I have a small weiner but it gets hard like rock.
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Feckin hell you are the best mate 
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People get too caught up on individual goals and assist numbers instead of what players can bring to the overall team performance.
Main thing we need to see from Pepe is intelligent and dynamic wide play on a consistent level.
Since Alexis in 2017 we’ve not had wingers that know when to play aggressive, take on their man, pull it back, link up, time their run, cut inside, take on a shot, buy time etc. This has been an absolutely huge problem for us and indirectly costs us a lot of games especially away.
He seems to have all of these facets on lock and that’s what’ll make the big difference. His confidence looked on another level last season. Whether he bags 8/10/15 goals for himself is only worth anything if it’s a result of providing the team with a whole new dynamism. That alone should cancel out some of the defensive fuckups.
I’m honestly confident given his skill set that he’ll sync well in our 4-2-3-1 system with the surrounding players but you can never know for sure.
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That comes from the fantasy football/ video game mentality. It’s how a player contributes to the team as a whole that’s important.
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Is it really though? As a forward at a top club if you’re not posting up the numbers then you’re not quite doing your job, it’s not just about numbers of course, however, that is invariably how they help their teams.
I’m not going to say I necessarily expect 10 goals and 10 assists in his first season but a player of his skill set is perfectly able to achieve that and I expect circa those figures by his second season.
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Or the fact that goals are very important in football? lol
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What are the numbers and who’s dad decided this is the benchmark for all football? There’s never gonna be consensus on this. It’s just opinions and there’s strong evidence in terms of results on both sides.
Real Madrid managers, World Cup winning managers… they’ve gone with a different mindset for their teams and they made it work.
In my opinion these players job is to help their team win. Whether they achieve that through scoring X amount of goals or not I don’t give a shit. Success in the top tier of football has always come from the system as a whole. The Golden Boot tally is just a side show.
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No doubt. But contributions leave their traces in statistics. Which I agree, aren’t always perfect–though each day they’re better–but even with extreme cases like Iniesta (playing for most of his career alongside one of the most prolific goalscorers of all time) you could parse out his contributions in statistics. In every other case, well, it’s not necessarily too simplistic to say we should expect X level of Goals + Assists from this forward, because as Darkseid said that’s ultimately a forward’s most important job (not saying it’s his only one/contribution)…If you want we can get semantic and add in caveats like “Pepe should get a total of at least 16 nPG+A” unless he ridiculously underperforms his xG and xA numbers but still achieves amazing dribbling numbers, or unless he gets injured, or unless Aubameyang produces like peak level Messi and Pepe’s output shows up more in things like passes before an assist, ball progression with dribbling, or unless Emery’s Arsenal is even more dire than expected and fails to score goals etc. But I think those caveats are kinda understood in these discussions and making them in every one would be tiresome. It’s why we prefer to just say “Giroud is shit” instead of, “Giroud was a replacement level striker who had decent goal/assist numbers in a few seasons for Arsenal, who was not the level one would expect of a starting striker for Arsenal but hey that doesn’t mean he’s a piece of crap either, he’s still loads fucking better than anyone on this forum or anyone anyone on this forum is friends with!”
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Or maybe the fact that nobody scores goals in a vacuum. They rely on their teammates. Thus the build up to the goal can be just as important as who actually scores it.
Sure, the buildup is important.
But if you score a goal and the other team doesn’t, then you win.
So if there is one player that scores more goals over a period of time than others, then perhaps that will mean such a player will be attractive for a team to add over one who does not possess these statistics.
Pretty sure people have valued people who score goals well before we had video games and fantasy football leagues.
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Shit, just realised I got myself roped into another retarded moondoggie semantics debate. Derp.
My bad. Sorry rest of OA that also hates seeing this crap in every thread.
So we’re going to act like top forwards aren’t supposed to have end product that’s statically above their peers? Baring in mind I already mentioned it’s not only about stats
It’s all well and good saying overall team performance is what they should be contributing but ultimately the numbers play a huge role too and rightly so. The two go hand and hand at the top level especially in the forward positions.
Emery himself has said he’s been brought in to contribute goals and add creativity which is clear as day but there you go.
It’s fine for a CAM or CM to be making key passes and playing well but not necessarily posting the goal/assist stats, as they will likely be making the assist to the assist, (although you would still expect a decent number of assists from a CAM).
But I’m not sure it’s possible for one of the front 3 to be making a strong positive contribution to the team without getting goals/assists, as they’re just adding pressure/reliance to the other forwards.
Plus it’s also more likely that a successful pass/cross from a winger will end up as an assist than one from a CAM, because the wings are generally less congested than the middle.
And trying to get an assist from a central area will generally be from passing out wide (and therefore the winger scoring), as trying to put a though ball in behind with no angle is a very hard skill.
Delighted we got him 
Hope he’s in the squad for Sunday’s game.
Not sure he will be starting in any capacity yet as he has only just come back from holiday this week hasn’t he?
Also, for the past two seasons or so, how many times have we lamented about “if only Iwobi could add goals to his game”?
We’ve now got a player that I’m confident even in his first season will be posting up decent numbers in this team.
What a lift this had given everyone too, thanks RRRaul :raul:
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1 things about Pepe I like is his game intelligence. I’m hoping Pepe can teach Iwobi how to better finish and pick out a player.
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Sign one of the hottest talents in European football, and then turn it into a negative and argue about it.
Brilliant.
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Maybe one day I’ll tell u about when I went to a Japanese onsen with my homeboy and his dad. Felt like mandingo for a day 
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Im all ears mate :siuu:
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Feel free to take that particular conversation to the DMs gents lol
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