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Jacob Murphy


Park Life
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Asked the Norwich fans if they thought he was a good signing for us, 

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To be honest mate I don't think any of us have truly sussed this out yet, its an odd one. He started last season as being the Murphy twin that we all didn't think was quite good enough, with Josh always being the better rated one, ended the season with the roles reversed. 

 

Jacob Murphy has obviously got something a bit special but he's still very raw and has got a lot to learn, and if he was 18 or 19 you'd bet your bottom dollar that he was heading to the top, but he is 22 and a half has basically just had one season where at times he has been superb and scoring worldies and other times when he has been completely anonymous and a borderline liability. I only went to away games last season, 5 or 6, and I didn't see him have a good game. Ask a home fan and they probably didn't see him have a bad one. 

 

I see this £12m fee as completely fair to be honest, its like we've shared the risk here. If he irons out some of his defensive weaknesses / naivety and becomes a bit mentally stronger then he's probably a bargain for you and will win England caps. On the other hand if he doesn't improve from here then I don't know if you could really argue that he's Premier League quality, so its a weird transfer where at £12m you probably feel like you've got to have a punt at that price whilst we feel like we can't take a punt on him improving further this season in case he doesn't and then we never get an offer like that again.

 

I've never really been able to put my finger on him, he's got match winning goals in him and unstoppable at times but at other times he has infuriated me with his decision making and belief that he is exempt from tracking back. Best we can both hope for is that Jacob Murphy has another year of developing as a player, and Josh Murphy shows us all this season why he's historically been the better rated, then we'll both have a class Murphy 

 

That's another factor though, we can't really play two Murphy's at once because they are both so offensive and we can't really not play either one of Pritchard or Hoolahan through the middle, seen us try both Murphy's with Pritchard and both Murphy's with Hoolahan and we were just bullied for 90 minutes. So we needed to get rid of one Murphy really, otherwise one won't get the football he needs and go backwards. 

Hopefully Jacob leaving allows Josh to thrive. 

 

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Whilst I'm happy we're getting a player that Rafa wants (and a one that has looked full of promise in the few occasions I've seen him) I'm still concerned that we aren't really improving our starting eleven.  We've signed three players (not wanting to jinx this as it's not been completed yet) and I'm not sure that any of them go straight into the starting line up.  Atsu obviously wasn't first choice for most of last season, Lejeune (whilst being likely to come in as first choice) is someone who has only had just over one season of top flight football and none of us had heard of him until he was linked, and Murphy is someone who Norwich fans are saying has only had half a good season and plays mainly in the same position as arguably our best player, who had a better season than him last time around.

 

I'm confident the squad is improving and I recognise that is needed, but we need to make bigger strides with the starting team.  Most of the players we are being linked with now seem to be along the same lines as these three.  I realise there's still plenty of time for this to change and my bed is still nice and dry but at the minute I'm not thrilled with the way our business seems to be heading.

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Agreed. It's the usual formula of going for players with potential so far. Could work out but it's a gamble. It'd be nice to thinkwell sign at least 2-3 with top flight/international experience. But for that, in today's bonkers market, we're looking at £20-30m+

 

Will Ashley ever spend that much?  

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3 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

Agreed. It's the usual formula of going for players with potential so far. Could work out but it's a gamble. It'd be nice to thinkwell sign at least 2-3 with top flight/international experience. But for that, in today's bonkers market, we're looking at £20-30m+

 

Will Ashley ever spend that much?  

It might be actually worse than what we've done previously.  In the past we signed players who had played quite a bit of top flight football in a decent league (mainly France).  Cabaye, Debuchy, Sissoko, Remy, Cisse, Ba, they were all internationals before they got here with at least a couple of years top flight experience.  The three signings so far have just over 60 top flight (in a decent league so I'm discounting portugal) between them.  I don't want to knock any of them, particularly the two we've not yet seen, but it's a massive risk.

 

I think we still need at least another two that we know will go straight into the team and have the experience to do that.

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I think it's more like four (minimum) for the starting 11.  LB, DM, #10, Striker.

 

Which positions are you discounting?

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5 minutes ago, adios said:

I think it's more like four (minimum) for the starting 11.  LB, DM, #10, Striker.

 

Which positions are you discounting?

I don't really think Mitro can play as the one striker and I don't think Rafa trusts him, so I do think we need another striker but we might be able to get away with someone who wouldn't walk straight into the team if Gayle can do well.  It's a gamble but we are in a position where we do have to gamble a bit.

So I'd say we need the other three you mention but I suspect Rafa quite rates Dummett so I don't think we'll be replacing him which I said at least two rather than a definite three.

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Aye, when you put it like that I guess Rafa can get away with a couple of players in those secondary positions to compete with Haidara/Gamez/Dummett and Gayle without breaking the bank.  So he can then go blow his wad on a DM and #10.  

 

Really I'd like to see half the total budget going for the latter.

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It'll be depressing as fuck if dummet is still our first choice left back next season. The only thing that would surpass that is colback starting games.

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It's back when Rafa thought Ashley was being serious about spending money too. Looks like we are going to get through another window without touching our transfer record 

Edited by Kid Dynamite
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