Quote Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda View Post
I don't think he can do that personally - not in today's game. Think Ray is one of the most underrated players of the past 30 years - extraordinary stamina that meant he could play wide as well as the physical strength to play CM. Wasn't too shoddy on the ball either.

Willock i see more as a Ramsey type (don't start WES), difficult to fit into the team, but you can reap the rewards if you do get him in. Maybe deserved more chances but ultimately I can see why Arteta was reluctant to play him. Decent fee - and for all the quibbling, it's only Newcastle who have come in for him, which perhaps says something.
You say it's only NUFC but he wasn't going to go to a top team given he's barely played for us. Given that, given the Geordies loved him, he knew he'd be starter and how he fits with the manager, he was obviously only going to go there. No point in other teams wasting transfer time as he'd only leave us for them.

There was one game last season where MA gave both him and AMN a start. It wasn't great and that was that for the pair of them. However, Joe looked no worse than GX or Elneny, and he almost scored. He headed it to much into the ground and bounced up for the keeper to catch it. If he's hit it slightly less downwards, he'd have scored and been a hero. The point is that he was in that position. GX or Mo wouldn't have been. And as we've seen at NU, he's good at this.

If Pépé keeps playing well and improving and Saka and ESR hit top form, then we have some creativity. We now have Ben White to ping the diagonals that GX does. a MF who can arrive late in the box and score is useful. Arsène would probably have played him on the right like Freddie, to shuffle across when we're attacking down the left and to arrive late to score.

You predicted he'd play for England when he broke into the Europa side and kept scoring. I think we should have given him more of a go. Had we had goal line tech, he'd have scored the equaliser vs the Chavs. That's worth bearing in mind.