Ismael Kenneth Kone

[Cadeau]

I havent really watched Watford so far but after seeing him in Montreal last year, the progress and increased presence/confidence is truly remarkable. Plus I like that he goes for goal from outside the box; we didnt/dont have enough of that.

[Unnamed Trialist]

2 hours ago, jonovision said:

I'm sure some of the usual dinosaurs will complain about this format but it certainly highlights the match that he had.

I like this sort of every touch video, because they show build ups, where the play goes to, otherwise you can't read the player at all. 

I too believe his ceiling has to be higher, and also am a bit worried about him being in Championship, because he needs to have a team that asks more of him in terms of technique, ball skills, so he can perfect his. If he is not in a top league by fall of 2024, say, I'll be concerned. You develop better at a higher level.

He has a few missed first touches first half, then settles down.

Is very right foot dominant, should add the left. When you are pressed you have to have that side option, if you have time you can use your dominant.

Were not that pressured, most of our play in our half we were not, so he, Staq and Oso had time in the build-up. Also--liked how the three of them worked together, nice midfield.

Sometimes he does not look like he knows his pass before he gets it, something to improve; but he does know his dribble or jimmy move when receiving if he's going to keep it. So he pays strong attention to the rivals on him (Championship will do that), needs to add awareness of his teammates on the first touch.

You can see Staq has a cleaner, crisper pass, it is technical as hell; while IK shuffles and shoves sometimes, though he's fairly accurate and he'll change the weight of passes well too. 

Usually a kid does not have this sort of hierarchy on a team, but he has it, Oso would say, "you do it", Hutch did too, ceding to him on a buildup, total reliance from his veteran teammates on his role on the field.

Tried to add the move into the box to help the attack. On two occasions he chose pass, in rather finesse situations at the top of the box, where he could have shot. He'll eventually figure it out.

Also seen here: Tajon sure has added defensive tenacity to his game, I already knew that from Champions League, but he is totally committed to pressing. 

And: Borjan looks like some phys ed teacher playing Sunday league at times.

[gator]

3 hours ago, jonovision said:

I'm sure some of the usual dinosaurs will complain about this format but it certainly highlights the match that he had.

He looked good from watching the match from BMO, this makes him look even better, obviously the video is highlighting his play specifically but everything was going through him in this rather dominant midfield performance! If he develops into what we see as good potential he will be a massive part of our set up for years to come!

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I too believe his ceiling has to be higher, and also am a bit worried about him being in Championship, because he needs to have a team that asks more of him in terms of technique, ball skills, so he can perfect his. If he is not in a top league by fall of 2024, say, I'll be concerned. You develop better at a higher level.

I think playing in the Championship right now with Watford is appropriate. He's obviously improved tremendously since going there. 

For sure he needs to go to a higher level, eventually. He also has to get playing time. Obviously, both needs must be balanced appropriately. Udinese next year would be an appropriate move up the ladder, but if he plays a full season in the Championship in 23-24, I don't think his development would stall. 

I think your timeline for being in a top 5 league is about right. For me, I cannot see him being in the Championship come fall 2024, unless it's a situation where Watford promote this year (unlikely), he plays EPL in 23-24, then he goes straight back down with them. 

[An Observer]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I like this sort of every touch video, because they show build ups, where the play goes to, otherwise you can't read the player at all. 

I too believe his ceiling has to be higher, and also am a bit worried about him being in Championship, because he needs to have a team that asks more of him in terms of technique, ball skills, so he can perfect his. If he is not in a top league by fall of 2024, say, I'll be concerned. You develop better at a higher level.

He has a few missed first touches first half, then settles down.

Is very right foot dominant, should add the left. When you are pressed you have to have that side option, if you have time you can use your dominant.

Were not that pressured, most of our play in our half we were not, so he, Staq and Oso had time in the build-up. Also--liked how the three of them worked together, nice midfield.

Sometimes he does not look like he knows his pass before he gets it, something to improve; but he does know his dribble or jimmy move when receiving if he's going to keep it. So he pays strong attention to the rivals on him (Championship will do that), needs to add awareness of his teammates on the first touch.

You can see Staq has a cleaner, crisper pass, it is technical as hell; while IK shuffles and shoves sometimes, though he's fairly accurate and he'll change the weight of passes well too. 

Usually a kid does not have this sort of hierarchy on a team, but he has it, Oso would say, "you do it", Hutch did too, ceding to him on a buildup, total reliance from his veteran teammates on his role on the field.

Tried to add the move into the box to help the attack. On two occasions he chose pass, in rather finesse situations at the top of the box, where he could have shot. He'll eventually figure it out.

Also seen here: Tajon sure has added defensive tenacity to his game, I already knew that from Champions League, but he is totally committed to pressing. 

And: Borjan looks like some phys ed teacher playing Sunday league at times.

This would be my exact summary of his performance and game. Agree with it 100%

[gator]

2 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I think playing in the Championship right now with Watford is appropriate. He's obviously improved tremendously since going there. 

 

As you probably know I watch The Championship weekly being a QPR fan, I think it is a perfect league for him to develop in, with 24 teams and vastly different budgets you get all different styles which is good for expanding his game! Many assume because it is a second tier league it is all kick and chase and although some of the teams do play route 1 there is some excellent football played, sadly just not much by QPR this season!

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, gator said:

As you probably know I watch The Championship weekly being a QPR fan, I think it is a perfect league for him to develop in, with 24 teams and vastly different budgets you get all different styles which is good for expanding his game! Many assume because it is a second tier league it is all kick and chase and although some of the teams do play route 1 there is some excellent football played, sadly just not much by QPR this season!

Good points. Champo is underrated for sure. 

Maybe what your side needs is a Junior Hoilett return 😁

[P-O]

Some complain he plays in the Championship at age 20?

Let's be real, where would Watford rank in the Belgium 1rst division? Or could Watford hold their own in the bottom half of the Portuguese Premier?

 

He is playing minutes versus men in a great league and it's already showed off since our World Cup. He could play another year in Watford, starting 40 and I'd be happy 

[eramosat]

I so enjoyed watching the video, and reading all the insightful comments here!  I am not much of an analyst, and I don't have much feel for the game.  But I have to say that watching last night's match from a Canuck fan perspective was fantastic.  The improvement in overall play v. World Cup, and even v. Curacao, was evident, and huge contributions from Kone, and others like Osorio and Kennedy....well, it was just a complete game.   The players must be happy too, right?

[Bertuzzi44]

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

[P-O]

54 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

They play 46 games a year + the 2 cups. It's a tough schedule with better fan support and away games.

 

[eramosat]

1 hour ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

my sense from a unsophisticated perspective is...yes? and roughly, where roughly means a significant overlap in player quality, and where significant means 60%.  And where the Championship is the superior partner...

And now you'll get more comments, and learn more, and so will I!  my thoughts are just that...thoughts, not pronouncements.

[Unnamed Trialist]

6 hours ago, gator said:

As you probably know I watch The Championship weekly being a QPR fan, I think it is a perfect league for him to develop in, with 24 teams and vastly different budgets you get all different styles which is good for expanding his game! Many assume because it is a second tier league it is all kick and chase and although some of the teams do play route 1 there is some excellent football played, sadly just not much by QPR this season!

I don't disagree, but we all know you are not going to be required of certain things. Go to La Liga and on any team, anyone who loses a ball on an easy one-touch, or makes a clearly wrong decision on a counter, causes a moan from the fans and maybe some gesticulation from teammates. You may not get the gaffer yelling from the sidelines, but he may get to it two days later in training. This is becoming more and more the case in EPL, where it used to matter less, because you'd win it back and start again, and oof, what pace! But now it matters far more. 

Then there is also the question of speed and pace. You can have high pace in Championship, but that does not mean effective playing speed as you'd get in EPL. We also see this in Concacaf, neither Mexico nor the US will make you dizzy and turn you in circles, get you really on your back foot (not now, not with their current set-ups), but we saw with Uruguay to a degree, then Croatia, that certain higher level sides will. 

This may not matter for a team's success, Watford and Kone may promote playing their way, and doing it well. But it does make a difference for a young player's development. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Unnamed Trialist

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

3 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

Why would that angle matter at this point, if he is clearly still making progress and improving as a player? Another angle about Koné that is interesting is that his development pathway was via a CF Montreal U-23 team that had no league to play in courtesy of sanctioning politics and he wasn't loaned out to CanPL at any point. Doesn't seem to have done him any harm. Something to bear in mind with other players like Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty maybe is that regular training against the likes of Bernardeschi and Insigne is probably a good way to gain experience and enhance skills to a level needed to be a factor in CMNT terms as long as he does ultimately break into the first team like Koné did in Montreal.

[dyslexic nam]

5 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

In my fairly unsophisticated opinion, I take the case of Kone as limited proof that the Championship is a superior league.  

He was a guy who was starting to become a force last year in MLS.  He didn’t totally dominate games or anything but you could see that it was coming - it was that relatively high talent (further showcased at the WC) that got him the transfer.   And since that time he has obviously improved.  His display against Honduras shows how much his play had progressed.  

Yet despite that progress, he isn’t yet dominating at the Championship level.  I think he is having a good spell at Watford but the level of play in that league is high enough where he isn’t yet a “world beating” midfielder.  But if he was somehow transplanted back into MLS, I believe he would be a dominant player at that level.  I can’t imagine that the player we saw against a Honduras wouldn’t be pulling the strings in MLS in a way that hasn’t happened in the Championship.  To me, that suggests the league is higher quality.  

Pretty unscientific, and suffering from an extremely small sample size, but it is what it is.  
 

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

5 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

No, I feel MLS is lower.  MLS has major depth issues due to salary cap mechanisms that put funnels most of the salary to a handful of players. This makes it hard to compare to other leagues.  If you want to compare to England, in my opinion, the DPs in MLS tend to be upper championship, mid to lower premier league quality, while the rest of MLS squads tend to range from League 1 to National South / North. Of course this is all my person opinion but is formed from having lived in both Canada and England, watching live football at these different levels. I think we should also keep in mind how much more competition there is to become a profession footballer at a high level in England / Europe compared to Canada / USA. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

15 minutes ago, Greatest Cockney Rip Off said:

No, I feel MLS is lower.  MLS has major depth issues due to salary cap mechanisms that put funnels most of the salary to a handful of players. This makes it hard to compare to other leagues.  If you want to compare to England, in my opinion, the DPs in MLS tend to be upper championship, mid to lower premier league quality, while the rest of MLS squads tend to range from League 1 to National South / North. Of course this is all my person opinion but is formed from having lived in both Canada and England, watching live football at these different levels. I think we should also keep in mind how much more competition there is to become a profession footballer at a high level in England / Europe compared to Canada / USA. 

I wouldn't say the spread of players is that great, but you are right that the rosters are not consistent in MLS. The spreads are too broad, so you get real journeymen, tending towards scrub, besides some real talent. Of course no European league is like that, every club in a given tier is weighted in relation to how budget is spent, meaning not breaking the bank on a few and undercutting the rest. You rarely see a guy in lower tiers in Spain, which is what I know, who is way better than the average, excepting really talented kids on a B team or loaned out who are emerging fast, that sort of thing.

Like in Championship, you could take a third to a nearly a half of all roster spots on a 2nd year team in Spain, and given the right environment, coach, set up, could be a competent first tier player. Certainly lots of the keepers, since there are so few decent roster spots for goalkeepers. How many guys in MLS could you imagine taking even a journeyman or role spot on an EPL, Liga or Bundesliga team? In some cases, no one is even close (Whitecaps for example, maybe only Gauld).

[CanadaFan123]

6 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

No, the championship is arguably a top 10 league in the world. Teams have massive budgets because they’re playing to get in the best/most lucrative league in the world. 
 

To be fair, MLS is probably top 20 though and only getting better. 

[Cicero]

1 hour ago, CanadaFan123 said:

No, the championship is arguably a top 10 league in the world. Teams have massive budgets because they’re playing to get in the best/most lucrative league in the world. 
 

To be fair, MLS is probably top 20 though and only getting better. 

The bottom 2/3 of the championship have overall salary budgets pretty similar to MLS.  Maybe they have more money for other things, but I doubt it. As discussed, MLS budgets are skewed to the top end because of DP's. The top Championship teams tend to have higher salary budgets as a hangover from being relegated or from an owner pushing for promotion, but after a few years in the championship, they settle back to Championship levels. It's not clear to me that the quality of the Championship is higher, but it's really hard to know without having teams compete head-to-head. There's also more consistency with field quality, weather and travel in England, which probably leads to more consistency in results, but I'm just speculating.  

Edited March 30, 2023 by Cicero

[costarg]

8 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

Its a more balanced league, where these is less gap between the best and the worst, both at the team level as well as the player level.  You don't have Insigne, but you also don't have the MLS journeymen filling a cap structure.

[CanadaFan123]

12 minutes ago, Cicero said:

The bottom 2/3 of the championship have overall salary budgets pretty similar to MLS.  Maybe they have more money for other things, but I doubt it. As discussed, MLS budgets are skewed to the top end because of DP's. The top Championship teams tend to have higher salary budgets as a hangover from being relegated or from an owner pushing for promotion, but after a few years in the championship, they settle back to Championship levels. It's not clear to me that the quality of the Championship is higher, but it's really hard to know without having teams compete head-to-head. There's also more consistency with field quality, weather and travel in England, which probably leads to more consistency in results, but I'm just speculating.  

The argument in favour of MLS relies on DPs. The reliance on DPs in MLS is what causes it to be lower level as teams can’t employ tactics that balanced squads can. How many players on TFC could play in the championship? 6? The average MLS player is closer to League 1 level and the strongest players are premier league level but the old adage “you’re only strongest as your weakest link” rings true. 

[Obinna]

2 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

In my fairly unsophisticated opinion, I take the case of Kone as limited proof that the Championship is a superior league.  

He was a guy who was starting to become a force last year in MLS.  He didn’t totally dominate games or anything but you could see that it was coming - it was that relatively high talent (further showcased at the WC) that got him the transfer.   And since that time he has obviously improved.  His display against Honduras shows how much his play had progressed.  

Yet despite that progress, he isn’t yet dominating at the Championship level.  I think he is having a good spell at Watford but the level of play in that league is high enough where he isn’t yet a “world beating” midfielder.  But if he was somehow transplanted back into MLS, I believe he would be a dominant player at that level.  I can’t imagine that the player we saw against a Honduras wouldn’t be pulling the strings in MLS in a way that hasn’t happened in the Championship.  To me, that suggests the league is higher quality.  

Pretty unscientific, and suffering from an extremely small sample size, but it is what it is.  
 

I feel exactly as you do, right down to the unsophisticated part. I have watched Championship games before, but just not many recently. Your take makes sense to me though. I would add that if you put Kone back in MLS right now his growth would probably slow. No way to prove that, just what I imagine and another way how I consider MLS to (for now) be inferior to the Championship.

[Aird25]

8 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

I don't want to derail this love-in, but is the Championship roughly the same level as MLS?

Well it seems you’ve done a pretty good job of just that

[InglewoodJack]

5 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 other players like Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty maybe is that regular training against the likes of Bernardeschi and Insigne is probably a good way to gain experience and enhance skills to a level needed to be a factor in CMNT terms as long as he does ultimately break into the first team like Koné did in Montreal.

Another way to look at this is that Watford is a yo-yo club, they're often in the premier league which means that they have some of the best resources in the championship, likely some of the best facilities, staff, etc. Sure, maybe playing a team like Huddersfield is lesser competition than LAFC or NYC, but in all cases, you're training day in day out with a team who wants to, and can reach the premier league, have the resources to do so, and who has a track record of developing future stars, and getting them to teams where they can flourish.

Watford is around the ~same place now as Nottingham Forest was last year with Laryea. Both are making a mad dash to promotion, Laryea couldn't even get on the pitch, and Kone is starting. It takes quite the player to be able to start week in week out while your team is battling for promotion.

[sebdeserio]

I'd prefer seeing him move to Udinese in the summer if that's in the cards but I will say that he looks bigger and stronger since going to Watford, and has made huge improvements in his defending. Staying in Watford wouldn't be the end of the world but there isn't much more to learn in the championship then he already has other than continuing to improve his decision making, which he'd get at Udinese as well.