Mitaman He's not a yard off the pace IMHO and has a nose for goal and opening up defences. He's just kind of surplus to us going 3-5-2 or similar.
We've heard so many rumours; when Big Bastards FC wasn't clicking it was all Farke's fault and his idea to buy big lads. Now it's working, it's all Farke's set the team up for the players he has at his disposal (due to the fans 😅) and the data-team have got it right.
Latest rumour I heard was, the data models were run, over a year, with the question that needed answering, how do we survive in the PL with only circa 100m spent?
Model said: Big Bastards who can transition a ball at the back, but most importantly a CM trio that would not get overrun. No need for super finesse, they need to have muscle, scare teams, never let the opposition get into 2nd gear, be on the opposition relentlessly and not care if they are facing Bruno Fernandez or any other star. The word I heard used was "stodge" - make the centre of the park a no man's land, like treacle, fuck em up, make 'em bleed. Bonus points if they're also Big Bastards as they can then get 2nd balls and churn defensive headers coming back out of the opposition defence. Which kind of makes sense when you look at bringing in Longshanks. It makes sense when you look at Ampadu. Stach ticks all the boxes, aggressive, in your face, happy smashing shit up and churning the ball back into attack.
Who doesn't fit this model? Tanaka, Gnonto and probably Okafor, as we have WBs in the 5 and Tanaka. We've made room for Aaronson due to his form, floating right to AM, because he goes at a man and now he's got a name for himself, usually takes more than one defender with him (I counted 4 on him at one point against Fulham).
Tanaka doesn't do that, he runs at players, opens up space and looks for the lay-off.
