25 Oct 2025 08:14:37
Gakpo is quality and is not our problem this season.
He often and deliberately goes both in and outside of defenders so they don't know which way he will go. You can almost hear his brain saying go to the line and cross to mix things up.
Scores goals. Creates chances. Top player.
Look elsewhere in the team for our issues so far / which by the way will be gone in the next few months as all the new players gel and get up to speed.
I have literally no worries at all. I am just realistic that this season we were never going to walk things like some decided to expect.
25 Oct 2025 09:04:31
Gakpo has consistently been one of our most dangerous players this season. True, his finishing has not been up to par a lot of the time and maybe his decision making in critical moments has let him down a little bit. At the same time he is consistently beating his man to get in a position to create a shot or a cross or a cut back, which is why it is a surprise that people say he only has one trick, and he is always in dangerous positions in and around the box when he doesn't have the ball.
Okay, Diaz was superb carrying the ball down the left hand side, he could get the ball from deep in our half and get it all the way to the byline on his own before getting fouled or something, that was a very unique skill of his and it looks especially glaring when we are having problems progressing the ball from defense now. He had pace and skill in one on one situations that not many left wingers in the world have.
Still, he was going on 30 looking for a big contract, when Bayern gave us that amount of money there was no way in the world our transfer team was going to turn it down to renew, so people need to stop with the comparisons. Diaz's skill set just feels like a bigger loss because we're still figuring out our ball progression after Trent, Diaz left and robbo not being a starter anymore means many of our paths to the opposition half from last year are not open anymore.
Cody is a very different player on and off the ball, and has different sorts of responsibilities. In my opinion he is a more dangerous player in the opposing third than Diaz, he is like a center forward playing on the left wing, he can take up central positions to finish in the box, he can run in behind, he is very very good in the air for a wide player. He will be just fine for us this year.