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✍️ OFFICIAL Sambi Lokonga (Out-Loan)

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yorch44

Commander of the Pelotudo Brigade
I haven't seen a single good trait about Lokonga. He is slow, lacks physical presence, doesn't put agression nor courage in his game, he doesn't tackle and his defending is poor, and he has not shown any outstanding creativity to pass on all those negative traits. Show him the door. Loan or sell with a clause ASAP.
 

Blankety Blank

emoji merchant
I haven't seen a single good trait about Lokonga. He is slow, lacks physical presence, doesn't put agression nor courage in his game, he doesn't tackle and his defending is poor, and he has not shown any outstanding creativity to pass on all those negative traits. Show him the door. Loan or sell with a clause ASAP.
Not a fan then?😜🤣
I think it's far too early & there is a player in there. We need him for Europa League at least.
Milan can have AMN if they want a midfielder from us👍
 

bingobob

A-M’s Resident Hunskelper
Trusted ⭐

Country: Scotland
Arteta... "We have a young group of players, who I trust completely and want to help develop"

Immediately gives up on 2 players in their early 20s (that Mikel himself bought just a year ago) after a few acceptable difficulties in their first season in England.

That added to the mad money we are spending, it's a pretty funny looking "Youth Project" we have going on, ngl!
Devils advocate. We brought them in for a season got them use to use us then loaned them out to get regular game time. Im at least convinced that's the plan for Lokonga as he won't develop on our bench or in a handful of Europa games.
 

SA Gunner

Hates Tierney And Wants Him Sold Immediately
Moderator

Country: South Africa

Player:Nketiah
Would love Sambi to go out and get regular minutes somewhere, but on loan. Allows him to develop his game quicker and opens the door for another player to come in.
 

Maybe

You're wrong, no?
Would love Sambi to go out and get regular minutes somewhere, but on loan. Allows him to develop his game quicker and opens the door for another player to come in.
I'll be honest and say it's a waste of time. He's soon 23, his game is basically developed almost to its full potential, whatever that is. I'm not impressed as the best he can offer is to move above Elneny, and he couldn't do even that last season.

We're gonna have Patino back next year, some small chance Azeez develops into a squad player, so there is already enough talent coming from the Hale End factory.

It's time for Edu to admit the mistake and move on
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
I'll be honest and say it's a waste of time. He's soon 23, his game is basically developed almost to its full potential, whatever that is. I'm not impressed as the best he can offer is to move above Elneny, and he couldn't do even that last season.

We're gonna have Patino back next year, some small chance Azeez develops into a squad player, so there is already enough talent coming from the Hale End factory.

It's time for Edu to admit the mistake and move on
Can't get past how ignorant the bit in bold is. Very few 22-23 year olds have games that are " basically developed almost to its full potential"

At the same age
Kante was going nowhere fast in the french second division
De Bruyne was just starting to be a regular at Bremen
Modric was still in Croatia
Rakitic hadn't even moved to Spain
Xabi Alonso had just finished close to the relegation zone for Sociadad.
Bruno Fernandes was languishing in mid table on loan to Sampdoria with crap G+A stats
Jorginho had just got promoted from Serie B

Now its doubtful that Sambi will reach the levels of any of those guys, but to write him off after a difficult first season mostly playing not in his best role is placing too much expectation on a linear development path.
 

Paperino

It’s Timo Time

Country: Sweden
I'll be honest and say it's a waste of time. He's soon 23, his game is basically developed almost to its full potential, whatever that is. I'm not impressed as the best he can offer is to move above Elneny, and he couldn't do even that last season.

We're gonna have Patino back next year, some small chance Azeez develops into a squad player, so there is already enough talent coming from the Hale End factory.

It's time for Edu to admit the mistake and move on

Edu? Teta asked for Lokonga after a recommendation from his friend Kompany.
 

Keplaz

Well-Known Member
The knee jerks are very real here. When he was bought everyone knew he wasn't a starter. He's young and will need to develop. He needs more faith than to just chuck him after one difficult seaaon. The quality is there.

Some of you lot should support Chelsea. Selling De Bruyne, Salah, Ake, Lukaku etc and then having to pay millions to bring some of them back. A little faith and Chelsea's team would be ridiculous right now. Players are human beings and sometimes it takes a while to get going.
 

ArsenesCoatMaker

Established Member
Can't get past how ignorant the bit in bold is. Very few 22-23 year olds have games that are " basically developed almost to its full potential"

At the same age
Kante was going nowhere fast in the french second division
De Bruyne was just starting to be a regular at Bremen
Modric was still in Croatia
Rakitic hadn't even moved to Spain
Xabi Alonso had just finished close to the relegation zone for Sociadad.
Bruno Fernandes was languishing in mid table on loan to Sampdoria with crap G+A stats
Jorginho had just got promoted from Serie B

Now its doubtful that Sambi will reach the levels of any of those guys, but to write him off after a difficult first season mostly playing not in his best role is placing too much expectation on a linear development path.

Allot of those players were having top class seasons despite being at lowly clubs though. Xabi Alonso, KDB, Modric were clearly red hot property aged 23 even if they were at lowly clubs.

There's elements of quality from Lononga and I like his ability to carry and pick a forward pass. But his inability to fight defensively to the extent Elneny benches him was a big red flag for me. It makes his attitude suspect moving forward unless he can adapt that element of his game
 

Maybe

You're wrong, no?
Can't get past how ignorant the bit in bold is. Very few 22-23 year olds have games that are " basically developed almost to its full potential"

At the same age
Kante was going nowhere fast in the french second division
De Bruyne was just starting to be a regular at Bremen
Modric was still in Croatia
Rakitic hadn't even moved to Spain
Xabi Alonso had just finished close to the relegation zone for Sociadad.
Bruno Fernandes was languishing in mid table on loan to Sampdoria with crap G+A stats
Jorginho had just got promoted from Serie B

Now its doubtful that Sambi will reach the levels of any of those guys, but to write him off after a difficult first season mostly playing not in his best role is placing too much expectation on a linear development path.
And this is exactly why I think you are wrong here with all the names you've mentioned. Most of the players from your list were showing signs of something great.

Modric at the time was already an amazing player, De Bruyne was showing signs that he could be great, Kante was offered to Wenger, and so on, while we have a guy here who is finding it hard to get any minutes with Xhaka and Elneny in front, which I find laughable.

I'm not gonna go that far to say your post is ignorant or something, I just don't agree with it as I do feel like there are flaws in what you are saying. I do get your point, but it also feels like you guys have more of a hope for Lokonga rather than any sort of conviction in what he presented so far.

We can discuss this again in 2 years as we are both just guessing here, but I don't feel it with Sambi anymore
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
Allot of those players were having top class seasons despite being at lowly clubs though. Xabi Alonso, KDB, Modric were clearly red hot property aged 23 even if they were at lowly clubs.

There's elements of quality from Lononga and I like his ability to carry and pick a forward pass. But his inability to fight defensively to the extent Elneny benches him was a big red flag for me. It makes his attitude suspect moving forward unless he can adapt that element of his game

Of course they were hotter property - they are 3 of the best midfielders on the last 20 years, and he won't reach those levels - but they were at clubs with lower aspirations and less competition in weaker leagues. As KDB showed at Chelsea and Modric in his first season at Sp**s, The EPL is different gravy. Lokonga was ever present and Captain of Anderlecht at 21. No doubt had he stayed in that league or been at some mid table club in a weaker league he'd have had more opportunity to shine.

The key criticisms against him are lack of urgency, lack of physical intensity and lack of defensive awareness. The first two are the archetypal experience of many players moving to the EPL from other leagues - hell even Bobby Pires looked shell-shocked in his first year, and he was older, better, far more experienced and turned down Real Madrid to join us. Defensively, he's not a 6 at this point in his career, and the club have realised it. He wasn't one in Belgium, and being asked to play that role at this level was always a little optimistic

I hate the way people on the internet start firing shots at people's attitude when they've not proved anything in that regard either way. He was clearly a little out of his depth intensity wise, but that means very little.

Of course, there's no guarantee that he will reach the level to be good enough to be a rotation option, but you'd think more people would have learnt that writing off young players who move from overseas to the EPL after 1 year is often shown to be stupid.
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
And this is exactly why I think you are wrong here with all the names you've mentioned. Most of the players from your list were showing signs of something great.

Modric at the time was already an amazing player, De Bruyne was showing signs that he could be great, Kante was offered to Wenger, and so on, while we have a guy here who is finding it hard to get any minutes with Xhaka and Elneny in front, which I find laughable.

I'm not gonna go that far to say your post is ignorant or something, I just don't agree with it as I do feel like there are flaws in what you are saying. I do get your point, but it also feels like you guys have more of a hope for Lokonga rather than any sort of conviction in what he presented so far.

We can discuss this again in 2 years as we are both just guessing here, but I don't feel it with Sambi anymore
I wasn't really making the point to big up Sambi or to suggest he'd ever reach the level of the players I'd mentioned, but rather just coming back at your statement that a 22 year old's game would have developed to all its full potential.

Everyone could see that Modric, KDB had talent. Seemingly about 3 people in France saw the same re Kante. But no-one thought for a second they'd be generational talents dominating domestic, European and International football. Otherwise Modric wouldn't have gone to a poor Sp**s team, KDB wouldn't have been sold by Chelsea to a mid sized Bundesliga team after his loan at Bremen, and Kante wouldn't have spent another year in Ligue 2.

Sambi is a young guy in a new league who struggled to adjust having to fill in for Partey or Xhaka (often against strong opponents in a slightly struggle team) having been thrown in the deep end due to injuries. Had things gone to plan and he'd been gently eased in and his first 3 months gametime and performances come in the second half of the season, people's perception would be different I suspect.
 

ragnarock

Active Member
I wasn't really making the point to big up Sambi or to suggest he'd ever reach the level of the players I'd mentioned, but rather just coming back at your statement that a 22 year old's game would have developed to all its full potential.

Everyone could see that Modric, KDB had talent. Seemingly about 3 people in France saw the same re Kante. But no-one thought for a second they'd be generational talents dominating domestic, European and International football. Otherwise Modric wouldn't have gone to a poor Sp**s team, KDB wouldn't have been sold by Chelsea to a mid sized Bundesliga team after his loan at Bremen, and Kante wouldn't have spent another year in Ligue 2.

Sambi is a young guy in a new league who struggled to adjust having to fill in for Partey or Xhaka (often against strong opponents in a slightly struggle team) having been thrown in the deep end due to injuries. Had things gone to plan and he'd been gently eased in and his first 3 months gametime and performances come in the second half of the season, people's perception would be different I suspect.

Finally someone talking sense
 

HollandGooner

Established Member

Country: Netherlands

Player:Ødegaard
With all resepect we are not his level, we should sell him and get Tielemans.
 

Sebastes

Statbomb Merchant
Trusted ⭐

Country: Sweden
Liked the thought of Sambi when we bought him. Hadn’t seen more than highlights but there was/is a lot of interesting things about his profile. Not happy with his (lack of) development/step up though. Happy if we could find a good loan for him so he could play regularly and then assess where he’s at in a year, but wouldn’t be too fussed if we sold tbh. He’s not good enough atm
 
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