Luxury players and why we have too many

[TuffLuff]

I was sat in the pub last night with a Newcastle fan. Whilst we were discussing the championship it was brought up that while they spent a lot last year, it was spent on players to fit a unit or system. There were barely a player in that team who I would define as a luxery, possibly Gayle but I'm not 100% he fits definition. I would consider that type of player to be a player who can change the game all by himself but you give more of a free role to them rather than working for the team. More often than not, you need to play your system to accommodate them because they can't adapt that style. This means they can go missing during games but you keep them on with the thought they can get a goal out of nothing. I think it's fair to say that you can't fill a squad with these type of players, but when I went through the Derby team I was quite surprised on how many we actually had at the end of last season. On a similar note, its worrying actually how many we tried to accommodate into a starting 11!

So how many did we actually have? If I make a quick list

Darren Bent-the fox in the box type, doesn't provide a lot else but can't argue he scores goals (and some important ones too)

Abdoul Camara- got that bit of unknown quality, alas we never really saw it

Tom Ince- Now Ince is more of a team player and works hard but he's also that one who is in and out of games who can provide a goal out of nothing

Matej Vydra-A clever attacking footballer but provides little to the team unit overall. A touch of the Kinkladze if I dare make a comparison.

Will Hughes- A wonderful creative player, seemingly could do anything with the ball to us. But as his game became more defined, his influence on the pitch became less to points less season where the game was passing him by.

Now I could make arguments for others (Christie? Possibly Johnson and Butterfield too). 

But do we see a pattern? In that these are the players that have so far we have loaded off/been linked away. In my opinion a squad in the champ can afford one of these players, certainly not 5+. It's necessary for players to leave so we can build a unit, that won't happen if we kept them all because they all cancel each other out. This is in effect what happened last season. Losing players like Hughes does hurt, no doubt but I do think it will benefit us in the long term.

Finally out of them all, id personally keep Ince but I have a feeling it'll be Vydra.

 

[DCFC1388]

I wouldn't call them 'luxury' players other than Ince and maybe Hughes - I would just say they are good players who didn't play well enough consistently.

[EnigmaRam]

Different types and skill sets doesn't mean luxury. Don't quite get where your coming from

[TuffLuff]

12 minutes ago, DCFC1388 said:

I wouldn't call them 'luxury' players other than Ince and maybe Hughes - I would just say they are good players who didn't play well enough consistently.

They are all players who aren't positionally disciplined though, they aren't the types of who track back instinctively or keep rigid. They are more inclined to take risks which means you need players around them to lower those risks. So Ince works with Baird because Baird will hold back and cover the position behind, rather than Christie who will try and get forward. My point is you can only accomodate one or else they all end up cancelling each other out

[RoyMac5]

6 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

So Ince works with Baird because Baird will hold back and cover the position behind...

So he's not a luxury.

[TuffLuff]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

So he's not a luxury.

Yes he still a luxery because his style means he will try and take risks to get in and around the box and create space. By doing that he doesn't stay within his position and leaving it open which means he needs someone like Baird who is disciplined enough not to bomb forward. You can't have 2/3/4 players who all do that on the pitch, and need someone else to cover them. That's the point.

[RoyMac5]

3 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

Yes he still a luxery because his style means he will try and take risks to get in and around the box and create space. By doing that he doesn't stay within his position and leaving it open which means he needs someone like Baird who is disciplined enough not to bomb forward. You can't have 2/3/4 players who all do that on the pitch, and need someone else to cover them. That's the point.

Baird isn't covering Ince, who does his fair share of tracking back and covering, he's playing his position as fullback.

[TuffLuff]

25 minutes ago, EnigmaRam said:

Different types and skill sets doesn't mean luxury. Don't quite get where your coming from

We have too many players who don't fit together because they are too individual in their style. Yes it's in different ways but they can't adapt to fit into a workable system together because they cancel each other out. Look back on this last season, did any of these players consistently gel together or even seem on the same wave length? Most of them are your considered playmakers too. We can't afford to keep hold of them or we will See a similar pattern to this last season (not creating chances, not holding the ball up etc). We can only realistically keep 1 within the 11 and give them the freedom to be that risk taker.

That is in my opinion why we hear rumours that they are the ones being sold too.

[cannable]

14 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

Yes he still a luxery because his style means he will try and take risks to get in and around the box and create space. By doing that he doesn't stay within his position and leaving it open which means he needs someone like Baird who is disciplined enough not to bomb forward. You can't have 2/3/4 players who all do that on the pitch, and need someone else to cover them. That's the point.

Under Wassall the front five were all given total freedom and it produced our best football and second best run of results in the last three and a half years.

There's no magic formula. 

[Highgate]

I always considered the definition of a luxury player to be one that has talent but doesn't work hard for the team. 

Calling Hughes a luxury player is inaccurate, he wasn't just talented he also worked hard for the team, why do people ignore this? .

Calling Ince a luxury, when he was the team's top scorer and player of the season, seems a bit of a stretch to say the least.

Neither are luxury players. They are just very good players. If a manager can't fit them into his team, it just tells you that the manager is probably a very limited one.

[EnigmaRam]

To me it's more to do with 4 managers, 5 systems, 3 playing styles and changing players positions every other game.  Not to mention 4 of out most influential players being injured or loans out for all or part of the season. Couple that with inferior replacements and what do you expect? 

[cheron85]

1 hour ago, TuffLuff said:

Darren Bent-the fox in the box type, doesn't provide a lot else but can't argue he scores goals (and some important ones too)

Abdoul Camara- got that bit of unknown quality, alas we never really saw it

Tom Ince- Now Ince is more of a team player and works hard but he's also that one who is in and out of games who can provide a goal out of nothing

Matej Vydra-A clever attacking footballer but provides little to the team unit overall. A touch of the Kinkladze if I dare make a comparison.

Will Hughes- A wonderful creative player, seemingly could do anything with the ball to us. But as his game became more defined, his influence on the pitch became less to points less season where the game was passing him by.

Agree with you about Camara 100% - But the others I have to disagree

Ince and Hughes out and out work hard all game, attacking, defensive etc and work hard to fit into team play

Bent I agree when we first got him but I think last season showed a LOT more - Like that year 'out' he had under Clement and Wassall was a shot in the arm

Vydra I also don't agree with - As like Nugent he works exceptionally hard defending in the oppositions half - He's constantly hassling defenders and covers huge amounts of ground - The goal against QPR away sums it up for me where he wins the ball on the edge of their area through sheer persistence

[TuffLuff]

10 minutes ago, cannable said:

Under Wassall the front five were all given total freedom and it produced our best football and second best run of results in the last three and a half years.

There's no magic formula. 

While it produced good football and a decent set of results, let's not forget there were some poor results in that time too and it ultimately failed to get promotion (fully understanding that the manager merry go round had a major part to play too).

Itd be interesting to see whether they could have done that consistently over 46 games too. Personally I think it'd be difficult as not many free flowing teams end up near the top. It's why I used Newcastle as an example, because its the teams who build robust units seem to be the ones who finish higher.

[Angry Ram]

Don't think we will have too many 'luxury players', in Rowetts system going forward. I think we will be very workman like.

Not sure we had any last year really.

[kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong]

6 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

While it produced good football and a decent set of results, let's not forget there were some poor results in that time too and it ultimately failed to get promotion (fully understanding that the manager merry go round had a major part to play too).

Itd be interesting to see whether they could have done that consistently over 46 games too. Personally I think it'd be difficult as not many free flowing teams end up near the top. It's why I used Newcastle as an example, because its the teams who build robust units seem to be the ones who finish higher.

Not sure about that...under wassell the team became more effective,the longer he managed them....aside from the first play off with hull,they seemed to get better and more cohesive.

Shame he didn't carry on into last season in hindsight

[cannable]

13 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

While it produced good football and a decent set of results, let's not forget there were some poor results in that time too and it ultimately failed to get promotion (fully understanding that the manager merry go round had a major part to play too).

Itd be interesting to see whether they could have done that consistently over 46 games too. Personally I think it'd be difficult as not many free flowing teams end up near the top. It's why I used Newcastle as an example, because its the teams who build robust units seem to be the ones who finish higher.

Really? Perhaps not necessarily free-flowing but Huddersfield, Reading and Fulham this year all played football. 

It's a quick fix promotion, attritional football. There's no long term future to that style of football unless you have hundreds of millions to spend. 

That type of football is always limited to how good the manager and his system is. Take what they say about Roy Hodgson for example; "he makes bad players look average… the problem is he makes good players look average as well."

Karanka's Boro as well. Barely scored despite the plethora of wonderful attackers they possessed.

[TuffLuff]

42 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Agree with you about Camara 100% - But the others I have to disagree

Ince and Hughes out and out work hard all game, attacking, defensive etc and work hard to fit into team play

Bent I agree when we first got him but I think last season showed a LOT more - Like that year 'out' he had under Clement and Wassall was a shot in the arm

Vydra I also don't agree with - As like Nugent he works exceptionally hard defending in the oppositions half - He's constantly hassling defenders and covers huge amounts of ground - The goal against QPR away sums it up for me where he wins the ball on the edge of their area through sheer persistence

It's all about consistency though.

Hughes and Ince do work hard but they are still a luxery because they take risks in their runs and passing which means they fall in and out of games a lot. Hughes a little less so admittingly but he's still a player who can produce something out of nothing while finding he's not been in the game for 20 minutes. He's a good player but again on last seasons showing he dips in and out hands . Partly due to not maybe knowing what is now his role after x amount of managers but it's also what his game had become too.

Bent did show in a run of games under Mclaren that he could adapt, and he did play well then but he couldn't produce that long term. Again it's about consistency and if he can't produce that over a season then he's a still a luxery.

Its the same with Vydra, there are moments yes but it wasnt consistent last season. Again it could be due to not understanding his role, but he continually dipped in and out of games.

I suppose it's going back to that thing of players producing 7/10 consistently rather than ones who will produce an 8 one week and 5 the next 

[ramsbottom]

8 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

It's all about consistency though.

Hughes and Ince do work hard but they are still a luxery because they take risks in their runs and passing which means they fall in and out of games a lot. Hughes a little less so admittingly but he's still a player who can produce something out of nothing while finding he's not been in the game for 20 minutes. He's a good player but again on last seasons showing he dips in and out hands . Partly due to not maybe knowing what is now his role after x amount of managers but it's also what his game had become too.

Bent did show in a run of games under Mclaren that he could adapt, and he did play well then but he couldn't produce that long term. Again it's about consistency and if he can't produce that over a season then he's a still a luxery.

Its the same with Vydra, there are moments yes but it wasnt consistent last season. Again it could be due to not understanding his role, but he continually dipped in and out of games.

I suppose it's going back to that thing of players producing 7/10 consistently rather than ones who will produce an 8 one week and 5 the next 

So by your definition, ANY player who shows inconsistency is a luxury???

[cheron85]

15 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

It's all about consistency though.

Hughes and Ince do work hard but they are still a luxery because they take risks in their runs and passing which means they fall in and out of games a lot. Hughes a little less so admittingly but he's still a player who can produce something out of nothing while finding he's not been in the game for 20 minutes. He's a good player but again on last seasons showing he dips in and out hands . Partly due to not maybe knowing what is now his role after x amount of managers but it's also what his game had become too.

Bent did show in a run of games under Mclaren that he could adapt, and he did play well then but he couldn't produce that long term. Again it's about consistency and if he can't produce that over a season then he's a still a luxery.

Its the same with Vydra, there are moments yes but it wasnt consistent last season. Again it could be due to not understanding his role, but he continually dipped in and out of games.

I suppose it's going back to that thing of players producing 7/10 consistently rather than ones who will produce an 8 one week and 5 the next 

I agree with the sentiment and I think recently we've seen a lot of sides do well in this league with a heap load of 7.10 players and 1/2 amazing players

However I don't agree that Ince, Vydra or Hughes goes missing in the way that Camara did - Even when not producing brilliance they all run hard, get in the right positions, give defensive cover and do all the 'unglamorous' stuff which goes mostly unnoticed in games - Camara was a true luxury player in that he couldn't do that element of the game - And Bent always used to be a little like that

[TommyPowell]

1 hour ago, TuffLuff said:

Yes he still a luxery because his style means he will try and take risks to get in and around the box and create space. By doing that he doesn't stay within his position and leaving it open which means he needs someone like Baird who is disciplined enough not to bomb forward. You can't have 2/3/4 players who all do that on the pitch, and need someone else to cover them. That's the point.

never heard such a load of clap trap in my life .Ince job in the squad is a flair player(match winner if you will) his job is to take risks and score goals did he do that last year you bet he did.

Hughes the play maker job to create opportunities for other this he did when on form(somebody out of form is temporary and not a luxury)

Bent    a goal poacher does he do that YES