FC Bayern Forum

[IsiahRashad]

Hansi Flick 'could well imagine' Emre Can and Dodô at Bayern in January. Flick also wanted Timo Werner last summer, however as an assistant manager back then, he didn't have enough influence on transfers [Kicker]

I don't know how to feel about this.

[aterford]

Don't particularly rate Can, think Dodo was awfully overpriced, fine with Werner.
On the whole it's not the best or not the worst ideas. At least he has the (some of) right positions to reinforce in mind, IMO

[#12]

Seriously: think of it what you will, of course my statement was largely influenced by personal emotions/feelings and not by math...

Well, it would be quite sad if you had worked out the math and came out with that conclusion.

I‘ll just point out here that I CAN work out the math...
That math, not complicated math

[PunkCapitalist]

Don't particularly rate Can, think Dodo was awfully overpriced, fine with Werner.
On the whole it's not the best or not the worst ideas. At least he has the (some of) right positions to reinforce in mind, IMO

But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

[#12]

Don't particularly rate Can, think Dodo was awfully overpriced, fine with Werner.
On the whole it's not the best or not the worst ideas. At least he has the (some of) right positions to reinforce in mind, IMO

But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

If FC Deutschland means Kimmich, Sané, Havertz and Gnabry, great... If it means Tah, Klostermann and Schulz, no thanks...

[PunkCapitalist]

Don't particularly rate Can, think Dodo was awfully overpriced, fine with Werner.
On the whole it's not the best or not the worst ideas. At least he has the (some of) right positions to reinforce in mind, IMO

But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

If FC Deutschland means Kimmich, Sané, Havertz and Gnabry, great... If it means Tah, Klostermann and Schulz, no thanks...

It means Goretzka over Tolisso, and also Kimmich in MF... You know what it means, don't play dumb.

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

[#12]

[quote="aterford"]Don't particularly rate Can, think Dodo was awfully overpriced, fine with Werner.
On the whole it's not the best or not the worst ideas. At least he has the (some of) right positions to reinforce in mind, IMO

But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

If FC Deutschland means Kimmich, Sané, Havertz and Gnabry, great... If it means Tah, Klostermann and Schulz, no thanks...

It means Goretzka over Tolisso, and also Kimmich in MF... You know what it means, don't play dumb.

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk[/quote]

I wasn’t... I was pointing out it COULD be a great strategy... We both know our incompetent board will go another way though...

[aterford]

But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

If FC Deutschland means Kimmich, Sané, Havertz and Gnabry, great... If it means Tah, Klostermann and Schulz, no thanks...

It means Goretzka over Tolisso, and also Kimmich in MF... You know what it means, don't play dumb.

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

I mean, the thing is that at the moment there's just not a compelling reality-based argument to be favoring Tolisso over Goretzka right now. And I say that as someone who's often been fairly critical of Goretzka and in general does believe Tolisso to be the more 'complete' player.

But most of the arguments in his favor are largely arguments based in theory or speculation: He tracks back more, he is more versatile, he controls the midfield better, etc. All of which sound great - but when push comes to shove, in actuality - not just in theory - Goretzka's simply been the better and more effective player all season long. Having these additional qualities in theory means nothing when they're not realized in practice.

One could say "But Coco has been recovering from injury, he has been hurt," and there's some truth to that - but that then undermines the argument against Flick. We can't say Flick's making a wrong choice by starting Goretzka over Tolisso - even though Goretzka's been better - and then say that the only reason Goretza's better is because Coco's recovering from injury. That's not consistent. If Coco's still hurt or not back to full form, we can't really criticize the coach for preferring the player who's currently more fit and in better form. I don't think it has anything to do with FC Deutschland (or doesn't HAVE to be that) - Ignore the nationalities: he's playing the player who's more fit and in better form, that's all.

Similarly I'm not sure Kimmich in midfield is a huge problem either - and again, that's coming from someone who's often thought he's just okay in midfield and better suited to RB. But Flick wouldn't be the first manager to see him as a midfielder. That was his primary role growing up, and even a manager like Guardiola saw him as a midfielder before injury forced him to put him in new roles. And here's the thing: Kimmich will be on the pitch either way. It's not like Flick is shoehorning him into the midfield because that's the only way he can get Kimmich onto the pitch and he needs him on the pitch to have more Germans - if not at midfield, he's playing RB, but he's playing either way. So again, I don't think it really speaks so much to "FC Deutschland" as it does to a simple tactical decision from the manager.

And finally: I still don't rate him that highly at all and I'm not at all regretting we didn't get him, but Can has played really really solid for Dortmund since joining them, so, idk.

I don't think it's too much to be alarmed by, though. Coaches always gravitate to what they're comfortable with. Flick has next to no experience as a head coach prior to this and is a long-time German NT assistant. It's only natural that he's more familiar with current or former NT players than others or feels more comfortable with them. Pep brought over former Barca-player Thiago, Carlo got former Madrid-player James, Jupp wanted former Leverkusen-player Vidal, Kovac got Croatian-Perisic, etc. I'm not too worried about Flick just yet. Every coach will lean towards players they are more comfortable/familiar with and this is just amplified with less experienced coaches. So...yeah. I won't worry about it too much yet. If every player we're linked with for the next couple of weeks/months starts being strictly Germans (and 'average' ones at that) then there might be something to it, but it's not really cause for concern at all right now IMO

[PunkCapitalist]

[quote="PunkCapitalist"]But it (Emre Can) does underline his commitment to the dumb FC Deutschland project over quality .

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

If FC Deutschland means Kimmich, Sané, Havertz and Gnabry, great... If it means Tah, Klostermann and Schulz, no thanks...

It means Goretzka over Tolisso, and also Kimmich in MF... You know what it means, don't play dumb.

Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

I mean, the thing is that at the moment there's just not a compelling reality-based argument to be favoring Tolisso over Goretzka right now. And I say that as someone who's often been fairly critical of Goretzka and in general does believe Tolisso to be the more 'complete' player.

But most of the arguments in his favor are largely arguments based in theory or speculation: He tracks back more, he is more versatile, he controls the midfield better, etc. All of which sound great - but when push comes to shove, in actuality - not just in theory - Goretzka's simply been the better and more effective player all season long. Having these additional qualities in theory means nothing when they're not realized in practice.

One could say "But Coco has been recovering from injury, he has been hurt," and there's some truth to that - but that then undermines the argument against Flick. We can't say Flick's making a wrong choice by starting Goretzka over Tolisso - even though Goretzka's been better - and then say that the only reason Goretza's better is because Coco's recovering from injury. That's not consistent. If Coco's still hurt or not back to full form, we can't really criticize the coach for preferring the player who's currently more fit and in better form. I don't think it has anything to do with FC Deutschland (or doesn't HAVE to be that) - Ignore the nationalities: he's playing the player who's more fit and in better form, that's all.

Similarly I'm not sure Kimmich in midfield is a huge problem either - and again, that's coming from someone who's often thought he's just okay in midfield and better suited to RB. But Flick wouldn't be the first manager to see him as a midfielder. That was his primary role growing up, and even a manager like Guardiola saw him as a midfielder before injury forced him to put him in new roles. And here's the thing: Kimmich will be on the pitch either way. It's not like Flick is shoehorning him into the midfield because that's the only way he can get Kimmich onto the pitch and he needs him on the pitch to have more Germans - if not at midfield, he's playing RB, but he's playing either way. So again, I don't think it really speaks so much to "FC Deutschland" as it does to a simple tactical decision from the manager.

And finally: I still don't rate him that highly at all and I'm not at all regretting we didn't get him, but Can has played really really solid for Dortmund since joining them, so, idk.

I don't think it's too much to be alarmed by, though. Coaches always gravitate to what they're comfortable with. Flick has next to no experience as a head coach prior to this and is a long-time German NT assistant. It's only natural that he's more familiar with current or former NT players than others or feels more comfortable with them. Pep brought over former Barca-player Thiago, Carlo got former Madrid-player James, Jupp wanted former Leverkusen-player Vidal, Kovac got Croatian-Perisic, etc. I'm not too worried about Flick just yet. Every coach will lean towards players they are more comfortable/familiar with and this is just amplified with less experienced coaches. So...yeah. I won't worry about it too much yet. If every player we're linked with for the next couple of weeks/months starts being strictly Germans (and 'average' ones at that) then there might be something to it, but it's not really cause for concern at all right now IMO[/quote]

I think you make a fair point in your last paragraph but not on the others. The reasons are that 1) we know from pre-Flick times that Tolisso is the better more complete midfielder vs Goretzka and is capable of dominating Madrid's MF alongside Thiago 2) Tolisso just hasn't been getting pretty much ANY minutes at all in order to build his form 3) Kimmich has left a huge hole in RB by moving to MF, which combined with point number 1) makes me believe it's a matter of FC Deutschland 4) Tolisso doesn't get minutes even if Goretzka is unavailable.

Overall, moving Kimmich to MF has created a ton of unnecessary problems (mediocre RB, lack of enough CBs, lack of space to play Tolisso) that pile up on those problems we already had (lack of top quality wingers, poor CBs).

I also think what you mention about Flick "falling back" to what he knows IS precisely FC Deutschland.


Sent from my Mi A3 using Tapatalk

[aterford]

The thing we also have to consider is that Flick is literally playing to earn a job. It's in his best interest to play the players who are in best form at the moment - and that means playing Goretzka rather than risking minutes rehabilitating Tolisso for the team. Harsh reality of it. Tolisso hasn't been the better player this year, it's that simple. There's extenuating circumstances and that might be unfair to him but it is what it is. Based on what we've seen from Tolisso this season, there's no argument to play him over Goretzka - like you've said, it's what he did in the past. Like I said, it sounds harsh, but it's business. If I'm Flick and someone comes to me and says "This guy was really good two years ago, you should give him more minutes over that guy who's playing better than him right now," I'm laughing them out of my office.

Pavard has largely been fine at RB. He's not as good as Kimmich but I wouldn't describe it as a "large hole" - and like I said, Kimmich is going to be on the pitch either way. It'd be "FC Deutschland" if we had a top-class RB and top-class midfielders to choose from and Kimmich was getting shoehorned on to the pitch in midfield just because Flick likes his Germans, but that's clearly not the case here. Kimmich is one of the first names on the teamsheet regardless of where he's playing; I don't think there's any evidence by which one could conclude Kimmich is getting played OR getting played in midfield because it's Flick's goal to make "FC Deutschland". And if we're being honest with ourselves: He's frankly been a better midfielder than Tolisso this year, too.

I too prefer Kimmich at RB. But I reject the idea that he's playing in midfield for "FC Deutschland"-sake. It's a tactical decision by the manager and nothing more. Same for Goretzka over Tolisso. He's playing the better player, there doesn't need to be any weird motive to it. Occam's razor type situation - it requires a lot more assumptions to land on the belief that Flick's targeting these players specifically because he wants an all-German (or disproportionately German) FC Bayern or that he plays German players ahead of non-German players (of which there is only 1.5 examples - Goretzka over Tolisso and Kimmich, who as I've said - plays either way, not at the expense of anyone) because he wants us to have FC Deutschland than it does to land on the belief that Flick is a.) Playing the player(s) who are currently in better form as it improves his odds of getting the permanent appointment and b.) making simple tactical decisions that fit his needs best. Far too sparse evidence to settle on much beyond that at the moment.

[Firefox1234]

Can't see tweet? Click here!

[aterford]

Can't see tweet? Click here!

Can't see tweet? Click here!

Quite vague, but perhaps?

The only two clubs who I can think would want to avoid a "Haaland situation" would be us and Leipzig - the only two I can recall (Beside BVB) that were really linked with him. Could perhaps be in Leipzig if they sell Werner and need a replacement - or perhaps in Bayern if we decide we don't want Werner (and want a Lewy-replacement type still.)

David, FWIW, he's just turned 20, born in Brooklyn (USA) but Canadian citizenship and plays for Canada NT. Valued at 20m - second most valuable Canadian behind our Davies. He can play anywhere in the attack - has experience at CF, SS, AM, LW, RW. Other clubs that have shown interest have been Arsenal (above), Leverkusen, Gladbach, Porto, Lyon, Ajax, Inter, Spurs, BVB, etc....

David-Davies Canadian connection? Our Werner-alternative Lewy-replacement? One can hope....

[Dumbledore7]

He's not that good tbh.

[#12]

So this kid is 20 and ain't no one ever heard of him and they compare him to a 19yo who is currently one of the top5 strikers in the world? Seems legit...

[aterford]

So this kid is 20 and ain't no one ever heard of him and they compare him to a 19yo who is currently one of the top5 strikers in the world? Seems legit...

I mean, I guess, but how many people heard about Haaland a year ago? Not a soul! And anyone who said they were keeping an eye on him at this time last year is probably lying, lol. Haaland's really exceptional but these things can move quickly. He's just moved to a "big" league in Jan 2018 and plays for a much worse team at that. Definitely not a sure thing - few are - but the price is quite low and like I said: with these youth players they do often go from total unknowns to household names very quickly (and this one is not at all unknown to big clubs' scouts, for that measure...)