Player Watch: Pierre-Emile Højbjerg

[worcestersauce]

Good move for him I reckon, to be honest I suspect it's his decision to leave as he's a far better player than a lot of people on here think.
With Bentancur and Bisouma out he pretty much had to carry the whole midfield, play the creative midfielder and cover for a second rate defence and got bugger all appreciation for it. I'd vamoose too if that was me.
Feel free to disagree but you won't convince me otherwise.

 

[DJS]

Unless, that's the plan and we already have a replacement or cover lined up. Someone more mobile perhaps.

Yeah you’d hope so, I’m just going on previous experience of our squad balancing lol.

Always happy to be proven wrong though and we have been linked with Lavia!

 

[Japhet]

Think it would be a good idea to sell, however we would need to replace to ensure we have proper depth in central midfield having finally achieved this with current squad (including PEH).

Might not be so important if Bentancur wasn’t out, but as he is it will leave us a little short in numbers.

If anyone's going to trust Skipp and Sarr it's Ange. Most important thing for us imo is to sort out CBs.

 

[Scot-Spur]

Like PEH and do rate him in the right system. Unfortunately we are going a different direction to the style he suits.

Him out and Lavia in would be great style wise and also reducing the age in the squad.

 

[ukdy]

Lavia would be a great replacement.

 

[KILLA_SIN]

Good move for him I reckon, to be honest I suspect it's his decision to leave as he's a far better player than a lot of people on here think.
With Bentancur and Bisouma out he pretty much had to carry the whole midfield, play the creative midfielder and cover for a second rate defence and got bugger all appreciation for it. I'd vamoose too if that was me.
Feel free to disagree but you won't convince me otherwise.

Same, feel he is vastly under appreciated, Will be dissapointed if he leaves. Would like to have seen him under the new regime.

 

[brasil_spur]

Think it would be a good idea to sell, however we would need to replace to ensure we have proper depth in central midfield having finally achieved this with current squad (including PEH).

Might not be so important if Bentancur wasn’t out, but as he is it will leave us a little short in numbers.

Agree, although we have:

Bissouma, Skipp, Sarr and Bentancur vying for 2 positions without PEH. Even with Bentancur out till later in the year that's 3 players for two roles. It could also be that White is seen a potential option as well.

But yes I'd prefer we get someone in to replace PEH, ideally Lavia.

 

[jurgen]

Atletico love our players don't they? Would be a great move for him.

 

[HildoSpur]

Decent player and good pro, has done well for us. Having said that, he is limited and not particularly mobile and I can't see him playing regularly for us under Ange. If we somehow managed to sell him for a decent price and bring in the likes of Lavia as a replacement that would be sensational.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

And was later corroborated by Matteo Moretto

Nice. Must be what WLB was hinting at last night.

Atletico love our cast offs lol

 

[felmani26]

Absolutely deserves more respect but ultimately, not a good fit for Ange's system going forwards.

Anything £30m+ represents great business for both us and Atletico as well as shaving another £100k pw off the salary commitments.

 

[C0YS]

Think it would be a good idea to sell, however we would need to replace to ensure we have proper depth in central midfield having finally achieved this with current squad (including PEH).

Might not be so important if Bentancur wasn’t out, but as he is it will leave us a little short in numbers.

If we were in europe yes. But our CMs are:

Skipp, Sarr, Bentancur, Maddison, Bissouma and quite possibly Deki too. And this is not including Lo Celso (will certainly go I imagine, though I think he could actually do a job) and Ndombele (who might stay but am unsure he could actually do a job)

5/6 players seem fine to me, particularly as you have kids like Devine and the ability to move to a 2 man midfield.

I'm a big PEH fan but also fully understand the logic. He is by far the player who we could get the most money out of and we really don't need 4 midfielders who prefer to play as the pivot. I know Bentancur can play further forward but nonetheless.

We have too many DMs, partly why Lavia doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, apart from the fact he is a great talent and if possible to get talent like that in you do.

I think if we do want to replace PEH it would be for a more forward thinking player. Maybe even someone like Scott, or even Gallagher. The point is our numbers are fine and if we want to form our midfield better we should move towards other kinds of players.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Lavia would be a great replacement.

Defensively he is pretty poor tho so he would be in competition with Skipp, Sarr and Bentancur for the other CM role. Although I do think Sarr might be able to play DM with time. I certainly wouldn't want to play Lavia as a DM tho. He does look like a big prospect but I'm not completely convinced we need him considering our current options and ether way a lot of big clubs are circling so I think it would be hard to convince him. Looks a talent tho obviously but still very raw.

 

[Japhet]

Defensively he is pretty poor tho so he would be in competition with Skipp, Sarr and Bentancur for the other CM role. Although I do think Sarr might be able to play DM with time. I certainly wouldn't want to play Lavia as a DM tho. He does look like a big prospect but I'm not completely convinced we need him considering our current options and ether way a lot of big clubs are circling so I think it would be hard to convince him. Looks a talent tho obviously but still very raw.

I think West Ham will be sniffing around if Rice goes. Brighton will probably be keeping an eye on him with MacAllister gone and Caicedo in the balance.

 

[KILLA_SIN]

Nice. Must be what WLB was hinting at last night.

Atletico love our cast offs lol

he'd be moving to a bigger side

 

[funkycoldmedina]

Defensively he is pretty poor tho so he would be in competition with Skipp, Sarr and Bentancur for the other CM role. Although I do think Sarr might be able to play DM with time. I certainly wouldn't want to play Lavia as a DM tho. He does look like a big prospect but I'm not completely convinced we need him considering our current options and ether way a lot of big clubs are circling so I think it would be hard to convince him. Looks a talent tho obviously but still very raw.

Skipp looks a natural DM to me. Felt he'd have developed better in Hojbjerg's role

 

[Teegart]

If we sell Hojbjerg it’s a guarantee we buy another CM. Would be madness going into the season with only Bissouma, Skipp and Sarr to fill 2 starting roles for maybe 3 months till Bantancur is back 100% fit. Europe or no Europe you don’t go into a season that thin, especially when we don’t even know really how good Skipp or Sarr actually are.

 

[ernest_lowrider]

I'm ok with selling him if Ange thinks other player suits better for his tactics, but Hoj doesn't deseve amount of shit he's getting. He was one of little, who actually gave a fuck.

What worries me is other thing tough.
Our leaders from last seasons: Hugo, Dier, PEH, Kane.
Hugo as good as gone, Dier please be gone, PEH might be going, Kane might be going.

I know our perfomances didn't exactly show the team was mentally strong/well lead or whatever, but meh leaders are still better than no leaders.

edit: another thing - La Liga clubs (bar RM) have little to none money for transfers due to La Liga FFP restrictions. If none of their players is involved in a swap deal, the fee could be underwhelming for us. Which could be ok when it comes to selling Ndombele, but come on not in this case. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

[yido-1989]

He looked good playing along side bentancur but pretty average otherwise, Would be good business getting 30 odd million for him.

Regarding Lavia he looks like one of Liverpool’s main targets if you believe the media reports.

 

[DJS]

If we were in europe yes. But our CMs are:

Skipp, Sarr, Bentancur, Maddison, Bissouma and quite possibly Deki too. And this is not including Lo Celso (will certainly go I imagine, though I think he could actually do a job) and Ndombele (who might stay but am unsure he could actually do a job)

5/6 players seem fine to me, particularly as you have kids like Devine and the ability to move to a 2 man midfield.

I'm a big PEH fan but also fully understand the logic. He is by far the player who we could get the most money out of and we really don't need 4 midfielders who prefer to play as the pivot. I know Bentancur can play further forward but nonetheless.

We have too many DMs, partly why Lavia doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, apart from the fact he is a great talent and if possible to get talent like that in you do.

I think if we do want to replace PEH it would be for a more forward thinking player. Maybe even someone like Scott, or even Gallagher. The point is our numbers are fine and if we want to form our midfield better we should move towards other kinds of players.

Defensive midfielders are Skipp, Bissouma, Sarr and Bentancur (who will be out first few months of campaign and we still don’t know how injury will effect him in long term).

If we played 4-2-3-1 we would have to play 2 out of the above, leaving us only 1 back up so then any further injuries and we are extremely short in a valuable engine room position.

Maddison and Kulusevski can’t play as one of the two in a 4-2-3-1.

If we go 4-3-3 and only need one of Skipp, Bissouma or Sarr to play alongside Maddison and another attacking 8 then great, but in the English league with the physical battles in the middle I still reckon we’d need two of ones I’ve listed in there to provide some steel and free up the attacking players.