Diego Costa

[Leif 6,006]

Would anyone happily take a hybrid player who was made of Lukaku's touch, Defoe's scoring ability, Giroud's pace and Aguero's heading ability? He'd be about as strong as that Lukaku bloke too, or even Akinfenwa.

Does that sound enticing, and good enough? Or does it sound sickening like it should? To me it sounds familiar.

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

34 minutes ago, Leif said:

Would anyone happily take a hybrid player who was made of Lukaku's touch, Defoe's scoring ability, Giroud's pace and Aguero's heading ability? He'd be about as strong as that Lukaku bloke too, or even Akinfenwa.

Does that sound enticing, and good enough? Or does it sound sickening like it should? To me it sounds familiar.

Sounds like 2 titles in 3 years to me!

[BlueLyon 9,359]

3 hours ago, Leif said:

Would anyone happily take a hybrid player who was made of Lukaku's touch, Defoe's scoring ability, Giroud's pace and Aguero's heading ability? He'd be about as strong as that Lukaku bloke too, or even Akinfenwa.

Does that sound enticing, and good enough? Or does it sound sickening like it should? To me it sounds familiar.

I guess you realy miss Torres days...

[Chelsea? 892]

3 hours ago, Leif said:

He has 6 more league goals than a winger the majority believe doesn't score enough. He currently scores as much as we expect from an assist-orientated player. And it's his goalscoring which is apparently his strength

I look at these 17 league goals of his, and wonder, if the people thinking that's good enough witnessed Drogba get 30 in 2009 (a certain midfielder got 22 that season).

In 2011 RVP got 30. Next season, he got 26 while Suarez in a 1-man-team got 23.

Next season, Suarez got 31, Sturridge got 22, and Yaya Toure of all people had 20. 

Next season, Aguero had 26, Kane had 21. Costa had 20 (his highest still.)

Last season? Kane had 25, Aguero & Vardy had 24, and Lukaku with his shortcomings and weak teammates got 18 (which he's yet again surpassing this season; strides). Costa got 12, which is less than Ighalo ("who did he play for again?")

Kane consistenly gets 20+ season after season, as do Aguero, Suarez, (get ready to add Lukaku to the club), Higuain, Lewandowski, Benzema, Icardi and more. Will Costa ever get us 20 league goals in back to back seasons? I seriously, seriously doubt it. Clearly he isn't a clinical poacher then. We've established he's no target man (that's what Drogba was, and what Lewandowski is. It takes link-up play.) He isn't Mr mc. Pacey, nor is he some sort of Dybala/Bergkamp freak-dribbler. So, he's just a bog standard, jack of all trades striker compared to every other top team, and compared to the standard that's been set here. Don't forget, all of these players especially Drogba, got far many goals while also bringing qualities to the team, like assists, link-up play, defending set-pieces, taking set-pieces. Costa would have to give up his entire shoddy game and do nothing more than creep outside the box in hope to get those numbers. But it's not like he does a single thing I just mentioned anyway.

He's half the player Drogba was, and Drogba wasn't even Henry/Messi himself. Laughable that this guy is lauded a goalscorer We've seen some real top strikers, and Costa's about Anelka's level. Too good to be on the bench, but not good enough to say 'there's no way we could do better in the striker department, we can't be strengthened there.' He's basically a Mario Gomez without the heading capability. Gomez being an incredibly prolific player, who was hunted out of Bayern regardless, because their standards are where ours should be. They'd never let a player continue to stay in the XI despite having only 2 positive qualities, when there's around 15 things a player can be good at.

He's been poor in his link up play but for u to say 17 goals is something an assist oriented player scores is laughable. He's 2 goals off the golden boot but somehow he doesn't score to your liking. 

 

Scoring is the only thing he's good at. 

[LAM09 7,048]

Good to see him get a goal tonight, but he was far from impressive. Just doesn't seem at it tbh and is probably fortunate Michy is his backup.

[robsblubot 3,595]

not sure today (WH) was about costa. The team overall performance was average only saved by a moment of brilliance by hazard.

This was a good win, and good enough to win the PL esp with the great point lead, but I can't think of going far in Europe next year unless we improve our overall play.

[manpe 10,861]

A nuisance in the box, useless outside of it. In this form it's getting more and more difficult to use his goalscoring record to defend him, when he may well be a reason why we don't score more. Exile of Michy also is weird, Diego has no competition and he's clearly struggling, yet he's automatic to play full 90 every game. This is one mistake Jose did, give a sense of security to underperforming players.

[Polo7 3,496]

5 minutes ago, manpe said:

A nuisance in the box, useless outside of it. In this form it's getting more and more difficult to use his goalscoring record to defend him, when he may well be a reason why we don't score more. Exile of Michy also is weird, Diego has no competition and he's clearly struggling, yet he's automatic to play full 90 every game. This is one mistake Jose did, give a sense of security to underperforming players.

Struggling ? He is scoring most games?? That's what he is there to do.

[manpe 10,861]

Just now, Polo7 said:

Struggling ? He is scoring most games?? That's what he is there to do.

Clearly missed the point of my post. Read the second sentence.

[Special Juan 28,141]

The turn when Randolph made the save was sublime. But, another goal, another win.

[Polo7 3,496]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

Clearly missed the point of my post. Read the second sentence.

He isnt supposed to start off attacks, he is supposed to finish them. His goals have won us many games this season. Yesterday was another one. I dont care if he cant dribble as well as Hazard or pass like Fabregas. As long as he keeps scoring.

[manpe 10,861]

6 minutes ago, Polo7 said:

He isnt supposed to start off attacks, he is supposed to finish them. His goals have won us many games this season. Yesterday was another one. I dont care if he cant dribble as well as Hazard or pass like Fabregas. As long as he keeps scoring.

Nowhere did I say he is supposed to start off attacks, it happens from the goalkeeper up not the other way around. Pay attention to what we are discussing or it is hard to converse. And yes of course it is your right to be content with him simply scoring and not much else, you prefer a more archaic striker and that's fine. I don't, I prefer a player who can get the basics right. He becomes a "striker" in its purest sense when we are in the final stages of building an attack, when he positions himself in the box to be on the end of a chance to score and he does that brilliantly. My concern is when we are further away from their goal, then in my eyes he is simply an attacker part of the front-3 who are responsible of getting us further upfield or at least retain possession. He did all that well earlier in the season, but since he was dropped he's been getting worse in that aspect imo. Yesterday's game was pretty bad, take away the goal presented to him on silver platter and he would have nothing to redeem himself. As I said, your opinion is valid, but I know Costa is better than what he has been showing lately despite scoring and I want him to start showing his true quality again. In this current overall form (not goalscoring form) for every goal he scores he prevents two, imho.

[King11Didier 916]

Yeah, it's easy to see his form has dropped, but at least he is bringing goals for the team and that is his biggest task. I just remember how we missed even that in the last couple of years when we struggled with Torres up front, then Eto'o came for a season and actually wasn't so bad, but still was not the answer to our problem.

Now with Diego, we have a striker who knows where to position himself in the opposition box and it's where he exactly needs to be most of the time, something that we missed before his arrival. His dribbling is a bit strange most of the time, if I can say it like that, but he is good at keeping the ball in his feet, also I think he has a good number of assists for us, if I'm not mistaken. Not perfect at link-up play, but still, tries hard and is doing allright at that, what I miss from him is that heading ability. It is a shame that this is probably his biggest weakness, as a striker it is expected from you to be good at it, but that's not the case with Diego and I also think that is what Conte is missing and that's why we were interested in Llorente.

[BoyBlue96 990]

10 hours ago, King11Didier said:

Yeah, it's easy to see his form has dropped, but at least he is bringing goals for the team and that is his biggest task. I just remember how we missed even that in the last couple of years when we struggled with Torres up front, then Eto'o came for a season and actually wasn't so bad, but still was not the answer to our problem.

Now with Diego, we have a striker who knows where to position himself in the opposition box and it's where he exactly needs to be most of the time, something that we missed before his arrival. His dribbling is a bit strange most of the time, if I can say it like that, but he is good at keeping the ball in his feet, also I think he has a good number of assists for us, if I'm not mistaken. Not perfect at link-up play, but still, tries hard and is doing allright at that, what I miss from him is that heading ability. It is a shame that this is probably his biggest weakness, as a striker it is expected from you to be good at it, but that's not the case with Diego and I also think that is what Conte is missing and that's why we were interested in Llorente.

People were calling Llorente the "Spanish Peter Crouch"

Well, Swansea are playing good football under Clement and Llorente is looking good and gets his goals, but absolutely not a fulltime replacement for Costa. Same goes for Morata. 

[King11Didier 916]

1 hour ago, BoyBlue96 said:

People were calling Llorente the "Spanish Peter Crouch"

Well, Swansea are playing good football under Clement and Llorente is looking good and gets his goals, but absolutely not a fulltime replacement for Costa. Same goes for Morata. 

Yeah, I agree. I didn't want to mean that Conta wants exactly Llorente for a Costa replacement. What I think is that he was interested in the Spanish striker because he wanted another option up front if the game is not going in the right way (long balls to Llorente and using his good heading ability to direct the ball to other players or directly into the net), bacuse now, we can't do that with Costa.