Kwadwo Asamoah (30 Viewers)

Bjerknes

"Top Economist"
Mar 16, 2004
117,045
Sure, Asamoah is a great wingback when it comes to defensive duties. He's fast, he can tackle. Sure sure sure.

But he sucks at running at defenders with the ball and can't cross, so basically we have zero production of chances on the left-hand side of the pitch unless it's Tevez or Pogba who were drawn out there.

And that's why the 3-5-2 sucks unless you have extremely good wingbacks at both ends of the pitch.
 

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Hydde

Minimiliano Tristelli
Mar 6, 2003
39,026
Asamoah is an amazing wingback.

The profile of this position is basically impossible to satisfy in every single aspect, you'd have to be excellent in both defending, crossing, dribbling, creativity, huge stamina,...
In other terms, you'd have to be a beast defender and flashy winger in one, not to forget being able to run for 90 minutes straight.

Asamoah fullfills most of these criteria perfectly, of course lacking in others as well, but that's to be expected.



Evra on the other hand seems to be a rather mediocre wingback to me.
If he was amazing, we would be scoring for fun.
But that doesnt mean Asamoah IS the problem. Maybe i used the wrong term in calling him "average", as he is no De Ceglie for sure. He offers us alot physically and has good stamina and even some nice offensive qualities, but like you said, the profile of this position FOR JUVENTUS is basically impossible to fill. Why? because we would need a super human who could press, dribble, trackback to our defense area to cover skilled enemy wingers AND then go with the ball at his feet dribble passing peeps and scoring assists for fun. At the same time letting Vidal and Pogba to play box to box at their will without having to cover that player. Impossible and unreal.

But this profile is impossible to fill because our formation is faulty. In practice, for our current 352 to be the force it should be, it would need a player like that to let tevez and llorente have some room by spreading the enemy defence and sending top notch crosses and passes, and to have Vidal and Pogba cover the back of said player. It will not happen.

Since is impossible for our wingbacks to cover all that ground during 90 mins... our formation always needs to be tight and pressing high on the pitch.. and our CM need to cover the wingbakcs when going forward BUT at the same time cover Pirlo.

This would work wonders if we had 2 world beaters in each wing who could dribble, assist and score on their own...but asa and Licht are not like that, and cant split the play enought, or be effective enought to make enemies mark them frantically and give more space to llorente and tevez. We keep wasting chances and possetion. We resort to throwing long balls because we cant score or threaten the enemy.

In summary, for this 352 to work, we would need our 3 mids to alternate covering the 2 amazing wingbacks. But in our formation, we want asamoah and licht to create chances, and on top of that we want vial and pogba to create. The first will not work because of our offensive limited wingers, and the 2nd will not work because of Pirlo
 

Ocelot

Midnight Marauder
Jul 13, 2013
18,943
With the 3-5-2, offensive firepower isn't supposed to come from the flanks, but the center. His main objective, to keep the flank locked down, he fulfills consistently and very well.

What I defenitely can agree on though is that an improvement of his crossing would be a very welcome sight, and not be asking for too much in my opinion.

Llorente, when in better form, Pogba and Morata could capitalise majorly from that.
 

Hydde

Minimiliano Tristelli
Mar 6, 2003
39,026
With the 3-5-2, offensive firepower isn't supposed to come from the flanks, but the center. His main objective, to keep the flank locked down, he fulfills consistently and very well.

What I defenitely can agree on though is that an improvement of his crossing would be a very welcome sight, and not be asking for too much in my opinion.

Llorente, when in better form, Pogba and Morata could capitalise majorly from that.
And thats another problem you just pointed there. Our gameplay from the mid is not incisive enought because Vidal and Pogba, while wonderful box to box, have to be covering Pirlo at all times. Also, our enemies crowd the middle of the park, isolating Tevez and llorente from the rest of the team. In this moment we try to penetrate from the wings...but then we re not able to do so because of the reasons i cited above. We end passing the ball back and forth like headless chickens, ultimately resorting to long balls without a clear purpouse

Finally we find ourselves without scoring chances and at worst case sceneario, with one goal down and unable to do anything about it because of the lack of a clear plan.
Asamoah does good his job, Juventus is the one asking for hm to do things he just cannot
 

Hist

Founder of Hism
Jan 18, 2009
11,659
4 goals and 4 assists last year and 3 goals and 7 assists the year before is very good for a defensive wingback that almost never fucks up. The licht has even better stats
 

zizinho

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2013
51,816
those are solid numbers for 2 defensive wingbacks. but how many of those assists or goals came in a CL match or against a top serie a side? because that is when it REALLY matters.

seriously, i like both of them, but we cant except in the most important matches of the season, that all our creativity from the wings comes from 2 defenders. it is always the same with them. they receive the ball on the wing, try to get past their man, realize they are limited and that they cant get past, pass the ball back to Vidal/Pogba or Chiello/Barza, get back in position and wait to receive the ball again. they are easy to defend 1 on 1, thats why they are shot down quite easily in any important game. hats off for all their defensive contribution, but they could do an equally good job at it as fullbacks. Licht is a fullback after all and Asa shouldnt have much problems to adapt there constantly since he is a defensive wingback after all and he has already played LB before. in offense, they would have way more free room to run into and they will become a bigger threat than they are currently. the point is, if you move them down a bit you dont take anything from their defensive contribution (the reason they are so good and starters for us) and you have players up the field who are more gifted offensively which automatically opens up more space for the 2 going forward.
 

Bianconero81

Ageing Veteran
Jan 26, 2009
40,182
Amazing wingback is a stretch. Zambrotta was an amazing wingback, for example.

Asamoah is a good wingback, as he is dependable and reliable, but you can't be amazing if your attacking attributes are almost non-existent. Yes, he does provide assists, but he can't cross for shit, doesn't get involved in the attacking play anywhere near enough, and can't beat his man (he only uses that one move where he pushes the ball forward and tries to beat him for pace or out muscle him).
 

Hist

Founder of Hism
Jan 18, 2009
11,659
Those are solid numbers for any wingback. 6 goals and 9 assists from the licht last year and 5 goals and 3 assists the year before. I dont think a wing back should produce any more than that.
Dani Carvajal G:2 A:3.
Marcelo: G:3 A:8, G:3 A:2
Dani Alves: :G:4 A:4, G:1,A:7
Azpilicueta: G:1 A:2, G:0 A:4

These are fullbacks who are barely able to defend with very attacking roles and super-attacking very high scoring teams (apart from azpilicueta)

Our guys are infinitely more solid defensively then the best of these and they have equal or superior numbers. Our guys are also always over-worked with no real subs available. I dont think if we had more attacking players we would fare much better. At most we'd get 4 goals and 4 assists more from Marcelo and Alves and concede an equal if not bigger amount.
A wing back is not a winger they should not be expected to give any more than they do already.
 

Bianconero81

Ageing Veteran
Jan 26, 2009
40,182
A wingback should however, be able to cross and beat his man every once in a while. Asamoah is a beast. He is fast, physical, and a solid defender, but going forward he is incredibly limited and average.

Fuck statistics anyway. Let's assume a player scores 18 goals in a season, but those 18 goals are scored in 12 games. What the fuck was he doing in the other 26 games then? Stats can be misleading.
 

DelPieroJuve

Senior Member
Oct 25, 2014
1,048
He's worth around 20 million euros, which is near what we paid for him.
Asamoah 25m
Ogbonna 12m
Giovinco 8m
Isla 9m
Llorente 15m

That's nearly 70m to play with

replace asamoah with rabiot at CM (considering we are ditching wingback system) ~~ Free (hopefully)
replace ogbonna with either rugani/scar (other young promising CB) ~~ 8-10m?
replace giovinco with someone like konoplaynka (free)
use caceres at RB as 2nd choice so no need for Isla
replace llorente with gabbiadini/zaza ~~ 8m (if we buy zaza we would sell gabbiadini to reduce zaza price)


then add one good leftback (dosn't need to be world class)
then add a winger like schurlle/shaqiri/cuadrado/cadevra
 

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