the dressing room spirit etc.

 

[djflick]

How comes Wolves are selling?

They need the money for a squad rebuild

 

[drippin]

They need the money for a squad rebuild

Neves also has 2 years in contract so this is the time to cash in if he doesn't renew.

 

[roz]

They need the money for a squad rebuild

Fair, seems like they’re more than happy enough to let him go, if he was vital to them they’d be rebuilding around Neves, he’s young enough after all.

For that reason alone. Im out.

 

[rich 1990]

Fair, seems like they’re more than happy enough to let him go, if he was vital to them they’d be rebuilding around Neves, he’s young enough after all.

For that reason alone. Im out.

Or maybe they know he wants the move and don't want to keep a player that wants out? If we took your attitude, we would never sign anybody.

 

[drippin]

Fair, seems like they’re more than happy enough to let him go, if he was vital to them they’d be rebuilding around Neves, he’s young enough after all.

For that reason alone. Im out.

You do realize that Neves might not want to renew, so they have to sell now?

How do you rebuild with someone who has 2 years in contract? Not every club is willing to lose players for free.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Hairspray is never right, you can never go wrong going opposite side of hairspray. Man still maintains we got 250 million budget. He is on some strong stuff

Not once have I said we've got £250M to spend, stop spewing nonsense please.

 

[roz]

Or maybe they know he wants the move and don't want to keep a player that wants out? If we took your attitude, we would never sign anybody.

Were we even scouting him? Seems all the links have suggested its his agent trying to push the move. How well has that worked out in the past?

Don’t understand how a club operates without a plan & a scouting department.

I said it before but haven’t seen much of Neves but he certainly didn’t impress when I have seen him. Just seems like terrible business to me. Selling Xhaka for 15million and bringing in what seems to be a very similar player for twice that?

 

[lomekian]

Wish we could just go back to the day that Arsenal bought Vieira, Petit, Gilberto, etc., and fans just enjoyed the results. That's the problem really, trust in the club acquiring the right players. I think this thread just shows gaps in our abilities to pick out the best players ourselves, esp. 30-40m players, not the obvious top tier 60-70m signings clubs such as RM, City, Bayern, etc. would target. In truth a lot of people for example thought Ndombele was a stellar signing for Spuds but even with him it wasn't smooth sailing.

As long as we buy 2 CM's I think some risk can be spread, with squad competition, as @Finesse actually alluded to yesterday. That's good enough for me. Would be a big improvement over what we have, and we will be upgrading on Xhaka and his liabilities.

To be fair, Vieira turned up and in his first sub appearance showed us all something we'd never seen in that position. Then Petit was key to winning the double in his first season and scored in the world cup final. Gilberto had just won the world cup. We had better scouting, more relative financial power and the manager had earned our absolute trust.

 

[yorch44]

Positioning is much much much more important than pace for a CM and If the team as a whole is working properly as well pace is rarely ever needed there as a CM should not need to cover vast open space.

Ir depends on the role, I have played as CM in very good levels in My country. CM is about positioning but pace is very important.

Roles You can have as CM.

DPL - Usually a player which organizes the whole game from the deep midfield. Un midfield You have one player to create your offensive plays. Ir can be a cam, could be a DPL like Pirlo. Could be both if your DPL is complete and have pace and is good recovering balls.

B2B- You do a bit of everything. You support your team and You need to be extremely Athletic! Pace is a must.

DM- The guy who is a beast recovering the ball... You could do this with good lectures of the field or by being tireless and súper good tackling. Again, pace and being strong is preferably.

Mezzalas, CAM, Interns... They hice You the offensive power a team needs and links the attackers with the midfield. But they do it more advanced. Again You have different kind of players capable of this. Strong and pace is not a must. Intelligence is.

Basically, yes being good positionally is a must in CM... But that does not mean You can have a Lot of slow players. A 34 year player could be excellent doing this for his experiencie but he just cannot keep the pace of the plays.

If You want to balance a team, You need others to compensate for the slow. Neves is not good defending, not Bad but not even good. So defending Partey is not gonna ve enough because we play with a CAM. Maybe this could work if You have Kante but thats not the case.

You want a balanced team to play with a CAM? Then You need 2 very good midfielders behind him capable of attacking and defending. Partey is good at it. Neves is not.

 

[Rasmi]

Ir depends on the role, I have played as CM in very good levels in My country. CM is about positioning but pace is very important.

Roles You can have as CM.

DPL - Usually a player which organizes the whole game from the deep midfield. Un midfield You have one player to create your offensive plays. Ir can be a cam, could be a DPL like Pirlo. Could be both if your DPL is complete and have pace and is good recovering balls.

B2B- You do a bit of everything. You support your team and You need to be extremely Athletic! Pace is a must.

DM- The guy who is a beast recovering the ball... You could do this with good lectures of the field or by being tireless and súper good tackling. Again, pace and being strong is preferably.

Mezzalas, CAM, Interns... They hice You the offensive power a team needs and links the attackers with the midfield. But they do it more advanced. Again You have different kind of players capable of this. Strong and pace is not a must. Intelligence is.

Basically, yes being good positionally is a must in CM... But that does not mean You can have a Lot of slow players. A 34 year player could be excellent doing this for his experiencie but he just cannot keep the pace of the plays.

If You want to balance a team, You need others to compensate for the slow. Neves is not good defending, not Bad but not even good. So defending Partey is not gonna ve enough because we play with a CAM. Maybe this could work if You have Kante but thats not the case.

You want a balanced team to play with a CAM? Then You need 2 very good midfielders behind him capable of attacking and defending. Partey is good at it. Neves is not.

Great post. Kante dominated a midfield with gundugon, kdb and bernado silva. All those players are intelligent players. But there is no intelligence that could make gundugon keep up with kantes pace and athleticism. People are talking like neves is next coming of xavi and bissouma is lee catermole. Both are similar level in overall talent with different strengths. But one is stronger and quicker by some distance and it makes huge difference. For example would anyone choose neves ahead of ndidi as dm?

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Great post. Kante dominated a midfield with gundugon, kdb and bernado silva. All those players are intelligent players. But there is no intelligence that could make gundugon keep up with kantes pace and athleticism. People are talking like neves is next coming of xavi and bissouma is lee catermole. Both are similar level in overall talent with different strengths. But one is stronger and quicker by some distance and it makes huge difference. For example would anyone choose neves ahead of ndidi as dm?

There's a few players i'd choose over Neves, but I'm not stupid to think that we are a plausible option for guys like Locatelli over CL clubs.

I wouldn't take an outright DM over Neves though, makes little to no sense with Partey there as well. We need someone who can move the ball quickly and pick out passes.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Despite playing for Wolves his shot creation and progressive passing is good.

 

[Iceman10]

Despite playing for Wolves his shot creation and progressive passing is good.

Wish I had some decent idea of what the club is doing with this all. There are 5+ links for CM to pay attention to now, presumably for 2 CM signings, and it feels a bit disorientating. Hopefully a bit more clarity soon.

 

[yorch44]

Great post. Kante dominated a midfield with gundugon, kdb and bernado silva. All those players are intelligent players. But there is no intelligence that could make gundugon keep up with kantes pace and athleticism. People are talking like neves is next coming of xavi and bissouma is lee catermole. Both are similar level in overall talent with different strengths. But one is stronger and quicker by some distance and it makes huge difference. For example would anyone choose neves ahead of ndidi as dm?

Never! Ndidi is the Best DM in the League... Kante is not DM anymore, that guy is more complete Indeed. Neves is a DPL who could help to control a Game but he is not giving You more than Xhaka in defense, You could check stats and he is not the Best defending, he is not even good at it.

I don't know, I am not excited about this. Playing a DPL with a cam is posible if the DPL is good defending. That gives You a terrible advantage, because Even if he is not as good defending as a DM like Ndidi they are better controlling games.

But ir You have a player good defending and good controlling, paired with someone like Partey ir gives You total freedom to your attacking. We Even saw it with Arteta as a player, he was not the Best defending, but he was good. Very good controlling the Game and good positionally, he was kinda slow and we suffer it sometimes. But being good tackling and intercepting balls helped him. But there are times when is not enough and your lack of physical gets You in a Bad position.

 

[ChefMan21]

Wish I had some decent idea of what the club is doing with this all. There are 5+ links for CM to pay attention to now, presumably for 2 CM signings, and it feels a bit disorientating. Hopefully a bit more clarity soon.

Think when one domino falls the other type of midfielder we should target will become clearer, and by extension, signed much quicker. I think they're just trying to get that first signing and first departure over the line.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

We are linked to three different types of midfielders because we want to sign 3 different midfielders. Attacking, Xhaka replacement and younger Lokonga type.

 

[Heavy Duty Rom]

If we really are looking at this guy or a player in this profile, then why not Kalvin Phillips? Homegrown, operates more to the left side like Xhaka, trained by Biesla.

 

[AberGooner]

If we really are looking at this guy or a player in this profile, then why not Kalvin Phillips? Homegrown, operates more to the left side like Xhaka, trained by Biesla.

He'd be an excellent signing, very good player.