Gonzalo Higuaín (70 Viewers)
- Thread starter Marc
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Gonzalo has delivered what we needed: goals. If you look at his stats at Juve, he is far from bad, altough not as good as his Napoli days. : 44 goals in 83 appearances for us is pretty acceptable numbers for a striker. 90 mill was maybe a bitt stiff, but he did a decent job.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
Gonzalo has delivered what we needed: goals. If you look at his stats at Juve, he is far from bad, altough not as good as his Napoli days. : 44 goals in 83 appearances for us is pretty acceptable numbers for a striker. 90 mill was maybe a bitt stiff, but he did a decent job.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
Bolded part.
yes, that is one of the reasons why him and dybala are not veing too effective. They spend way too much time trying to create without much help...and roaming way too much. All for the sake of the team, under orders... but ultimately they are being sacrificed.
Im trying to wrap my head around this. Why are we so demanding of a striker to work in the midfield or chase down defenders/midfielders? makes no sense unless you have a Firminho type of player that works as a semi playmaker/false 9. And Dybala too, as you pointed out suffers from this, because he is without a doubt most effective when in possesion and in offensive areas (outside the box or in the penalty area).
My guess would be the mentality and type of pressing/buid up game Max expects from his players generally: they are all expected to work in a collective form of press/build up. The thing i struggle to see is why you would employ a lethal type of striker (like Higuain) and an elegant creator (dybala) to do a Mandzukic-escue type of labour where he literally spends a huge amount of his energy chasing down players, when what they do 95% of the time is whack the ball forward. Energy wasted.
My guess would be the mentality and type of pressing/buid up game Max expects from his players generally: they are all expected to work in a collective form of press/build up. The thing i struggle to see is why you would employ a lethal type of striker (like Higuain) and an elegant creator (dybala) to do a Mandzukic-escue type of labour where he literally spends a huge amount of his energy chasing down players, when what they do 95% of the time is whack the ball forward. Energy wasted.
Well,
My take on this is that this has to do with the italian football school and italian coaching mentality in general. Italian coaches are very conservative in their football,, even when trying to be offensive. We need to remember that they come from a very defensive coaching heritage. They value defending as an art, and as true calcio.
In our case, for Allegri, is of utmost importance to keep lines in order, to not concede above anything...even if this means we will not score. Thats the priority, and if the 11 players need to defend for this objective, then so be it. The goals can come after that. Thats it. And can i see from where he comes. He has gotten results this way, and we have won some good victories in europe because of this.
Sadly , well, this comes with a price, and is our lack of offensive build up and offensive game in general. If you see our games... we struggle a lot to create with possesion, we are very hit and miss and rely mostly on crosses or an individual effort. This is because i think we are not accustomed to this kind of scenario. Also We lack players with sublime talent for our offensive plays. yes we have pjanic, dybala and bernardeschi but thats it. Our offensive gameplan is not polished enough.
If you add to this the physical strain our offensive players are always under, because of being pressing without the ball at their feet...well then you have what we have now.
yeah, it kind of makes sense. I think you are right here and overall valid points.
i just feel its a shame we are reduced to "moments of magic" or "luck" in our offensive play, when we could have a much more fluid gameplan in that department.
On a more positive note, we now have Costa (I think he has had a good start here) , Bernardeschi (also good) in addition to Cuadrado: so Higuain and Dybala should not be alone anymore to do this. The big question is if this way of playing can be efffective against the really big teams. I still have my doubts.
i just feel its a shame we are reduced to "moments of magic" or "luck" in our offensive play, when we could have a much more fluid gameplan in that department.
On a more positive note, we now have Costa (I think he has had a good start here) , Bernardeschi (also good) in addition to Cuadrado: so Higuain and Dybala should not be alone anymore to do this. The big question is if this way of playing can be efffective against the really big teams. I still have my doubts.
Gonzalo has delivered what we needed: goals. If you look at his stats at Juve, he is far from bad, altough not as good as his Napoli days. : 44 goals in 83 appearances for us is pretty acceptable numbers for a striker. 90 mill was maybe a bitt stiff, but he did a decent job.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
Then you have to consider our way of football: When Higuain played with Napoli they were one of the highest scoring teams in Europe. They had a thing for trashing small teams, often with a big scoreline. Pipa had his share of easy goals in those fixtures. Then you have Juve, who often control those type of games, score a couple and then rest ourselves for bigger tasks.
The problem now is that he is declining and we need to look for a replacement sooner rather than later. He will never be the same player as he was in Napoli and we should start to acknowledge this.
His pace, physical condition and overall athleticism has naturally declined. Now he is more of a target man than anything else. The days where he can take on 2 defenders on his own and outmanoeuvre them is over.
We should dictate him to work around the box, not spend all his energy chasing down opponents in pressing. This is what i also see him do a lot: work in areas of the pitch where he is not a threat. i dont get it.
Focus his work on doing basic things and what he does best: receive the ball in the box and finish. I know it might sound very underwhelming, but i believe he can be a much more effective weapon if Max stops expecting him to drop down and start our build-ups all the time.
He is still a usefull player, but limited. I hope he improves after the break. best of luck.
People shouldn't give a fuck about transfer fee's anymore. You think we'd have signed players for dirt cheap after we made Pogba the most expensive transfer?
Just look at similar transfers:
Morata - 64M to Chelsea
Diego Costa - 50M to Atletico
Benteke - 46M to Aston Villa
Batshuayi - 40M to Chelsea
These were all negotiated transfer fee's and most of them were even damaged goods. To put in perspective: Higuain is better than all of them and came after a record breaking seasons.
Absolutely mental
Just look at similar transfers:
Morata - 64M to Chelsea
Diego Costa - 50M to Atletico
Benteke - 46M to Aston Villa
Batshuayi - 40M to Chelsea
These were all negotiated transfer fee's and most of them were even damaged goods. To put in perspective: Higuain is better than all of them and came after a record breaking seasons.
Absolutely mental
Just look at the stats in their domestic leagues
Diego costa:
2016-17: 35 games - 20 goals
2015-16: 20 games - 12 goals
2014-15: 26 games - 20 goals
52 goals in the past 3 seasons
Higuain:
2016-17: 38 games - 24 goals
2015-16: 35 games - 36 goals
2014-15: 37 games - 18 goals
78 goals in 3 past seasons
How one can he'd take Diego Costa over Higuain is beyond me..
Diego costa:
2016-17: 35 games - 20 goals
2015-16: 20 games - 12 goals
2014-15: 26 games - 20 goals
52 goals in the past 3 seasons
Higuain:
2016-17: 38 games - 24 goals
2015-16: 35 games - 36 goals
2014-15: 37 games - 18 goals
78 goals in 3 past seasons
How one can he'd take Diego Costa over Higuain is beyond me..
Watch the game.
You guys are all obsessed with stats.
Higuain scores more, but Costa is an allround beast up front. Play Higgy in the Atletico team Costa played in and he won't score shit.
Whilst Costa prolly (or most definitely) wouldn't score as much goals as Higgy, the team as a whole would perform better with a player like him.
You guys are all obsessed with stats.
Higuain scores more, but Costa is an allround beast up front. Play Higgy in the Atletico team Costa played in and he won't score shit.
Whilst Costa prolly (or most definitely) wouldn't score as much goals as Higgy, the team as a whole would perform better with a player like him.