Then you've obviously never seen him play. He is quite fast lol.
7 - Ferran Torres
- Thread starter M3ls
- Start date
Then you've obviously never seen him play. He is quite fast lol.
Messigician
Senior Member
No lol it's very average
FCBarca
Mike the Knife
I watched him a lot at City. He reminds me of a cross between Son (except his stamina for high pressing) & Villa - they are metronomes who have speed, dribbling ability and a nose for goal. Can play out wide and actually stick to the flanks rather than habitually cut inside but equally can be effective in a central role. And no question the most exciting prospect about his arrival is the terrific linkup he already has shown with both Pedri & Ansu - under Xavi, this attack can purr
In terms of versatility & nose for goal, I can think of no similar current player
Messigician
Senior Member
With his single digit goals and assists per season?
La Liga registration window doesn't open until the 3rd iirc. Means Alves can't play yet either.
Messi983
Senior Member
No, can't register him before next Monday when transfer/registration window in Spain officially opens. Could potentially make his debut in Copa in midweek (January 5) or against Granada (January 8).
You keep bringing this up without looking deeper. In his first season at Valencia (18/19) he was mostly coming off the bench as a 18 yo kid in a solid side that finished top 4 in the league. Marcelino played likes of Rodrigo, Santi Mina and Gameiro as strikers while Ferran was more of a RM in his standard 4-4-2 double 6 formation so not that close to the goal.
Next year Marcelino was fired early in the season due to disagreements with Valencia board and was replaced with Albert Celades who is not a good manager. So unsurprisingly they've struggled for most of the season. Their top scorers Parejo (mostly from penalties) and Maxi Gomez have scored 10 goals so hard to stand out in a team that has problems to score. More so, after corona break Ferran's role was diminished when he rejected to renew and Valencia already decided to sell with a year left on his contract.
In his first season at City he scored 13 goals in all competitions, including 4 in the CL. Pretty good stats considering it was his first season in a new league and Pep playing without a clear #9 rotating his midfielders and forwards around a lot so they ended up with 7 players in double digit goals and Gundogan leading the team with 17 total goals. And we clearly can't say much about current season when he has been out injured for the last two months.
I think his numbers will improve if playing regularly. Xavi wants to play similar system to Pep so he should fit in fast, he also knows players like Pedri, Gavi and Eric. OTOH of course there will be bigger pressure on him to score more as we won't have another 5-6 players capable to score 10+ goals like City does.
Don't see him becoming a 30-40 goals scorer but he should get around 20 goals (and depending if we get a top striker alongside him he could also add around 10 assists) every season imo. Also not sure if he should be a false 9 longterm and considering we're linked to likes of Haaland and Vlahović that's probably also not our plan but for second part of this season with lack of better options he is the best fit for that role alongside Ansu if/when he'll return. Ferran's ability to play as a false 9 clearly adds to the team's versatility and unpredictability though and he could also play there if whichever striker we'll bring wouldn't be available.
This is probably one of the reasons why Xavi prefered him over more pure wingers like Raphinha or Antony. Another reason which was already mentioned is his adaptation should be much easier which is even more important when signed in January so he won't have a luxury to have a month of preseason to gel with the team. When fully fit to play I think he can make immediate positive impact but hopefully people won't expect too much from him too soon (who I'm kidding people will have patience though, lol).
serghei
Senior Member
Top post.
Mateka
New member
One headline today:
Man City have been weakened by another disastrous piece of transfer business.
Caughtoffside
The article refers to City should have kept Ferran.
Messi983
Senior Member
They're too lazy to work over the weekend/holidays I guess.
Windhook
Well-known member
Disastrous I don't think so. City got 65m for a rotational player, it's not like selling Gundogan or Bernardo Silva who are key in Pep's playmaking.
With Ferran we got an complete forward who can play on both wings as well as CF. My only concern is his injury and whether it will affect his performance, I was jelous of City watching the kid play for Spain this year, wishing he played for Barca. Comes out that I wasn't the only one.
With Ferran we got an complete forward who can play on both wings as well as CF. My only concern is his injury and whether it will affect his performance, I was jelous of City watching the kid play for Spain this year, wishing he played for Barca. Comes out that I wasn't the only one.
delancey
Senior Member
For real! La Liga needs to have an in-depth look at their rules and regulations. They hinder competition.
Disastrous I don't think so. City got 65m for a rotational player, it's not like selling Gundogan or Bernardo Silva who are key in Pep's playmaking.
With Ferran we got an complete forward who can play on both wings as well as CF. My only concern is his injury and whether it will affect his performance, I was jelous of City watching the kid play for Spain this year, wishing he played for Barca. Comes out that I wasn't the only one.
They would have sold Bernardo in the summer for a similar fee. Its the way City works. One goes out of form, another comes into form.
Messi983
Senior Member
Disastrous I don't think so. City got 65m for a rotational player, it's not like selling Gundogan or Bernardo Silva who are key in Pep's playmaking.
With Ferran we got an complete forward who can play on both wings as well as CF. My only concern is his injury and whether it will affect his performance, I was jelous of City watching the kid play for Spain this year, wishing he played for Barca. Comes out that I wasn't the only one.
They were ready to sell Bernardo for 70m in summer when he wanted to leave but Atletico didn't want (or couldn't afford) to pay anywhere close to that sum so they've kept him. Of course if now some club would come with a 70m offer they would never sell. It shows how fast things can change in football.
OTOH also shows City is fair to their players and willing to sell those who want to leave if they get what they want. I'm sure it helped us to negotiate with former Barca guys (Soriano, Txiki and Pep) but they would also sell Ferran to Madrid, Bayern or another EPL club (they would probably have to pay some more "EPL taxes" to sell a player inside the league though) if he'd want to go there and clubs would agree on transfer fee. I respect that and it's probably the right thing to do if you want to keep a longterm competitivness and happiness in the squad. You want players to feel important but also leave the doors open for them to leave if/when they become unhappy.
Would be interesting to see what would happen with Grealish in two years if he won't establish himself and would want to leave but no club would offer more than 40-50m (he'll be 28 at the time so not that unreasonable to think they wouldn't get 70-80m offers although with a new rich Newcastle around they'll probably try to sign everyone they can in following years and overpay for most players). Would they admit a (probable) mistake to spend 100m on him, take a pretty big loss and let him go or keep around as a squad player? It's clearly easier to decide and sell a want-away player when you can make a profit on him, at least from a fan perspective. Don't know how much City fans really care about money though.
Home of Barca Fans
