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Nketiah?

Not writing him off yet but this idea that he's a natural goalscorer confuses me. Based on what?

He has 45 goals in 198 career appearances, most of them playing for one of the best clubs in the country. That's an awful record for a top striker.

Never scored more than 10.in a season and half of them came in the EFL cup.

Hope.he proves me wrong just as Mateta did. However, right now I don't see it.
 
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion….but I do believe Nketiah will prove to be a good signing. There have been ‘glimpses’ of his incredible pace and ability to get into shooting positions.

As he continues to settle into the squad and understands the way OG wants to utilise him - I’m sure he will come good.
 
The same poster who last season vociferously clamoured for the purchase of wonder kid Nketiah as a solution to all our scoring woes now asks what we should do with him, as it turns out he's not as good as all that, as was indeed pointed out by a number of other posters at the time. Makes sense.
 
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Indeed I recall a number of posters pointing out that his record for Arsenal wasn't any better than Eddie's?

Unfortunately they appear to have been correct.
 
park the bus said:
The same poster who last season vociferously clamoured for the purchase of wonder kid Nketiah as a solution to all our scoring woes now asks what we should do with him, as it turns out he's not as good as all that, as was indeed pointed out by a number of other posters. Makes sense.
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It's not really an exact science to know if someone will play well for a team or not. Look how Sorloth has become a top striker for other sides but not for us. And Mateta for us, I never thought he would come good.
So Nketiah still has a chance. Lanzo can't exactly be blamed - for a start we don't fully know if he was wrong yet. Plus it's a positive to be able to change an opinion.
Obviously someone (Dougie?) saw something in Nketiah - yet we're not berating him. Although some think Dougie is brilliant, some not so brilliant. So that's a matter of opinion too.
 
I was aghast when we signed Nketiah for a fee of £25 Mill rising to £30 Mill.
A bit-part player at Arsenal who did not overly impress at Leeds on loan.
Hopefully, in time, this will prove money well spent.
 
The big difference for Nketiah at Arsenal is that he had a better quality of player creating better chances for him.

I can’t recall a clear chance created for him at Palace, just a few half chances and a few long range shots.

This is partly attributable to the roles he’s played where he’s been required to do most of his work outside the penalty area.
If he’s not in the penalty area he’s not going to score.

At the moment JPM is the preferred central striker and Glasner doesn’t play 2 up front so it’s difficult to see where Nketiah fits in.
Football is pleasingly unpredictable though, so nobody can say for sure that circumstances won’t change giving Nketiah an opportunity to prove people wrong - as unlikely as that may currently seem.
 
We had a previous thread where we discussed instinctive goal scoring. Good strikers have it and I think we’re seeing signs of it in JP. I do think maybe Nketiah has that, but he’s not getting into positions where he can score. That might be because he doesn’t fit in the current system. We don’t play with 2 up front and he’s not someone who can hold up the ball like JP. We’re starting to see what Sarr can do with his pace on the break. Nketiah isn’t as quick but perhaps less likely to fluff his lines when through on goal so perhaps will grow into the current Sarr role. Too early to write him off I feel.
 
The issue with Nketiah is that if he isn’t scoring goals he doesn’t contribute much in other ways. His hold up play is poor, he doesn’t link play and he doesn’t distribute the ball well. His record shows he doesn’t score goals that often so that’s a lot of times when he’s not going to offer much to us. He may suddenly come good like JPM but it’s not like he’s a young, raw talent any more. Still can’t fathom why we spent half the Olise money on a player who isn’t one of our best 11
 
I think he's played something like 120 minutes as a striker for us, the rest of his minutes he played as a winger. It's not fair to judge him on that. I like many were surprised we signed him because of JP's form and the fact £25m is a lot for a back-up striker for a club like ours. Whether he comes good or not remains to be seen, but we have to give him at least a chance. My gut feeling is if he gets a run in team as a striker, he'll get goals, but it's hard to see him being as effective as JP in terms of hold-up play and that is a big issue. Aside from goals, it was the huge improvement in JP's hold-up play and all-round game that went up a notch last season. One minute he couldn't trap a ball or hold onto it for more than a second, the next teams needed three defenders to get it off him.

One big tick in Nketiah's box is he has shown a willingness to work hard which in a team where the manager demands that it might work in his favour. It certainly seems a big reason why Eduoard found himself being shipped out.
 
Eddie needs a run in the starting line up to prove himself. Remember that JP didn’t get that to begin with. So too soon to write him off I think, the issue is how does he get his chance ?

As for his goal scoring record, if he can get 10/12 goals per season for Palace I would think that to be decent. For Arsenal that wouldn’t be enough.
 
If Mateta will not sign a new contract, with one year to go at the end of this season, as with Guehi, they have to be sold, you cannot run any buisness with letting 80m+ turn in to zero, so if he is sold will Nketiah be the main striker? i think he has it in him.
 
With our squad as it currently is, Sarr and Nketiah fill the same position.
Sarr should play(more of a traditional wideman) when Counter attacking is required - this will mostly be against teams expected to have more possession where the game is predominantly expected to be played in our half.
Nketiah should play against those teams who will sit back more(which won't be too many tbf). Sarr isn't really suited to that. He should be deployed a little more central than Sarr would be and 'closer' to JPM.
Don't get me wrong - It's not his best position, which should be up top, but his experience with the Arsenal should allow us/him to play in the confined spaces you see when trying to break down a stubborn defence. Better than Sarr, anyway. and Kamada.
 
CrazyBadger said:
With our squad as it currently is, Sarr and Nketiah fill the same position.
Sarr should play(more of a traditional wideman) when Counter attacking is required - this will mostly be against teams expected to have more possession where the game is predominantly expected to be played in our half.
Nketiah should play against those teams who will sit back more(which won't be too many tbf). Sarr isn't really suited to that. He should be deployed a little more central than Sarr would be and 'closer' to JPM.
Don't get me wrong - It's not his best position, which should be up top, but his experience with the Arsenal should allow us/him to play in the confined spaces you see when trying to break down a stubborn defence. Better than Sarr, anyway. and Kamada.
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I agree with Sarr being at his best on the counter, or better still, against a team playing a high line. Not sure Nketiah is the right person to play in tight spaces against a team we need to break down. His touch, link play and passing are all poor. This is the role Kamada was supposed to fill but he’s been very poor. This is an area we need to try and address in January.

The only real position I can see for Nketiah is as a poacher but that isn’t a role that fits in OG’s system so I don’t really see where Nketiah fits. Looks like a sub or back up for JPM if he gets injured.
 
JHB said:
I agree with Sarr being at his best on the counter, or better still, against a team playing a high line. Not sure Nketiah is the right person to play in tight spaces against a team we need to break down. His touch, link play and passing are all poor. This is the role Kamada was supposed to fill but he’s been very poor. This is an area we need to try and address in January.

The only real position I can see for Nketiah is as a poacher but that isn’t a role that fits in OG’s system so I don’t really see where Nketiah fits. Looks like a sub or back up for JPM if he gets injured.
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Agree with that, was just trying to offer that of the three candidates in that right sided of a 3 position, Nketiah is my preferred in that situation. Link up play especially will get better as he works with his teammates more, so should improve, I can only hope touch and passing improves the more he plays. If he's there to be another striker on occasion, that will help too.
 
JHB said:
I agree with Sarr being at his best on the counter, or better still, against a team playing a high line. Not sure Nketiah is the right person to play in tight spaces against a team we need to break down. His touch, link play and passing are all poor. This is the role Kamada was supposed to fill but he’s been very poor. This is an area we need to try and address in January.

The only real position I can see for Nketiah is as a poacher but that isn’t a role that fits in OG’s system so I don’t really see where Nketiah fits. Looks like a sub or back up for JPM if he gets injured.
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It's slightly ironic that many posters on here have been saying for ages that we've needed a poacher type player (Defoe and Callum Wilson were mentioned) and now we've got one we're not sure what to do with him. It would help his cause if he was a bit better of course.
 
Probably about 3 or 4 years ago, I was in conversation with someone in the game regarding Nketiah.
He used words describing Nketiah as very fleet of foot, has a calmness in front of goal, is an accomplished finisher, a fox in the box,known for his clever runs behind opposition defenders etc etc etc.

Perhaps he will display these qualities for our team.
 
I recall posting on a thread comparing Nketiah's stats with Edouard's. Whilst goals scored per game were virtually identical, the big difference as I recall was that whereas most of Edouard's games were ones in which he started, most of Nketiah's were off the bench, often late on. When comparing minutes per goal, Nketiah's stats were far superior.

Nketiah is first and foremost a striker and like most, if not all strikers, they need regular game time to produce the goods. I was one of the posters who regularly defended Mateta because neither Hodgson nor Vieira would give him a run of starts. In the end Hodgson was forced to use him when Edouard got injured in the Liverpool game and the rest is, as they say, history.

Nketiah needs regular game time to settle in, especially since he's being asked to fulfill a role that isn't his natural one. If JPM gets injured we will need Nketiah and Glasner will need to tweak his tactics so as to provide the striker with the type of ball that suits his strengths. We're not going to be selling Nketiah soon except in the unlikely event someone comes in and offers us at least what we paid for him.
 
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