Ben Brereton Diaz

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I'd honestly be delighted if he eventually comes good. Stranger things have happened before. However the point is/was that for the sort of money we paid out we needed a player that would hit the ground running and make an immediate impact. We didn't get that.

[Dreams of 1995]

1 hour ago, JoeH said:

Easily one of the top 5 players on the pitch.

I'm all for criticism, I am a very critical person, but you can't be so overtly unfair. If we're going to criticise a player for bad performances (which we should), you have to be able to muster up the courage to admit when that person proved you wrong for a game. He certainly proved me wrong against City.

Remarkable from the bloke who totally dismisses anything positive about Gallagher to the point of near tears. Your tune changes quickly. 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Remarkable from the bloke who totally dismisses anything positive about Gallagher to the point of near tears. Your tune changes quickly. 

How overtly exaggerated of you. 

I've praised Gallagher when he's played well, and I criticise him when he plays poorly...

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

He’s a long way to go to be the real deal

I didn't claim he was a "real deal". I think you're unfairly playing down how well he played in the game. I also didn't claim your comments weren't fair, every comment is fair as I believe in free speech.

[Mattyblue]

Didn’t say you did, ‘twas I that claimed that he wasn’t, I presumed you thought that was me being harsh.

Thank heavens we are seeking some small shoots, for him, of course, but more importantly for the club .

[Guest]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

Didn’t say you did, ‘twas I that claimed that he wasn’t, I presumed you thought that was me being harsh.

Thank heavens we are seeking some small shoots, for him, of course, but more importantly for the club .

Well yes of course, I think it's nice really that pretty much everyone does want him to succeed, as you say for the good of the club but also for a young talent who's clearly struggled. 

I don't think there's a single fan out there who'd dare to call Breo the real deal, if anybody does I think they're going too far the other way. I still think that "resembled a footballer" is a VERY understated characterisation of Brereton's game against City.

[Mattyblue]

He did resemble a footballer, he often hasn’t.

I was being a little snarky, but so what, it’s only a message board. I didn't go down to the players entrance on Saturday evening to shout it at him.

 

[Guest]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

I was being a little snarky, but so what, it’s only a message board. I didn't go down to the players entrance on Saturday evening to shout it at him.

 

Well of course, I'm not saying you can't make a snarky comment, I merely pointed out that if you're going to be serious in your criticisms of his bad games, you should be serious in your praise of his good ones. A comment was made by another poster about my feelings towards Sam Gallagher, but for me Gallagher hasn't had a game as good as Brereton had against City since Preston away where he grabbed a brace and looked a genuine threat for a good chunk of the game.

[K-Hod]

Brereton is a weird one, as on the whole he has been below the required standard (let’s say, to be diplomatic), whenever he does anything above that, it seems to be amplified 10x.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he played much better on Saturday, but, it’s a platform for him to build on. That’s the standard, match it on a regular basis and start adding goals.

(I don’t necessarily blame him for the slip either, a few players seemed to come a cropper with our pitch on Saturday). 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

it seems to be amplified 10x.

True to an extent, this happens a lot.

However, outside of desperation for him to be better and the emotions coinciding with that, I still truly believe he was one of our best players against City.

[oldjamfan1]

7 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Brereton is a weird one, as on the whole he has been below the required standard (let’s say, to be diplomatic), whenever he does anything above that, it seems to be amplified 10x.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he played much better on Saturday, but, it’s a platform for him to build on. That’s the standard, match it on a regular basis and start adding goals.

(I don’t necessarily blame him for the slip either, a few players seemed to come a cropper with our pitch on Saturday). 

Good post. I think folk just desperately want the lad to be a £7 million striker, I know I do, because that would be a huge benefit to BRFC.

[Hasta]

26 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Brereton is a weird one, as on the whole he has been below the required standard (let’s say, to be diplomatic), whenever he does anything above that, it seems to be amplified 10x.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he played much better on Saturday, but, it’s a platform for him to build on. That’s the standard, match it on a regular basis and start adding goals.

(I don’t necessarily blame him for the slip either, a few players seemed to come a cropper with our pitch on Saturday). 

Exactly.

Someone said on the match day thread he is starting to look 'value' at £7 million.  To look even close to being worth that amount he needs to perform like he did last week (which was very good) more often than not. To be 'value' then he needs to be performing and scoring. At the moment you can't even say he needs to show more consistency, because hasn't shown enough good form to even suggest he is inconsistent.

However, as JoeH points out, you have to also judge each performance on its own merits and he was very good on Saturday. Hopefully he takes that on to the next game. 

[philipl]

Of the 6 forwards on display last Saturday, Ben and Arma were easily the best.

[Sparks Rover]

12 hours ago, philipl said:

Of the 6 forwards on display last Saturday, Ben and Arma were easily the best.

Big difference between the 2 in terms of attitude and strength of character.  Brereton can't play on a Saturday afternoon in front of a real crowd  it affects a lot of really good players.

Maybe he  needs a psychiatrist. 

[Stuart]

If Brereton performs like he did last week, every week, then he still wouldn’t be worth £7m.

He did the basics well in the first half. I’d certainly expect for the money that when he rounded the keeper he would have sorted out his feet to roll the ball into an empty net.

If he had come through the ranks and performed like he has he would get nothing like the patience. I agree with Tyrone and K-Hod. Anything he does reasonably well at it suddenly ‘proof’ that he was a good buy, largely because people are desperate for the £7m to be money well spent. Right now it isn’t. We certainly wouldn’t be getting our money back after 2 full seasons, let alone making a decent profit, nor has he delivered on the pitch.

So far he has cost £3.5m per goal and one of those was in the EFL cup. Even Corrado Grabbi was better value than that.

[MarkBRFC]

36 minutes ago, Stuart said:

If Brereton performs like he did last week, every week, then he still wouldn’t be worth £7m.

He did the basics well in the first half. I’d certainly expect for the money that when he rounded the keeper he would have sorted out his feet to roll the ball into an empty net.

If he had come through the ranks and performed like he has he would get nothing like the patience. I agree with Tyrone and K-Hod. Anything he does reasonably well at it suddenly ‘proof’ that he was a good buy, largely because people are desperate for the £7m to be money well spent. Right now it isn’t. We certainly wouldn’t be getting our money back after 2 full seasons, let alone making a decent profit, nor has he delivered on the pitch.

So far he has cost £3.5m per goal and one of those was in the EFL cup. Even Corrado Grabbi was better value than that.

Think he has only scored once for us, against Bolton's kids at Ewood last season.

[Stuart]

10 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

Think he has only scored once for us, against Bolton's kids at Ewood last season.

I stand corrected. It was a PL2 game!

Wow this guy needs a massive upturn in his development.

[Blue blood]

The fact that we have £12 million of strikers who have half a dozen good games between them and as many goals suggests our recruitment policy hasn't been up to scratch. Don't think either one is good enough to be a key striker next year. If Dack or Armstrong goes I think we will look very vulnerable in terms of scoring next year.

[Mattyblue]

The policy of ‘young English forwards’ is being used as a blunt instrument here.

Great idea theoretically as I’m sure ‘the data’ outlines that they rocket in value. Armstrong will certainly be worth far more than the £1.75m rising to £3m we paid (well he was before the plague sent everything upside down), but you need to be scouting properly and getting value prices for the players initially for the model to work.

£12 million on SG and BB was certainly not value, so making a profit on those will always prove difficult even if improve from here.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Mattyblue

[JacknOry]

3 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

The policy of ‘young English forwards’ is being used as a blunt instrument here.

Great idea theoretically as I’m sure ‘the data’ outlines that they rocket in value. Armstrong will certainly be worth far more than the £1.75m rising to £3m we paid (well he was before the plague sent everything upside down), but you need to be scouting properly and getting value prices for the players initially for the model to work.

£12 million on SG and BB was certainly not value, so making a profit on those will always prove difficult even if improve from here.

They would have to turn into regular 10-15 goal strikers to even hope of breaking even on them. 

[simongarnerisgod]

2 hours ago, JacknOry said:

They would have to turn into regular 10-15 goal strikers to even hope of breaking even on them. 

proper coaching would and a bit of attacking football would make gallagher and armstrong a great match together,for the size of him gallagher does`nt put it about enough,he should be up for knockdowns with armstrong playing off him,if you got those two combining well,their value would rocket,not sure what you can do with brereton tbh

[rigger]

21 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

proper coaching would and a bit of attacking football would make gallagher and armstrong a great match together,for the size of him gallagher does`nt put it about enough,he should be up for knockdowns with armstrong playing off him,if you got those two combining well,their value would rocket,not sure what you can do with brereton tbh

With Brereton I would start him with an attacking partner against the teams with weaker defences. And yes I would class Wigan as one of those weaker teams.

[Eddie]

People are very selective when being critical of our recruitment policy.

The £12 million for 2 forwards line gets trotted out pretty regularly, but this fails to include Armstrong as part of that analysis. I get the Brereton gamble, I didn't really get the Gallagher deal, and the Armstrong deal looks like a bargain - so overall I wouldn't say we've done terribly. 

The reality is that we've spent £15 million on 3 forwards and there is a good chance that we would get almost all of that back selling Armstrong alone (and maybe even more for just him if a couple of clubs got interested at the right time). 

That's not an awful recruitment policy.

Equally, Armstrong is a good example of why we need to show Brereton a bit of patience. Armstrong was a headless chicken for much of his early spell here (and elsewhere for that matter). Brereton needs more time to develop. More time in the side. And an opportunity to get some confidence. 

He may end up being a failure here. He may end up being a failure wherever he goes next. But we should at least get off his back enough to give him the chance to succeed. This time without a crowd could be just what he needs, but it does often feel as if many are hoping for him to fail so that they can say that they were right. I just don't get that. 

[Mattyblue]

It’s a good policy. But you need to find value when initially purchasing the players.

£7million was a panic price for such a raw young lad and ever getting that money back will be difficult. The fact AA will probably make us a good profit doesn’t mean we just go ‘ah well’ over BB. Every signing needs to be looked at on its merits. We are a middling second tier club with a low income, that was a hell of an outlay.

[Eddie]

But the fact that we may lose money on Brereton or Gallagher doesn't mean that our recruitment policy is awful. They aren't all going to be great signings and they aren't all going to turn into a star player or a huge profit - even when signing expensive (relatively speaking) players. 

That's all. Look back through this thread and you won't find a lot of people truly weighing up our recruitment policy, they simply should 'BRERETON AWFUL. GALLAGHER AWFUL. MOWBRAY OUT'. 

And, yes, if we sign 3 players and a few years later we've made a profit on those three dealings I think we can say 'ah well' to the fact that we lost money on one of them.