BladesPod - Whole Squad Player Ratings - and 3 players to upgrade on for next year

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Beans

Beans

Active Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2017
Messages
2,088
Reaction score
12,558
Evening all,

As much as I'm enjoying the increased activity in the Rumour Mill, I'm not quite ready to move on from last season just yet - so Roygbiv and I went through the whole squad and gave each player* a rating out of 10.

*Each player who played more than 200 minutes

Plus! We were challenged to pick out three first team players who we might consider upgrading on for next season... and for once, we didn't agree :O We capped this at players who played at least 1,000 minutes... and it wasn't easy. See if you agree with any of our picks.

Thanks for listening!



Also on Apple and Spotify.
 

Beans said:
Evening all,

As much as I'm enjoying the increased activity in the Rumour Mill, I'm not quite ready to move on from last season just yet - so Roygbiv and I went through the whole squad and gave each player* a rating out of 10.

*Each player who played more than 200 minutes

Plus! We were challenged to pick out three first team players who we might consider upgrading on for next season... and for once, we didn't agree :O We capped this at players who played at least 1,000 minutes... and it wasn't easy. See if you agree with any of our picks.

Thanks for listening!



Also on Apple and Spotify.
Click to expand...


I’ve not listened yet but i would say that two strikers and a right centre midfielder are the obvious positions we can upgrade for next season.
 
Listening now. Very enjoyable, thanks gents.

Very interesting to hear that Beans thinks 2 of the 3 players we could improve upon come from defence, which has been by far our biggest strength this season. Having said that I do see your reasoning, but I just think it's in forward and creative positions that we need help.

Just to add a little debate there ;)
 
Really enjoyed that, thanks. Listened to it in one hit, as it flowed so well.

I agree with Ben re Egan: he made a number of errors (Chelsea, Watford, both Newcastle games) but he still had a great season overall - and we conceded 9 goals in 2.5 games when he wasn’t on the pitch. He’s not replaceable with the budget we seem to have.

Lundstram is a difficult one. There may be sense in a sale for 8 figures, but 5 goals and 3 assists is a hell of a lot to replace. Like you, I doubt Berge will do it. If we don’t get a good offer I’d stick Because even half a season of decent performances could be a big help.

You touched on one thing I was thinking about after posting on the strikers thread. Perhaps the Forwards don’t get a lot created for them, but they aren’t creating much for each other either. We need more in that department.

I thought your ratings were close or on the money for everyone save McGoldrick. 8 is very generous given his lack of concrete achievements. Yes, he’s fun to watch, but there were too many games like Leicester where he didn’t get within 30 yards of goal or set anything meaningful up. Ben’s use of “unseen work” was telling, I felt. There’s been less to it than meets the eye. The weakness of the forward line - particularly if Mousset can’t replicate his best form - is scary.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
I’ve not listened yet but i would say that two strikers and a right centre midfielder are the obvious positions we can upgrade for next season.
Click to expand...

Re: the strikers - I feel that's a bit of a given as there's question marks over all of them and McBurnie apart it's not obvious who the first choice is/are/will be, so looked at a few other positions instead.

Revolution said:
Really enjoyed that, thanks. Listened to it in one hit, as it flowed so well.

I agree with Ben re Egan: he made a number of errors (Chelsea, Watford, both Newcastle games) but he still had a great season overall - and we conceded 9 goals in 2.5 games when he wasn’t on the pitch. He’s not replaceable with the budget we seem to have.

Lundstram is a difficult one. There may be sense in a sale for 8 figures, but 5 goals and 3 assists is a hell of a lot to replace. Like you, I doubt Berge will do it. If we don’t get a good offer I’d stick Because even half a season of decent performances could be a big help.

You touched on one thing I was thinking about after posting on the strikers thread. Perhaps the Forwards don’t get a lot created for them, but they aren’t creating much for each other either. We need more in that department.

I thought your ratings were close or on the money for everyone save McGoldrick. 8 is very generous given his lack of concrete achievements. Yes, he’s fun to watch, but there were too many games like Leicester where he didn’t get within 30 yards of goal or set anything meaningful up. Ben’s use of “unseen work” was telling, I felt. There’s been less to it than meets the eye. The weakness of the forward line - particularly if Mousset can’t replicate his best form - is scary.
Click to expand...

Cheers Rev. I think it's interesting you raise Lundstram and McGoldrick together here as they're almost the inverse of each other in terms of "production" vs overall contribution. I'd argue (as I sort of did in this episode) that Lundstram's goals+assists have masked his overall performance levels this season - whereas McGoldrick's lack of those can mask how important he is.

I totally understand that goals win games of course and clearly 2 goals from 1,800 minutes (8.7xG) is really poor - you will not find me arguing otherwise. But strange as it sounds I think we can be a better team with a Lundstram upgrade even if that player doesn't score 5 goals next season. And the inverse may be true with McGoldrick - are we a less effective team overall if you swap him for someone who scores eg 8-10 goals but doesn't do anywhere near the pressing, link-up, being an extra man in midfield when needed etc?

Unanswerable question until we see that player and I'm sure you will entirely-justifiably argue the other way. The value of that "unseen work" :))) is difficult to quantify as far as I know so this is purely my opinion from watching the games. There is a funky stat called xGBuildup which measures the total xG of every possession a player is involved in (basically: how often do we create a shot from a possession in which Player X touched the ball, and how good a chance is it), but from what I've read it's a pretty unrefined/problematic measure of performance - although for what it's worth, McGoldrick's per 90 numbers for this are not amazing - slightly lower than McBurnie and Mousset, although a long way ahead of Sharp.

Re: strikers creating their own chances - totally agree. I actually thought our summer signings, particularly McBurnie and Robinson, were designed to address this (both were good at getting shots in the Championship) but we didn't really see it. This is one strength Maupay has over McBurnie, to return to that debate - very very good at creating his own shots (10th most shots inside the box in the whole PL last season, in a side that barely created more than we did). That's with the caveat that we try and find the perfect shot rather than shooting on sight as he tends to do.
 
That should cover about 3 dog walks, the first one starting in about 20 minutes time. Cheers fellas :)
 
As always, a tremendous listen. I'm about halfway through so far so apologies if this is covered later on but...... Enda's form after restart was without question below the standards he set earlier and you rightly picked up on this. What wasn't mentioned (unless I missed it) was perhaps how much he suffered due to missing O'Connell & Fleck for big chunks of this period. Not to take anything away from Jack Robinson & Osborn who I thought both performed well but to go from a working three who know each others game inside out to losing two thirds of your working parts would maybe affect anyone's game for the worse ?
 
Very surprised at 2 of our back 5 are areas for improvement. I hear the reasoning, but the first job a defender does is defend? Not much better than the 2 you have mentioned at that in the league for me. I am old and live in the past though.
I find the use of statistics to determine a players contribution a little simplistic, you do make that point well in the podcast in relation to Lundstram.
In general I agreed with your marks, but funnily not always for the same reasons.
Really enjoyed listening to your podcasts throughout the season, thanks.
 

thought roy’s thoughts about mcburnie were absolutely on point, particularly wrt him being the man to improve that position himself. thanks again for your continued excellent value.
 
Beans said:
Re: the strikers - I feel that's a bit of a given as there's question marks over all of them and McBurnie apart it's not obvious who the first choice is/are/will be, so looked at a few other positions instead.



Cheers Rev. I think it's interesting you raise Lundstram and McGoldrick together here as they're almost the inverse of each other in terms of "production" vs overall contribution. I'd argue (as I sort of did in this episode) that Lundstram's goals+assists have masked his overall performance levels this season - whereas McGoldrick's lack of those can mask how important he is.

I totally understand that goals win games of course and clearly 2 goals from 1,800 minutes (8.7xG) is really poor - you will not find me arguing otherwise. But strange as it sounds I think we can be a better team with a Lundstram upgrade even if that player doesn't score 5 goals next season. And the inverse may be true with McGoldrick - are we a less effective team overall if you swap him for someone who scores eg 8-10 goals but doesn't do anywhere near the pressing, link-up, being an extra man in midfield when needed etc?

Unanswerable question until we see that player and I'm sure you will entirely-justifiably argue the other way. The value of that "unseen work" :))) is difficult to quantify as far as I know so this is purely my opinion from watching the games. There is a funky stat called xGBuildup which measures the total xG of every possession a player is involved in (basically: how often do we create a shot from a possession in which Player X touched the ball, and how good a chance is it), but from what I've read it's a pretty unrefined/problematic measure of performance - although for what it's worth, McGoldrick's per 90 numbers for this are not amazing - slightly lower than McBurnie and Mousset, although a long way ahead of Sharp.

Re: strikers creating their own chances - totally agree. I actually thought our summer signings, particularly McBurnie and Robinson, were designed to address this (both were good at getting shots in the Championship) but we didn't really see it. This is one strength Maupay has over McBurnie, to return to that debate - very very good at creating his own shots (10th most shots inside the box in the whole PL last season, in a side that barely created more than we did). That's with the caveat that we try and find the perfect shot rather than shooting on sight as he tends to do.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response: a few follow up points.

Re strikers creating their own chances, what I meant wasn't so much chances for themselves (you have covered this well), but chances for each other. One of my bugbears with our forwards is that they do not lay on chances for each other. We play with a front 2 but there is no evidence of a partnership. Often they are nowhere near each other on the field. This may be by design (McGoldrick and, increasingly, McBurnie dropping deep) but they always seem to get outnumbered.

Re Xgbuildup: I did something less scientific. I looked at every goal we scored this season (prior to Chelsea at least) to determine how involved McGoldrick was in the move that lead to the the goal, reasoning that if he is indeed vital to the way we play, you'd see evidence of that further back from the goal and assist itself. I didn't keep the analysis I wrote down, but from memory the results were, to say the least, underwhelming. He was not often involved in goals we scored. Indeed, between his assist for Fleck vs Villa and the first goal v Chelsea he did not touch the ball during a move we scored from and (though I will have to double check this) I think I am correct in saying that he did not touch the ball at all in any of the moves that ended with a goal by McBurnie last season.

And for the record whilst McGoldrick does press, I'm not convinced he's doing enough link up work high enough up the pitch. In that sense, he's like Leon Britton, another player I think is overrated. Looks good, but it ain't achieving much.

Still, he's on the books, he's had some excellent games, he can't possibly do any worse in front of goal, and none of our forwards are much better than each other, so I hope he gives us something useful next season.

Re Lundstram and goals: I think Roy got it right on the pod. He scored 12.8% of our goals. 5 out of 39. That's a lot. If you take out those goals and don't replace them, that's a problem, particularly when you consider that we got more out of our goals in terms of points than anyone else save Palace. So if we are going to confine our spending - as seems likely at the moment - to players who have no track record in the PL I would like to see if he can replicate his performance, because we will need those goals.

Re goals generally, we did the following things that might not be repeatable next season:

  • manage to score in 11 of the 13 games in which we kept a clean sheet, which strikes me as pretty decent. Only 2 0-0 draws (and one was Villa away)
  • didn't "waste" goals by scoring in defeats. We scored only twice when we lost - McBurnie v Leicester and Lundstram v Southampton.

A few more 0-0 or 1-1 draws, or 0-1 defeats, and we might be in bother, like in 1994 when 9 nil-nil draws killed us.
 
You two are on the NewsNow pages, when did you become chuffing celebs?! 😁

thisisfutbol.com

Sheffield United: Podcaster criticises Enda Stevens

Ben Meakin and Andrew from ‘Roy’s View From’ discussed Sheffield United’s 2019/20 season during the latest edition of the BladesPod podcast, where the panel spent some time talking about Enda Stevens.
thisisfutbol.com thisisfutbol.com
 
Kozzy_is_my_Dad said:
You two are on the NewsNow pages, when did you become chuffing celebs?! 😁

thisisfutbol.com

Sheffield United: Podcaster criticises Enda Stevens

Ben Meakin and Andrew from ‘Roy’s View From’ discussed Sheffield United’s 2019/20 season during the latest edition of the BladesPod podcast, where the panel spent some time talking about Enda Stevens.
thisisfutbol.com thisisfutbol.com
Click to expand...

“He’s a very angry man” was how Podcaster Andrew described George Baldock in several podcasts this year.

Do you agree with his damning assessment? Vote Yes or No below ;)
 
Great pod. Just finished listening.

Agree with most of the marks...my own marks done as school grades were maybe a grade or two down per player from the two of you but I am a harsh critic! I did agree with where you ranked everyone though in terms of Bash the best etc.

Had no problem with the Callum Robinson grade from Roygbiv. He had maybe two decent halves....Bournemouth 1st half/Chelsea 2nd half. He did assist v Man Utd but outside if that he was non existent in most games he played. Some one said he played well v Liverpool/City...He did not at all and was weak/static.

I thought the Jack Robinson grade was a bit low 6/10 was it one of you gave him? He individually did ok.

Totally agree with the McBurnie comments. I'm not as high on the season he had as some. He did ok. Nothing more. As was says you need more than 1 really good game in 3. He has a big season to come. Every one is convinced he will be our no 9 for years to come. He has to do more to be our main striker. I accept he'll start up top but as Roy said he has to make those improvements to be a consistent week in performer and be bearing or past 10 goals next season.

I was surprised on the Baldock/Egan as two to improve but your reasoning was sound and well argued.

Personally, I admit they have weaknesses but 2 strikers and the right side of midfield seem to be the obvious ones. I do accept Baldock gets a lot of ball but counting on your right wing back to be a main source if creativity is tough as Alexander Arnold is a rarity in what he does. We'd have to spend silly sums to improve on him and Egan and they are both solid 7-8/10 performers mist weeks. The defence was the best part if our team. The priority has to be forward players...whether it be 2 strikers or a more attacking midfielder. We lack lace, dribbling and penetration. Those players will cost us premium so in that sense the two mentioned might be easier to improve you could argue but still think you would need 40 million just to adequately replace those two. Interesting discussion though.

As I say great pod. Loved the Tony from Hollyoaks analogy!
 
Last edited:
www.s24su.com

Palace 0 United 1 - report

Did not go. Of course, I did not. First one I missed from London and they win! Still moving house and lots to sort so had to miss one! Watched on a very erratic stream but saw enough to put something together! --- The Blades got back to winning way and finally won a game in London at this...
www.s24su.com www.s24su.com

I agree on Egan to an extent- been saying since the end of last season that he’s one I’d like to see an upgrade on.

However, since I said this (and even since I wrote the post above in February), he’s made big improvements on his passing and composure; if he keeps working on his weak areas and getting better, then I’m happy. Be interesting to see how we get on next time he faces a fast lad.

Baldock’s crossing is appalling but he’s been in my top 3-4 players this season. While we can obviously improve on every position, I think we’d be hard-pressed to realistically improve in many places and certainly at right back.
 
Deadbat said:
Great pod. Just finished listening.

Agree with most of the marks...my own marks done as school grades were maybe a grade or two down per player from the two of you but I am a harsh critic! I did agree with where you ranked everyone though in terms of Bash the best etc.

Had no problem with the Callum Robinson grade from Roygbiv. He had maybe two decent halves....Bournemouth 1st half/Chelsea 2nd half. He did assist v Man Utd but outside if that he was non existent in most games he played. Some one said he played well v Liverpool/City...He did not at all and was weak/static.

I thought the Jack Robinson grade was a bit low 6/10 was it one of you gave him? He individually did ok.

Totally agree with the McBurnie comments. I'm not as high on the season he had as some. He did ok. Nothing more. As was says you need more than 1 really good game in 3. He has a big season to come. Every one is convinced he will be our no 9 for years to come. He has to do more to be our main striker. I accept he'll start up top but as Roy said he has to make those improvements to be a consistent week in performer and be bearing or past 10 goals next season.

I was surprised on the Baldock/Egan as two to improve but your reasoning was sound and well argued.

Personally, I admit they have weaknesses but 2 strikers and the right side of midfield seem to be the obvious ones. I do accept Baldock gets a lot of ball but counting on your right wing back to be a main source if creativity is tough as Alexander Arnold is a rarity in what he does. We'd have to spend silly sums to improve on him and Egan and they are both solid 7-8/10 performers mist weeks. The defence was the best part if our team. The priority has to be forward players...whether it be 2 strikers or a more attacking midfielder. We lack lace, dribbling and penetration. Those players will cost us premium so in that sense the two mentioned might be easier to improve you could argue but still think you would need 40 million just to adequately replace those two. Interesting discussion though.

As I say great pod. Loved the Tony from Hollyoaks analogy!
Click to expand...
Webding said:
www.s24su.com

Palace 0 United 1 - report

Did not go. Of course, I did not. First one I missed from London and they win! Still moving house and lots to sort so had to miss one! Watched on a very erratic stream but saw enough to put something together! --- The Blades got back to winning way and finally won a game in London at this...
www.s24su.com www.s24su.com

I agree on Egan to an extent- been saying since the end of last season that he’s one I’d like to see an upgrade on.

However, since I said this (and even since I wrote the post above in February), he’s made big improvements on his passing and composure; if he keeps working on his weak areas and getting better, then I’m happy. Be interesting to see how we get on next time he faces a fast lad.

Baldock’s crossing is appalling but he’s been in my top 3-4 players this season. While we can obviously improve on every position, I think we’d be hard-pressed to realistically improve in many places and certainly at right back.
Click to expand...

Cheers Deadbat, I'm still making my way through your school grades now - great reading, really love the effort you go to with the off-field stuff too.

Re: both of your comments on Baldock - I think it would come down to a trade off between attack and defence. As Deadbat said "counting on your RWB to be a main source of creativity is tough" - but the reality is, we do currently do that - only City and Liverpool attempted more crosses last season. And while I'd say this was comfortably Baldock's best season for us at both ends of the pitch, I do think we need to do more here unless we're going to completely change how we play.

Nerdy stat time: on expected assists per 90 minutes played (how many, and how good, were the chances a player created), there's a big list of RBs who were more creative than Baldock. Some are the elite, or play for elite teams - TAA, Kyle Walker, Ricardo Pereira - but then there are others who I'd say in a heartbeat are not as good all-round players as Baldock, yet are putting up significantly better creative numbers: Calum Chambers, Matt Targett, Jack Stacey, Ryan Fredericks, Serge Aurier, Phil Bardsley (!), Matt Lowton, Seamus Coleman, Adam Smith, Cedric Soares...

So back to that trade-off - do we look at signing a RWB who is more creative going forward - a better crosser, dribbler, more of a goal-threat? - and accept that he won't be (or might not be) as good at defending? This is where Matty Cash seems to fit, for me - and doesn't sound like he would cost all that much either, certainly not to the point where we can't afford him if we think he's the guy (note: I have no idea if Cash will be more creative than Baldock in the PL - but this is my guess for how we'd use him, and why we've been in for him, if the rumours are true).

Or, we just watch and enjoy as Baldock takes another step forward next season (which is not at all unlikely given his year-on-year improvement).
 
Yep, trade-off is the right term. It’s also do we rock the boat or not? We seem to have got almost a formula at the minute, a proper ‘better than the sum of parts’, and it’s whether changing that - even with a ‘better’ player - is the right thing to do. It’ll obviously have to happen at some point though, and that right side triangle of WB-CB-CM looks to be getting at least one change anyway, through the Lundstram nonsense and trying to fit Berge in.

If there’s one player who will work on improving though, it’s Baldock. It’s like he’s seen this is THE (probably only) big chance in his career and has done all he can to maximise the potential of it. Hopefully he’ll be working on his attacking as we speak.
 
Great listening guys and pretty much agree with your assessments. Need a good fast striker to add to the squad
 
I painted some decking on Saturday with the dulcet tones of Beans and Roygbiv for company. I enjoyed the pod and generally agreed with the comments and marks. Incidentally I think that the marks for a few players would have been higher without the lockdown as it's basically split the season into 2 seasons and one of Beans' favourite phrases is 'recency bias' and I think we are all guilty of this to an extent.
 
Beans said:
Evening all,

As much as I'm enjoying the increased activity in the Rumour Mill, I'm not quite ready to move on from last season just yet - so Roygbiv and I went through the whole squad and gave each player* a rating out of 10.

*Each player who played more than 200 minutes

Plus! We were challenged to pick out three first team players who we might consider upgrading on for next season... and for once, we didn't agree :O We capped this at players who played at least 1,000 minutes... and it wasn't easy. See if you agree with any of our picks.

Thanks for listening!



Also on Apple and Spotify.
Click to expand...



Excellent episode guys! Agree with the vast majority of the ratings.

Am I the only one though that thinks Lundstram should be somewhere between an 8 and a 9? I feel like he is still tarnished by some of his championship performances in our first season back in that division.

He was superb last season, most of his goals were pure athleticism to get into the box from a deep lying position on the break, no one else in our midfield appears to be able to do that. Also when he came back into the team after the Berge signing he was brilliant. I understand the frustration with him turning back on himself instead of moving forward but he is exactly the type of player we need when we only have 30% of the ball in games! (Some will say he is part of the reason we only have 30% of the ball but I disagree).

I think we need to be careful what we wish for and he does more off the ball than we appreciate.

Also defo agree with Andrew in regards to Egan, he is solid and we aren't going to be able to afford somebody better than him. Every premier league defender no matter how good they are can get caught out on their day due to the sheer quality of attackers.
 
Great podcast as always, enjoyed listening to these all season.

I think generally I agreed with most of the ratings out of 10, I’d possibly give Baldock a 10 purely for how solidly he defended - I take the point around him not offering as much as he could offensively but purely as a defender he’s been superb.

Re. The players to improve upon, I was spitting feathers when Baldock Egan and McBurnie were suggested, I considered a rage quit when Beans suggested Baldock should improved upon 🤣 - but that said, I do understand the reasoning behind the choices and to a certain extent agree.

I would temper this however with the question of ‘what more do you want?’ - ok so you want Baldock to create more whilst still being a great defender - even TAA and AWB are only really good at one aspect. You’re expecting too much in my opinion.

Same re Egan - we conceded 30 goals in his 35 and a half games (I think) - that’s outrageously good for a newly promoted side.

McBurnie I get the argument but also think he is the man who will deliver next season, his improvement from the start of the season to the end suggests to me that he’ll be very good next season.

Just my thoughts, doesn’t take anything away from an excellent podcast which I thoroughly enjoy listening to every week (every few days during the ridiculous post lockdown schedule!)

Looking forward to next season already - unless there’s a pre-season special lined up????
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Back
Top Bottom