by Brain Traysers »
07 Nov 2019 17:32
URZZZZ NewCorkSeth URZZZZ
Well, from what I recall of Fulham that season, Aluko played very narrow for Fulham (like an attacking midfielder but drifted over to the right side) with the width on the right side coming from the overlapping Fredericks. Factor in Piazon also played a similar role to Aluko I the left hand side and he wasn’t a winger either. Infact even watching Fulham’s first goal against us when they beat us 5-0 illustrates my point
I think a while ago on one particular thread, someone compared the crossing stats between 16/17 and 17/18 which had dramatically fallen since Aluko replaces McCleary/Beerens (natural wingers). And they said on that particular thread that Aluko attempted even less crosses at Fulham than he did for us. So I’m not sure he can be classified as an out and out winger personally
Naturally though, we couldn’t emulate Fulham’s style with the width coming from the fullbacks because we had Gunter at right back who was no where near as effective as Fredericks going forward
I think you'll find Floyd Ayite played most their games that season playing at Left Wing and Piazon replaced him that season during injury. Tom Cairney central with 2 wingers.
If I could find the thread I was looking for, I could show you what I mean. But I remember it showing Aluko attempting a pitiful amount of crosses at Fulham. Surely, as a winger, the main objective is crossing the ball in the box?
Another thing. Under Stam and Clement, Aluko was hopeless. You can agree with that, right? They played with width. When Gomes came in, he changed from a wide formation to a narrow one (actually a formation like Fulham’s that season). And Aluko started to play better. Because the emphasis on him wasn’t to hug the touch line and cross the ball in. Yiadom was able to do that because he was better offensively than Gunter was
Ejaria played the role on the right of the three attacking midfielders when he first came in. He’s not a winger is he?
I assume you are referring to
this post from the "2017/18 What went wrong?" thread (RIPIP the charts, although none were at player level so less relevant here). Selected Aluko rel8d bits below:
• Key passes per 90 mins fell across all positions[vs 2016/17], with total Key Passes per game falling by a quarter- from 10.1 to 7.4 per game. The major fall was Key Passes from wingers, with Barrow surprisingly only offering 1.0 key passes per 90mins compared with Beerans’ 1.4 last season,
and Aluko making 1.2 (the same as in his previous season with Fulham) compared to GMac’s 2.3 in 2016/17.
• As for wingers, Aluko’s 4.4 crosses per 90 (1.1 or 25% ‘accurate’) falls below GMac’s 6.7 (1.9 or 28% ‘accurate’) – while this is consistent with the “for o*ford sake Aluko, stop drifting inside” argument, it should be noted that
he crossed the ball 57% more this season than he did last season at Fulham (2.8 per 90, of which 0.6 or 21% accurate). On the other wing Barrow offered 2.9 crosses a game (0.5 or 17% ‘accurate’), well below Beeren’s 6.1(!) per 90 (1.0 or 16% accurate).
•
Aluko appears a very odd signing as a right wing replacement to GMac – it’s possible he wasn’t intended to be like for like replacement (we probably didn’t expect GMac to miss the vast majority of the season), but as a right winger he offered fewer shots, key passes and crosses than GMac did last season. In terms of crosses, he performed better this season than he did in his last season at Fulham, suggesting he simply isn’t suited to the role he played this season/GMac played last season. If he was genuinely signed for that role to compete with GMac then I believe it was a terrible decision to sign him– his history has suggested he doesn’t cross the ball often, and when he does it’s not especially well compared with others. Alongside that, his shots per game have halved compared with last season so perhaps he spent too much time out wide and should have been instructed to play more in line with his (apparent) strengths…
IMO he was a player who had one good season in a system that got the best out of him that we massively overpaid for, seemingly without a clear role for him. That said, who knows whether Bowen could get something useful from him