He was injured at the World Cup and now he's injured again. There is a pattern developing here. When he comes back, he needs to stay healthy for the rest of the season or we're not going to cut it in the UCL with the likes of Nketiah and Balogun. A false 9 with Trossard or Havertz can only take you so far.

[–] Astrealix 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

my man, it's literally the same injury. The surgery here is to clean up from the previous surgery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMsCcDW3Nv0

[–] coygsu 1 points 1 year ago

What am I missing here? I never said it wasn't the same injury. He'll be back and playing in 3-6 weeks but it is still a sign that he could possibly aggravate his knee during common play. I don't recollect him getting seriously tackled besides the nasty one from Araujo. It is definitely a risk and I don't see Nketiah as a hedge.

[–] Astrealix 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally only City have a better backup striker than Nketiah lol. (depends on how you rate Ansu Fati ig, but he's so injury prone yet full of potential that it's hard to judge)

[–] Astrealix 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

apparently inter just signed Thuram so that, but besides that looking based on Transfermarkt at least, the only clubs that have values quite at this level for strikers is City with Alvarez, Richarlison who's about to not be a backup and is also terrible in terms of form, Nico Jackson cuz Lukaku is still on the books, and Moukoko being literally 18, therefore having an inflated (ish) transfer value. And Balogun is marked as worth more than Moukoko / Haller if he stays anyway.

Obviously transfermarkt isn't a good judge, but considering the only two clubs that have better pairs of strikers who are going to stay are Manchester City, who are literally the best team in the world and have been for the better part of the decade, and got lucky with Julian Alvarez ~~and have infinite oil money to keep Haaland~~, and Inter Milan, who play 2 strikers, we're doing pretty alright.

[–] Astrealix 1 points 1 year ago

I think long term having a better striker is probably at this point one of the few places for potential improvement, but I think that the kind of money you would need for one like that is simply not going to happen when we just spent 100m on Rice. You either do what City did by getting a super good young prospect from South America, or you spend levels of money we simply can't afford right now. There are very few strikers that would fit our system and be better than Jesus anyway. (Or Nketiah, for that matter — there are certainly some out there, but for what cost?)

That being said, a cheeky Campbell 2.0 if Bayern can't seal the Kane deal? Absolutely would love that. But that would take another year cuz Levy would never sell to us lol.