Harry Wilson

[ClaretTony]

I would take that valuation with a rather liberal dose of salt.

The same site values Charlie Taylor at 4.5m, Tarks at £10.8m and Pope at £12.7m.

In respect to some of the transfers made in this window they have Max Lowe at £4.7m, Jayden Bogle at £12.9m and Eberechi Eze at £10.3m.

I stopped typing in players after those six. Their valuations are very wide of the mark and probably on par with the accuracy of Transfermarkt.

Players don't really have valuations, they are worth only what one club is prepared to pay for him and what another club is prepared to sell him for.

[Long Time Lurker]

Wilson is of the age we should be targetting but unless he comes on leaps and bounds the rumoured fees are probably the peak of his value.

For the amount mooted and the wage it would take we could sign Oseyi-Samuel and Nathan Holland with some left over. Would they make the same instant impact? Debatable but they would provide more depth to the squad and more potential to return the investment.

Not opposed to Wilson but unless we can make a lot of the fee add ons then it's a gamble going all in.

I think that is one of the reasons Liverpool are open to selling him. They can't see him making it into their squad and his value is probably at its peak on the basis of his successful loan spells in the Championship. Just because a player is young it doesn't mean they will increase in value and it isn't just foreign players that decrease in value when they don't work out.

He didn't exactly light up the EPL last year when he was on loan at Bournemouth and their formation and playing style arguably suited him a lot better than ours will. If we did buy him at around £15m then he would have to show real improvement to move beyond that. However, his value could also decrease if he is found wanting.

That is why I would have preferred to see us pick up some of the low transfer fee bargains that we missed out on or weren't interested in. If an EPL club buys a player for around £3m they will still be worth that to a Championship club even if they don't prove to be of EPL standard. And with relegation always a possibility for a club other than the big six ( or maybe 8 ) young Championship players on the books would be valuable additions - especially when all of the vultures descend to pick apart a fallen squad.

It is hard to make a loss on a quality young player like Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle, Kenny Tete and all the others that went for a similar price. However, spending £15m on player brings with it a lot more scope for losing money. Should they not prove to be up to the job their perceived market value could easily halve.

In our case we didn't really need EPL ready players in this window. Discounting a heavy injury run any new signings might only play a few matches in their first year with us. So the ability to hold their own might have been enough.

In terms of current quality they probably only needed to be better than our first in line development squad players to represent added strength for this season - with the ability to develop further and grow into regular first team players over time.

[KateR]

I could be wrong, but I think a number of false impression are being generated.

ALK only bought into the apps Player Lens and AiScout four weeks ago. That doesn't suggest a long term affiliation with proven statistical tools that could lead to a massive rise in the performance of our recruitment.

The quality of the data is important, but the quality of the people interpreting and working creatively with that data is always a lot more important.

It is ALK Capital that has been linked, no one else to the best of my knowledge, I think we are all very well aware of the apps being relatively new, however, anyone thinking that if ALK were to do a buy out and NOT use the apps, is in my opinion far wide of the mark.

Given the quality of data in today's world of digitization, people are being phased out of the equation and data analytics is happening everywhere so I believe they will not bothered about the quality of people to interpret the data findings and therefore your belief on it being a lot more important is also wide of the mark. I do accept and agree that they will have people who do analyse the data but I don't think it will make a lot of difference, as a company they will want to prove the apps work and can be relied on, this will be there proof of concept. I do accept it wont all be done that way to begin with but some will be earmarked to be selected by the app and used to prove it's worth, BFC will not be there main source of income going forward if this all happens, which as I have said previously I am skeptical of in regard to ALK. While almost certainly they will look far more at lower leagues they can also assess HW through the app and provide an alternative that can e part of the proving concept.

The bigger issue I fear in this if it were to happen is that I do not see SD buying into it, will try to prove it wrong, and if his ability to have the final say in who is bought and who goes into the first team then I would expect him to walk away in a relatively short time and the next manager would have to buy in to the owners concepts. We have all had a say in recruitment and one thing I don't remember anyone saying is that we should move to the moneyball concept which in reality it is aligned to.

Lot's of if ands and buts along with plenty of supposition, will be watching it unfold as we proceed, however as I mentioned elsewhere, I could see a teaming agreement between BFC and ALK working to try and prove a few things, which might actually be useful.

[Long Time Lurker]

Harry Wilson - Heat Maps



For anyone thinking that Wilson fits the way we play those heat maps should tell a different story.

It is plainly obvious that his desire to get into the middle and shoot far outweighs his propensity for creating from the wings. He ambles around in the centre of the pitch, rarely tracking back and rarely making it down to the touch line. That is a stark contrast to all our existing wingers, whose primary role is to create for our clinical strikers and also bolster our defence when needed.

For those that doubted the value of Hendrick his heat map shows just how wide ranging he was and how he influenced the midfield, allowing us to release other players.

Adding a player like Wilson to our right wing would destroy our shape. The damage of all those runs to the middle would be less in a 4-3-3 formation, because that encourages a lot of goal foraging from the front three. Playing in a 4-5-1 would lessen the risk, because two of the central midfielders could hold the middle ground and one could move out to the right when he goes on a runabout. However, in a 4-4-2 we would be left with a gaping hole on the right.

That is a very worrying scenario in itself, but combined with his lightweight stature, which frequently results in him being knocked off the ball, the propensity for him giving up a turn over while drifting out of position compounds the danger he could present to us.

As Dyche would say, Wilson spends most of his ******* life in the middle of the pitch trying to score.

While Eliasson and BOS haven't previously put in the defensive shifts we expect of our players they do fit the attacking role we would be asking of a new winger. Both of them get deep into the final third and they focus on creating for others, not scoring for themselves. Eliasson topped the list for the number of crosses and cross accuracy in the Championship last season and BOS is excellent at driving forward with the ball. Dwight does both of those things, Wilson does neither.

[Long Time Lurker]

Harry Wilson - Creating Chances



If we look at the chances he created at Derby and Bournemouth it isn't a pretty picture. Most of the chances he created at Derby came from the corners he took. Take those away and you get the level of production he showed at Bournemouth, next to nothing. Three chances from the right and one from the left, all of them difficult to put away and none of them resulted in a goal.

Most of the other chances came from the middle of the pitch, a mixture of short passes forward into the box, probably when no shot was open for him.

The bigger problem, in respect to his suitability for our right wing, is how left footed he is. Wilson is a quality passer of the ball, especially long passes, but only with his left foot. Last season he made 511 passes with his left foot and a mere 61 passes with his right foot. That makes him a very predictable player, which could cause us problems, and given his predominance it will be hard for him to change his role to that of a right sided creator ( whipping in crosses and cut backs for our strikers ).

In terms of getting the most out of him creatively, if he even has it in him to completely change the way that he plays, we would need to put him on the left wing. And at the moment we don't need an extra left winger.

Wilson isn't a creative right winger, he isn't even a creative left winger at the moment. If I had to put a role to his name it would be a free role attacking midfielder with an eye for risky goals.

He is the sort of player who has no place in a 4-4-2 team and the type of player who has no future with a team that plays like Liverpool. Yes they are superbly skilful, but what makes them so formidable is how hard working all their players are and how tactically sound and disciplined they are. That is why Shaquiri struggles to get game time with them and why they want to sell the less robust Wilson to us for a large fee.

[Long Time Lurker]

Harry Wilson - Scoring





Here is the kicker, Wilson scores lots of goals and he can take sublime free kicks. I bet those titbits of information had our Metric Mesiah drooling. If we can add those goals to our game it will make us a lot more dangerous and move us up the table. Wilson is worth his weight in gold.

Except he isn't, because it doesn't work like that. When he was a Derby he scored 16 goals, 10 from open player, 3 from free kicks and 3 from penalties. Quite a haul and it seem very impressive, until you look a bit deeper and notice that he took 102 shots on goal that season. Discounting the dead ball goals that puts him close to 1 goal for every 10 attempts. Moving forward a year to his time at Bournemouth and the same picture presents itself. 54 total shots on goal and 7 goals scored, which included 2 from free kicks. Again, close to a worrying 1 in 10 tally.

The reason that his xg is off the charts is because of the difficulty associated with the shots that he chooses to take. Look at how many difficult " out of the box " shots he takes on and how many of those result in goals, very few. It is the same at both clubs. When he does score it is usually from a chance taken inside the box and yet his long shot ability is where his value is supposed to be.

The bigger problem is that every time he takes one of those shots, instead of developing a scoring opportunity with a higher probability of success he is costing his teams goals. Every chance that he takes on is a chance that the strikers ahead of him never receive.

Looking at the statistics for Callum Wilson and Josh King ( When he played in his preferred secondary striker role ) I noticed something else. Both of those players registered a substantial decrease in their shots taken and their ability to convert chances. I'm guessing the goal hungry nature of Wilson made life very difficult for them last year. It is no wonder that their team xg took a nose dive when he was on the pitch.

Personally I would prefer it if the job of putting away our chances fell to Wood instead, who scored 14 goals from a total of 54 shots on goal, which equates to a fantastic 1 in 4 payout.

It is hard to assess the impact Wilson had on the performances of Solanke, because he has a natural baseline of being completely crap. It would be hard for anything to make him any worse. Liverpool know when to sell a player for an inflated fee and they sold Bournemouth a complete Turkey when they made the decision to move Solanke on. Liverpool don't make mistakes when it comes to the sale of players, unless their arm is being twisted somehow.

I think Wilson has benefitted from the same thing that cost Hendrick so dearly when he was with us, namely grandstanding. Hendrick was a selfless team player, he spent most of his time working hard to create opportunities for other players to bask in the spotlight. He covered ground, plugged gaps, closed down players, helped out in defence, supported our midfield which allowed Dwight to surge forward without leaving us exposed and generally worked his nuts off to benefit the team.

However, because a lot of his work was done off the ball and in service to others he didn't grab the individual headlines ( apart from a couple of superb goals ) and people disparaged his worth to the team because of it. Nothing said team player more than the fact he played out of position for most of his time with us. Like him or not, with Hendrick the team always came before personal glory and he suffered unjustly for it.

Wilson is the opposite. He grabs all the headlines and all the glory while teams suffer because of his inclusion. His wandering breaks their shape and his desire to score from risky chances costs players in better positions developed opportunities. The net result is that while he scores some spectacular goals that play well on youtube his teams generally suffer a net deficit in total goals. Lots of people look at all of those goals and say what a fantastic player, but it would be different if they paid more attention to the impact he has on the overall dynamic of his teams or the show reels featured long compilations of all his shots that lead to nothing.

Individual goals and performances don't win games, team performances and the total number of goals scored by teams win matches.

[Boss Hogg]

Can’t normally read your posts as they are too long. The content is very good and I prefer these ‘condensed’ versions. The heat maps are very interesting and well analysed.

[Boss Hogg]

Posted too quick it’s gone longer again

[Conroysleftfoot]

That's a helluva lot of work LTL.
What I don't get is if we are (reputedly) in for his signature then surely he must be one of the players that Sean wants. If Sean wants him then he must think either (a) he will fit in to our system or (b) we would play a different system to accommodate him.

[Long Time Lurker]

Posted too quick it’s gone longer again

I planned ahead and rambled away in word before copy / pasting it in. I figured splitting up all my thoughts into smaller bite sized pieces might be better. At least the repeat quotes will be shorter.

[Jakubs Tash]

LTL - do you not think that Burnley have analysts? Do you not think that the recruitment team and management have weighed up the risks with this potential transfer? If not, maybe you should send your heat maps to the analysisteam@burnleyfc.com?

[FactualFrank]

I think I'd rather go off what Sean Dyche thinks to be fair.

[Long Time Lurker]

(b) we would play a different system to accommodate him.

Nods, the only way that I can see us getting the best out of him, unless we are expecting his set piece ability to make a world of difference to our performances, is if he changes the way that he currently plays or we change the way that we currently play to accommodate how he likes to play.

[Long Time Lurker]

LTL - do you not think that Burnley have analysts? Do you not think that the recruitment team and management have weighed up the risks with this potential transfer? If not, maybe you should send your heat maps to the analysisteam@burnleyfc.com?

I'm sorry, I thought that this was a football forum where people posted their own opinions, which may or may not lead to other people discussing them, and adding their own thoughts.

I wasn't aware that our posts had any more value or significance than that.

[Vegas Claret]

Harry Wilson - Heat Maps



For anyone thinking that Wilson fits the way we play those heat maps should tell a different story.

or maybe, Dyche is finally trying to add a different element to make us less predictable..........

[ClaretAndBlue94]

I'm sorry, I thought that this was a football forum where people posted their own opinions, which may or may not lead to other people discussing them, and adding their own thoughts.

I wasn't aware that our posts had any more value or significance than that.

For what its worth - I think the posts are infomative and create discussion. Not sure why someone would feel the need to take issue.

[superdimitri]

I'm sorry, I thought that this was a football forum where people posted their own opinions, which may or may not lead to other people discussing them, and adding their own thoughts.

I wasn't aware that our posts had any more value or significance than that.

It's becoming a trend unfortunately. If people can't debate and don't accept other people's opinions they should be booted out imo.

[Long Time Lurker]

or maybe, Dyche is finally trying to add a different element to make us less predictable..........

He could be and that is were the scope for discussion can be found.

What are we about, do we need to change our formation to move forward ?

If Wilson isn't the answer who might be, people could suggest some names instead of jumping to put the boot in.

Would a change benefit us, what do people wan't to see from our team and what type of football would they like us to play and why ?

Honestly, I'm tired of this forum, because it isn't actually a forum. It is just a cheap knocking shop that people visit in order to demean others who are doing nothing more than trying to promote discussion about our club in one way or another.

You didn't do that Vegas ( thankyou ), but I'm sure the usual suspects will be along shortly .. they've already started on the other thread.

[Gordaleman]

He could be and that is were the scope for discussion can be found.

What are we about, do we need to change our formation to move forward ?

If Wilson isn't the answer who might be, people could suggest some names instead of jumping to put the boot in.

Would a change benefit us, what do people wan't to see from our team and what type of football would they like us to play and why ?

Honestly, I'm tired of this forum, because it isn't actually a forum. It is just a cheap knocking shop that people visit in order to demean others who are doing nothing more than trying to promote discussion about our club in one way or another.

You didn't do that Vegas ( thankyou ), but I'm sure the usual suspects will be along shortly .. they've already started on the other thread.

What you need to remember is that there are several of our friends from down the M65 on these boards who are always happy to say anything negative about BFC.

[Quickenthetempo]

LTL I haven't read all your posts but you make a good point about Hendrick and the job he did for us. Unfortunately he was great at letting others do the offensive duties, which is why we needed to upgrade to improve.

Dyche might be thinking of going 433 to get the best out of the team now?
Copy Liverpool with 3 solid CMs with Dwight left forward and Wilson/JBG on the right.

He has always spoke of evolving the style.

[Corky]

LTL keep posting how you like. Always found them interesting. The snide remarks are sadly to be expected on here. Interesting heat map for Hendrick I wonder if he thought he was Jan Molby and could run everything from the centre spot.

[Vegas Claret]

He could be and that is were the scope for discussion can be found.

What are we about, do we need to change our formation to move forward ?

If Wilson isn't the answer who might be, people could suggest some names instead of jumping to put the boot in.

Would a change benefit us, what do people wan't to see from our team and what type of football would they like us to play and why ?

Honestly, I'm tired of this forum, because it isn't actually a forum. It is just a cheap knocking shop that people visit in order to demean others who are doing nothing more than trying to promote discussion about our club in one way or another.

You didn't do that Vegas ( thankyou ), but I'm sure the usual suspects will be along shortly .. they've already started on the other thread.

I think what we desperately lack is someone who does cut inside and run at defenders (no defender enjoys that), I've never been overly impressed by Wilson but I was never overly impressed with Westwood, Barnes, Wood etc before they joined us. I hope he joins, he's coming into a great dressing room by all accounts so he should settle quickly - he knows what the PL is about, has played internationally so shouldn't take a year to "get used to it"

[Mattster]

I'm sorry, I thought that this was a football forum where people posted their own opinions, which may or may not lead to other people discussing them, and adding their own thoughts.

I wasn't aware that our posts had any more value or significance than that.

I don't have the time atm to write a more detailed counter to your heat/shot/pass maps but IMO you're making some flawed assumptions based on the data.

The biggest flaw is basing your judgement of Wilson's suitability to our RM slot on his output and positioning in two competely different systems (Frank Lampard's Derby and Eddie Howe's Bournemouth). The two ways to look at the arguement are he's not shown the ability to play in a system like ours or he's not had the opportunity to demonstrate his ability in a system like ours. You need to look at the underlying numbers some more.

For me I can see the attraction if you look purely beyond shot/final ball stats. For example he put up more Successful Pressures per 90 than any of our wide players last season which would show a suitability to Dyche's demands. When deployed at RM for Bournemouth (another issue with using his heat/shot maps for DCFC and AFCB is that he's been deployed in lots of different roles, at Burnley he'd have a more settled role) he was involved in 83% of moves that ended in a goal and his defensive quality was very high (using smarterscouts metrics). Looking across his performance he's not a final ball creator but more of a link up man, which wouldn't be a bad thing given the quality of McNeil and Westwood's final ball. What this would suggest to me is that if we could pair him with a right back that has a good delivery then he could really come into his own.

My issues with Wilson's signing are the fee and wages are likely to be big and I think for that kind of outlay we could maybe get 2 "lesser" players that could provide better value ultimately. But I do think Wilson has the tools to be a success at Burnley.

[claret2018]

For some reason I’m getting Chris Eagles mkII vibes from this lad.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Eagles was a talented footballer who I think has since talked about the off field problems he dealt with.

[box_of_frogs]

Without trawling through the pages; have we signed him or not?

[FactualFrank]

Without trawling through the pages; have we signed him or not?

AnfieldWatch have just reported that Leicester, Aston Villa, Fulham, Leeds, Newcastle and Southampton are all keeping an eye on him - although not sure if that's recycled information, as Leeds for instance were interested a while back, but now no longer appear to be.

All it takes is 1 other Premier League club to want him and it'll rule us out.

[boatshed bill]

Let's face it, we won't be buying Harry Wilson.

[FactualFrank]

And Liverpool Insider are saying Liverpool are refusing to sell for anything less than £20 million, after we bid £16 million.

[FactualFrank]

Let's face it, we won't be buying Harry Wilson.

It's looking ominous.

[boatshed bill]

No chance.

[Quickenthetempo]

AnfieldWatch have just reported that Leicester, Aston Villa, Fulham, Leeds, Newcastle and Southampton are all keeping an eye on him - although not sure if that's recycled information, as Leeds for instance were interested a while back, but now no longer appear to be.

All it takes is 1 other Premier League club to want him and it'll rule us out.

Agents always throw a few clubs names out there pretending of interest, to drive the price, wages and agents fee up.

[Dark Cloud]

Harry Wilson - Scoring





Here is the kicker, Wilson scores lots of goals and he can take sublime free kicks. I bet those titbits of information had our Metric Mesiah drooling. If we can add those goals to our game it will make us a lot more dangerous and move us up the table. Wilson is worth his weight in gold.

Except he isn't, because it doesn't work like that. When he was a Derby he scored 16 goals, 10 from open player, 3 from free kicks and 3 from penalties. Quite a haul and it seem very impressive, until you look a bit deeper and notice that he took 102 shots on goal that season. Discounting the dead ball goals that puts him close to 1 goal for every 10 attempts. Moving forward a year to his time at Bournemouth and the same picture presents itself. 54 total shots on goal and 7 goals scored, which included 2 from free kicks. Again, close to a worrying 1 in 10 tally.

The reason that his xg is off the charts is because of the difficulty associated with the shots that he chooses to take. Look at how many difficult " out of the box " shots he takes on and how many of those result in goals, very few. It is the same at both clubs. When he does score it is usually from a chance taken inside the box and yet his long shot ability is where his value is supposed to be.

The bigger problem is that every time he takes one of those shots, instead of developing a scoring opportunity with a higher probability of success he is costing his teams goals. Every chance that he takes on is a chance that the strikers ahead of him never receive.

Looking at the statistics for Callum Wilson and Josh King ( When he played in his preferred secondary striker role ) I noticed something else. Both of those players registered a substantial decrease in their shots taken and their ability to convert chances. I'm guessing the goal hungry nature of Wilson made life very difficult for them last year. It is no wonder that their team xg took a nose dive when he was on the pitch.

Personally I would prefer it if the job of putting away our chances fell to Wood instead, who scored 14 goals from a total of 54 shots on goal, which equates to a fantastic 1 in 4 payout.

It is hard to assess the impact Wilson had on the performances of Solanke, because he has a natural baseline of being completely crap. It would be hard for anything to make him any worse. Liverpool know when to sell a player for an inflated fee and they sold Bournemouth a complete Turkey when they made the decision to move Solanke on. Liverpool don't make mistakes when it comes to the sale of players, unless their arm is being twisted somehow.

I think Wilson has benefitted from the same thing that cost Hendrick so dearly when he was with us, namely grandstanding. Hendrick was a selfless team player, he spent most of his time working hard to create opportunities for other players to bask in the spotlight. He covered ground, plugged gaps, closed down players, helped out in defence, supported our midfield which allowed Dwight to surge forward without leaving us exposed and generally worked his nuts off to benefit the team.

However, because a lot of his work was done off the ball and in service to others he didn't grab the individual headlines ( apart from a couple of superb goals ) and people disparaged his worth to the team because of it. Nothing said team player more than the fact he played out of position for most of his time with us. Like him or not, with Hendrick the team always came before personal glory and he suffered unjustly for it.

Wilson is the opposite. He grabs all the headlines and all the glory while teams suffer because of his inclusion. His wandering breaks their shape and his desire to score from risky chances costs players in better positions developed opportunities. The net result is that while he scores some spectacular goals that play well on youtube his teams generally suffer a net deficit in total goals. Lots of people look at all of those goals and say what a fantastic player, but it would be different if they paid more attention to the impact he has on the overall dynamic of his teams or the show reels featured long compilations of all his shots that lead to nothing.

Individual goals and performances don't win games, team performances and the total number of goals scored by teams win matches.

I felt duty bound to "like" it simply because of all the work that's gone into it! But that aside it IS actually rather interesting and if it's all factually correct and the analysis bears scrutiny, then I can only assume that if LTL can work it out, then our recruitment team can work it out, (one hopes!) so why are we even sniffing around this guy?? BTW, excellent point about L'pool having AFCB's trousers down re Solanke and definitely should make clubs beware of L'pool's vacuous "hype" about others.

[FactualFrank]

Agents always throw a few clubs names out there pretending of interest, to drive the price, wages and agents fee up.

I do hope we have other players in mind though. Sessegnon I think is a non-starter due to other clubs wanting him, but I don't think we can rely on signing Wilson. We need other options to go for.

[Quickenthetempo]

I do hope we have other players in mind though. Sessegnon I think is a non-starter due to other clubs wanting him, but I don't think we can rely on signing Wilson. We need other options to go for.

If we have 15m to spend I would rather throw it at Buendia at Norwich. Creates plenty.

[Dark Cloud]

Eliasson has got to be cheaper than this guy and far less of a gamble if it doesn't work out. Get in there, he'd jump at the chance to have a crack at he PL.

[Steddyman]

It's clear from Dyche's post match comments about increased squad strength having now got players back, and maybe needing 1 or 2 more bodies, thats we won't be signing anyone else. He says maybe 1 or 2 more every transfer window when our business is done.

Sad but my opinion is this is very likely true, unless the takeover happens.

[Newcastleclaret93]

This would be a top signing for us. Not sure how anyone can argue otherwise. The guy scored more than Bernardo silva last season.

He wants to play week in week out to make sure he gets in the wales squad for the Euros.

[Zom Zom]

I thought our main weakness was highlighted by City time and again. Pace. Our back line is sadly lacking. I know they have incredible quality, and would probably have beaten us anyway, but the sheer speed of their forays forward was frightening. The benefits of it are magnified when you add the clinical control and finishing from the likes of Sterling.

I didn't think we played badly, and I don't think Wilson would have added much to the outcome if he had been playing for us. I'd like to see some young blood at the back over Harry.

[Giftonsnoidea]

Eliasson looks like a cross machine, would be great for Wood, how much would Bristol City want do you reckon?

I’m with LTL on this Wilson is a good player but very much a luxury player who we’d need to change formation for most likely.

[randomclaret2]

It's clear from Dyche's post match comments about increased squad strength having now got players back, and maybe needing 1 or 2 more bodies, thats we won't be signing anyone else. He says maybe 1 or 2 more every transfer window when our business is done.

Sad but my opinion is this is very likely true, unless the takeover happens.

If this is the case then this will be the case every window going forward whilst this current Board are in charge

[Steddyman]

If this is the case then this will be the case every window going forward whilst this current Board are in charge

Well it has been for the past two seasons, so I think we can extrapolate forwards.

[warksclaret]

Just Friday & Monday left to sort out new signings (appreciate there is a weekend in between)

All seems to have gone quiet since news of Tarkowski staying

[Newcastleclaret93]

Wilson starts for Liverpool tonight

Assume that ends our supposed interest why would Liverpool risk injuring him

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Wilson starts for Liverpool tonight

Assume that ends our supposed interest why would Liverpool risk injuring him

Shop window

[Granny WeatherWax]

Shop window

The deadline is on Monday, if us or anyone were anywhere near close too signing him there’s no chance he’d be playing.

[Newcastleclaret93]

Yes I agree why would they risk £16m just for him to play tonight when they have a number of players that can play that position

[FactualFrank]

I think it's going dark with regards to signing him. Maybe we'll target the Championship in the remaining couple of weeks.

[Long Time Lurker]

I don't have the time atm to write a more detailed counter to your heat/shot/pass maps but IMO you're making some flawed assumptions based on the data.

First off, I'm not trying to be disrespectful by truncating your post, I'm just reducing the length of my own by doing it.

I agree that players will perform differently in different formations, but I would say that Wilson was more suited to the way Bournemouth play than the way we do, especially with the extra pace that some of their players brought to the table.

They also played quite a few matches with a different variation of 4-4-2 and out of the 34 games he played for them 28 were on the right wing, which is pretty settled as season go.

In terms of pressures and the stats I looked at

In 1646 minutes he made a total of 410 pressure attempts, with only 95 of them being successful ( that equates to a 23% rate of success ). Most of those were in the middle third and very few were in the final third. I suppose that he had to do something while he was waiting to make his runs into the middle.

Dwight played for 3338 minutes last season and during that time he made 734 pressure attempts, of which 178 were successful ( which translates to a success rate of 24% ). The pressures that Dwight made were evenly distributed across the full length of the pitch.

In respect to clearances and blocks Dwight matched him and when it came to interceptions he was a lot better. Mc Neil destroyed him in terms of progressive passing and carrying the ball. He had the better of our players in terms of goals scored, but created little to nothing.

Forward pressure wasn't what Hendrick was being asked to deliver. He was basically protecting our flank, supporting our central midfielders and adding to our forward attack when he wasn't too busy doing those things. So it is unfair to judge him on that or make a comparison.

The problem with changing our style of play to suit Wilson, and then purchasing an expensive new right back to compliment him, is that it would be cheaper and simpler to buy someone else instead of him.

We flirted with an attack on both wings tactic in the last match against Brighton and it allowed a very poor team to get the better of us. Granted we didn't have all of our best players in place to give it a real test, but it highlighted how soft we would be in the middle trying it.

A lot of dangerous gaps and scoring chances appeared in places I have never seen us concede them before. A better team would have really ripped us apart. I'm not trying to demean any of our central midfielders, because I think we have got some good ones, but I think we would struggle to hold the middle ground if we shifted to an attack on both wings model - even if we try and see saw the forward runs of each wing. To pull it off we would need robust wingers with a bit of defensive grit, not lightweights like Wilson.

I would agree that we should be looking for things that we could use to change things up and evolve our style of play, but I would like to see it done gradually. We could maybe do that by bringing in players who are a good match to our current framework, but offer a little extra quality, pace or something different. That would be expensive, so the alternative would be to develop players into what we need. Trying to make a quick change from one way of playing to another always ends in disaster, especially when it is geared towards a more attacking framework.

If Dwight had left us and we were considering Wilson as a left wing replacement I could maybe get behind the idea of signing him. On the basis that we glued him to the touch line and encouraged him to create.

I could also see him working out well as an attacking midfielder in a 4-5-1 formation. However, should we want to try that then I think we already have the players to give it a go. More importantly, we have four very expensive strikers on our books ( who are all worthy of game time ) and going down that route would probably consign them to more bench time which could lead to some grumblings.

As a right winger for this season and beyond I just don't see it.

Thanks for taking the time to post your reply and further the discussion. The mention of smarterscout was interesting and I will look at it. The problem with statistics is that people interpret them differently and having more than one source to consider can help verisimilitude by way of inter-subjectivity.

The way this thread is progressing has restored some of my faith in this forum, because a lot of people are beginning to engage with the topic and develop the discussion in different ways - which is nice to see.

[Newcastleclaret93]

According to James Pearce our bid has fallen short