Watkins was always a decent striker but this season he's moving into the elite category. His 2 goals against Fulham were superb and indicative of a top level striker who scores on instinct.
If you've got a guy up front who'll reliably stick chances away you've always got a chance.
Watkins isn’t an elite striker. He’s a decent premier league striker but he’s not a player a big club is going to break the bank for. Drogba, Cole, Henry, Van Nistelroy, Aguero, Harland, Kane, Shearer and Wright are examples of elite strikers and Watkins is miles away from their quality.
Those are World Class strikers (except Cole IMHO).
Elite is a rung below but still superb. Current World Class Strikers are Mbappe, Haaland and Kane.
In the PL elite strikers are Watkins, Toney and Son. Nunez has the potential to move into the elite category as well. But none of those I think will hit World Class level.
I'm going out on a limb here and saying that Sheff Utd won't get top 4.
You’ve missed Suarez off the Elite list. He’s genuinely one of the best strikers of all time and the best striker Liverpool have ever had. A level above the likes of Rush.
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Another thing about Suarez was he never missed a game through injury. In his 3 years with Liverpool he never missed a game with it and he has the lowest injury record of any player to ever play in a top league.
In 800 career games to date he’s missed 6 games through injury.
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Another cracking atmosphere at the Etihad.
https://x.com/stehoare/status/1758982620120006916?s=46
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Ryan I'm enjoying your classification system, have you got any more rungs on the ladder please?
Some suggestions:
World Class
Elite
Sub-elite
Can do it at Stoke on a rainy Tuesday
Doesn't know 'our league'
Nicklas Bendnter Hall of Fame
Kenwyne Jones style
Hey, hey Bebe (ooh ah)
Ali Dia Academy Award
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Nice ranking system, I'd add 'Yaya (did you mean to sign Toure instead?) Sanogo' between Hey, Hey Bebe and Ali Dia, with him not being the lowest rung only due to somehow scoring for Arsenal in the CL against Jurgen Klopp's Dortmund. Dortmund's social media team were clearly stunned.....
Let's not forget....."Generational talent"
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He's settled in, but his upturn also coincides with sidelining Anthony (an expensive, predictable, greedy, very average player) and switching Garnacho to the right.
United are improving, but still average. More turmoil to come with a clear out and influx this summer.
After watching Luton v man United and being a Luton fan is crazy and very frustrating seeing the 150% effort that Luton put in every game right up untill the whistle blows and we still fighting for survival in the bottom three
possibly the most complete centre forward I've ever seen in the flesh. That is as a non Liverpool fan....
he did everything brilliantly and also defended from the front, total team player and also knew when to be selfish. As a centre back I always watch CF's as how would you like to play against them; Suarez at his peak would have been a fking nightmare.
His tactic of being 5 yards offside then being onside to a square ball was genuinely unbelievable.
I’ll find the clips of it but he scored a massive amount of goals by being miles offside in the first phase of play only to be onside with a square ball and being 5 yards ahead of defenders.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen another striker do it.
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Yes as a huge Hatters fan I agree, loads of positives from our performances against top 6 teams but whilst it is great to watch we haven’t converted these solid performances into points.
Then bizarrely we have played terribly against Burnley and Sheffield United which is where we really need to score the points!
At least the media are not being quite so condescending about Luton these days. It was great to see the TV cameras focusing on Luton legend Mick Harford the other day while he was giving out mints to the lucky young chap sat next to him!!
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After watching Luton v Man United and being a Man United fan...
a) I was not at all confident going into the match
b) we were very lucky to come away with the three points - you were the better team for the last 80 minutes but not translating it into points. (I realise my sympathy will mean nothing if you go down)
Indeed, even with increasing EPL TV deal, chumps league moneys, lots of new direct commercial deals and weekly new Adidas Arsenal stuff, my Arsenal ticket will go up another 6% next season; so that 11% increase in 2 seasons with 3 fewer cup matches... I know they prefer the tourists with one off visits and buying the club shop
Jota out for 'months' apparently. Massive shame for the lad, he's not been lucky with injuries.
One for you Ryan, Van Dijk and Saliba’s stats this season.
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Check out the details of Messi’s contract if you want to feel really sick
https://www.fastcompany.com/91030230...miami-contract
Sheffield to be fair was the first team to seem to tactically change their game plan coming to Lutonand took it serious enough to turn up and fight and it showed on the day they deserved the win and we now need a
crucial point against Liverpool to keep up in the fight stay up
What about the 'goals conceded' stats. Surely that's what matters the most as if you have a better midfield (like Arsenal do with Rice) protecting the defenders then they don't need to make so many headers.
And as for 'long passes', unlike Liverpool Arsenal aren't a long ball team. Arsenal play it short to the midfielders or the inverted full backs.
So goals conceded is the most important.
Here are some more 'stats'. Based on Ivan's logic then Joachim Andersen must be a better defender than Virgil Van Dijk.
Hang on so individual defending stats aren’t applicable because Arsenal have a better midfield ( Rice ).
But goals conceded is the most important stat even though Arsenal have a better midfield ( Rice ) to protect the defenders ?
Can’t we have some consistency in your posts please Ryan.
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OK I'll try and make this very simple.
Why do football teams have defenders in their team? What do they try to stop happening?
A defensive unit also includes the midfield. The fact that Saliba doesn't need to win as many aerial battles is because he doesn't have to. Just like I'd imagine a lot of the Everton defenders have 'better' stats than Saliba.
The one that really matters is the goals against.
Just like at the other end of the pitch Haaland doesn't make as many tackles as Maupay. But there's one stat Haaland has that defines him as a far better striker than Maupay.....
Again Ryan can we have some consistency please.
Only goals conceded matter to centre half stats. Which means there can only be 1,2 or 3 good centre halves at the end of each season as they would have conceded the least amount of goals.
By your metrics Saliba is only a good centre half if Arsenal conceded the least goals at the end of the season.
We will revisit at the end of the season and see if you move your goal posts again.
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Good win for Man City vs Stokeford this evening. Not being great but still winning. 3 points is all that matters.