£20 mil for Lathe ..we should have bit their hands off

winker

Active member
Doesn’t look like a £2 million player at the moment. He never seems to make a run to the near post which is where most of our crosses end up getting cleared from.
It looks like that Ipswich bid on deadline day did, contrary to what Carrick said, turn his head. He needs to get his finger out and quick , otherwise he*s in danger of being a one season wonder.
 
Doesn’t look like a £2 million player at the moment. He never seems to make a run to the near post which is where most of our crosses end up getting cleared from.
It looks like that Ipswich bid on deadline day did, contrary to what Carrick said, turn his head. He needs to get his finger out and quick , otherwise he*s in danger of being a one season wonder.
You had faith in him less than 6 months ago. What happened?

Thread 'Latte Lath into double figures' https://fmttmboro.com/index.php?threads/latte-lath-into-double-figures.57018/
 
I think he’ll come good but the poor beggar is feeding off scraps. All that pace and he rarely gets anything to run down or chase.
I do think our big players haven’t really got going this season yet (Lath and Hackney) and I wonder if the transfer speculation may be a factor in that and they need to get their head’s right before we can rock on.
 
I think he’ll come good but the poor beggar is feeding off scraps. All that pace and he rarely gets anything to run down or chase.
I do think our big players haven’t really got going this season yet (Lath and Hackney) and I wonder if the transfer speculation may be a factor in that and they need to get their head’s right before we can rock on.


It's a weird one on here ...
On one hand we've had a xG of 3200 , and it's down to finishing ...
Another hand it's feeding on scraps ...
 
It's a weird one on here ...
On one hand we've had a xG of 3200 , and it's down to finishing ...
Another hand it's feeding on scraps ...

Where do you stand?
Do you think he’s getting sufficient opportunities to score or chances each game? Balls to run on to or chase? Crosses to get on the end of?
 
Where do you stand?
Do you think he’s getting sufficient opportunities to score or chances each game? Balls to run on to or chase? Crosses to get on the end of?
The reason he's not getting balls to run onto and and chase is because teams are defending deep. His pace is being negated. £20m players have more strings to their bow though.

His registered xG suggests he's had chances throughout the season. He's not getting 3 or 4 per game but he's getting chances that are better than scraps.
He had a decent chance at the end of the first half yesterday.
He had a great ball in behind against Portsmouth when he was 1v1 and should have scored. (That didn't register on xG either).
He had 2 good chances against Derby.

And they are just off the top of my head. He's had enough that he should have 2 or 3 goals.

But what's he giving us? As you rightly pointed out he's not getting in behind. But he's not coming and receiving it in pockets of space and linking up. He's not playing back to goal. Lath is a big part of the problem in why we aren't scoring goals.
 
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Strikes me as a player who'll get goals in bursts then have droughts. I doubt that's likely to change, and at this level that's probably fine as long as he's contributing elsewhere.

Problem is PL teams want more than that, and the longer he demonstrates this hot/cold aspect to his game, the less appealing he'll be.

I'm glad we didn't lose him a few weeks ago, but have a feeling whatever Ipswich bid is the most we'll ever see offered for him.
 
If LL was in front of an open goal 5m out I’d give him 50:50 at best of getting it in. Brilliant player but has a mental block when it comes to his final shot / touch.
 
If LL was in front of an open goal 5m out I’d give him 50:50 at best of getting it in. Brilliant player but has a mental block when it comes to his final shot / touch.
Absolute nonsense. It would be over 99%, like every other professional footballer
 
He's the kind of player who might need more chances than some at this level to get a goal, but his attributes have previously allowed him to do this, as his own attributes bring more chances to him.

The problem we and LL have now is when teams sit back, they take away space and nullify his pace, which is his best attribute of creating those chances he needs.

Teams worry about us, so they sit back etc, it's difficult. Like yesterday, I couldn't watch the game, but it sounds like they sat back against us, at home, when they're near the top, that's not going to be easy for us.

When teams are sat back, you kind of need a more intricate and clinical striker, who might not create any/ many chances of his own, but when he gets them he will take them.

Strikers who are great finishers and who can create lots of their own chances with pace etc don't really exist in the championship. The last one we had was Archer, but don't remember us having a similar one before that. LL is quicker than Archer, but not as good a finisher of course.

Obviously teams know who LL is now, so they will plan accordingly, they've sussed us out basically so we need to come up with another plan. Someone like Chuba would have been ideal for this, playing in the 10 role, and maybe behind Forss who is probably a bit more clinical. Obv when Chuba was at his best we had Archer ahead of him, which gave Chuba that space. Obv one of those is now playing for Ajax and the other is in the Prem, so hard to expect us to have those tow at the same time again.
 
20m was just fanciful talk. Because the deal never progressed past the first post we never got to hear what a possible breakdown would be. My guess would be up to 9m guaranteed , then loose talk of loads of add ons poss 6m, that would never be met. Making 5m profit for us would not be best deal. I'm happy we held. His head will clear soon and will go on a good run , maybe not as great as last 13 games of last season, but some form will come from him and hoping its just around the corner. Getting hoofed down so early would not have helped his overall ability yesterday and prob took the rest of the half to properly shake that off.
 
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