Ismael Kenneth Kone

[Ruffian]

14 hours ago, MauditYvon said:

We are in August 

 

14 hours ago, sebdeserio said:

He's been there less than a year. Not all our players will have it as easy as Davies and David most will have their bumps in the road. 

All true, I just have a poor opinion of the English Championship for young Canadians. I'd prefer if they went to quality teams in Belgium, Netherlands, Austria and Portugal. Similar levels, just more upside.

[Obinna]

2 minutes ago, Ruffian said:

All true, I just have a poor opinion of the English Championship for young Canadians. I'd prefer if they went to quality teams in Belgium, Netherlands, Austria and Portugal. Similar levels, just more upside.

Prospect of European games and prospect of winning domestic silverware. The appeal of the English Championship is getting promoted, but you may or may not feature after that if there are wholesale changes, which isn't uncommon. 

[InglewoodJack]

We eventually want our best players in the best leagues, and while they may look better in some of those slightly lower leagues, if they can't cut it in the championship, they're not going to cut it in the premier league. If Kone does turn out to not be that calibre of player, I think there will always be a spot for him in Belgium or Netherlands or similar leagues.

[MauditYvon]

4 hours ago, Obinna said:

The appeal of the English Championship is getting promoted

Exactly. This, and the paycheck (and maybe you can add the possibility of playing an EPL side in cups).

Because in term of level it’s clearly not better than MLS.

Edited August 29, 2023 by MauditYvon

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

On 8/27/2023 at 8:23 PM, InglewoodJack said:

I guess as their most expensive player he’s going to get a lot of heat...

Is he truly their highest paid player or do you mean just on Transfermarkt?

https://www.transfermarkt.us/fc-watford/startseite/verein/1010

[Kadenge]

52 minutes ago, MauditYvon said:

Exactly. This, and the paycheck (and maybe you can add the possibility of playing an EPL side in cups).

Because in term of level it’s clearly not better than MLS.

If the Championship level is not higher than MLS, shouldn't Kone  be performing and starting for Watford?..because he certainly did for Montreal. I realize there are other factors involved. Laryea would be another example of a player who was/is probably a top 5 RB in MLS?

[InglewoodJack]

16 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

Is he truly their highest paid player or do you mean just on Transfermarkt?

https://www.transfermarkt.us/fc-watford/startseite/verein/1010

I meant per transfermarkt, but I think he was their highest fee paid for any current player

[Kadenge]

2 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I meant per transfermarkt, but I think he was their highest fee paid for any current player

Do you recall what the transfer fee was?

[narduch]

6 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

Do you recall what the transfer fee was?

8 million Euros according to this tweet

 

 

[MauditYvon]

1 hour ago, Kadenge said:

If the Championship level is not higher than MLS, shouldn't Kone  be performing and starting for Watford?..because he certainly did for Montreal. I realize there are other factors involved. Laryea would be another example of a player who was/is probably a top 5 RB in MLS?

Told you, we are in August.

Also, Koné wasn’t the most used player for Montréal.

[Bigandy]

16 hours ago, Kadenge said:

If the Championship level is not higher than MLS, shouldn't Kone  be performing and starting for Watford?..because he certainly did for Montreal. I realize there are other factors involved. Laryea would be another example of a player who was/is probably a top 5 RB in MLS?

Laryea would start and be one of the best players on every team in the MLS (messi-type players not counting). Theres no scenario where he wouldnt play for half a season on any mls team. The fact he cant even see minutes in the championship indicates that its quite a jump up.... maybe the technical level is not a massive upgrade, but physicality and speed of play sure seem to be. 

[Obinna]

7 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

Laryea would start and be one of the best players on every team in the MLS (messi-type players not counting). Theres no scenario where he wouldnt play for half a season on any mls team. The fact he cant even see minutes in the championship indicates that its quite a jump up.... maybe the technical level is not a massive upgrade, but physicality and speed of play sure seem to be. 

I don't watch the Championship enough now a days to have a strong opinion, but I do know that Laryea was playing on a Nottingham Forest team that was pretty much unstoppable. They tore through the Championship in that half season, climbed all the way up into the play-off picture, where they did the business and earned promotion. 

That's not a typical situtation. The fact Laryea couldn't get into that team means nothing in the debate of "is he good enough for the Championship". You definitely cannot take that single data point to suggest the Championship is a big step up from MLS. 

I honestly feel that Laryea would be able to get ample playing time at most clubs in that division, but it depends on who he joins and at what point of the season. Again, back then he basically couldn't have joined a worst team from the perspective of playing time. Was there a team more in-form than Forest during that half season? The player keeping him on the bench joined Spurs when the season ended. Speaks to what he was up against. 

[InglewoodJack]

Speaking of Laryea, it's looking like Djed Spence, future premier league star and preventer of Laryea playing time is headed on loan to Leeds. Oh well.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

15 hours ago, MauditYvon said:

Told you, we are in August.

Also, Koné wasn’t the most used player for Montréal.

If you get pulled at half for not putting in the effort on the press, it doesn't matter what month it is. (We know Kone has the ability and physicality.) It is not a great sign and is something that will work against getting more chances to shine.

He doesn't even have a cup this week because they lost in the first round.

But here's hoping training and circumstances mean he does get chances and grabs on with both hands.

[Bigandy]

5 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I don't watch the Championship enough now a days to have a strong opinion, but I do know that Laryea was playing on a Nottingham Forest team that was pretty much unstoppable. They tore through the Championship in that half season, climbed all the way up into the play-off picture, where they did the business and earned promotion. 

That's not a typical situtation. The fact Laryea couldn't get into that team means nothing in the debate of "is he good enough for the Championship". You definitely cannot take that single data point to suggest the Championship is a big step up from MLS. 

I honestly feel that Laryea would be able to get ample playing time at most clubs in that division, but it depends on who he joins and at what point of the season. Again, back then he basically couldn't have joined a worst team from the perspective of playing time. Was there a team more in-form than Forest during that half season? The player keeping him on the bench joined Spurs when the season ended. Speaks to what he was up against. 

I see what youre saying and agree. 

The counter point would be that Miami is unstoppable right now and laryea would still get minutes. You could argue that miami is an even less typical situation than forest was. So I see the ceiling of the championship being much higher than that of MLS. 

Spence joined spurs on potential and is likely going back to the championship. Hes a quality player no doubt, but hes not a premier league quality player at the moment. tough spot for laryea but theres no spot like that in MLS where laryea gets benched IMO.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

31 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Speaking of Laryea, it's looking like Djed Spence, future premier league star and preventer of Laryea playing time is headed on loan to Leeds. Oh well.

I said about Spence at the time, he needs more tools than being stronger and faster than everyone else because he won't be up a level. Seemingly he hasn't gained those yet.

Laryea came at bad time.  Copper is actually a very good coach and went with what worked, a dominant force on one side and veteran stability on the other.  

I agree that lots of other teams in the division could have used Richie.

It is a division of very disparate quality.  MLS is a lot more even, in my view.  Forest had not finished higher than 7th in well over ten years, they were going to ride their hot hands if they were smart. 

Edited August 30, 2023 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[Kadenge]

7 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

 

I agree that lots of other team in the division could have used Richie.

 

It's unfortunate he did not go this route as any ambitions of playing in Europe have probably ended even though he still has a contract with NF. Nothing against MLS but I'm not sure he can take his game any further by playing where he has been his entire career.

[InglewoodJack]

19 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

I said about Spence at the time, he needs more tools than being stronger and faster than everyone else because he won't be up a level. Seemingly he hasn't gained those yet.

Laryea came at bad time.  Copper is actually a very good coach and went with what worked, a dominant force on one side and veteran stability on the other.  

I agree that lots of other teams in the division could have used Richie.

It is a division of very disparate quality.  MLS is a lot more even, in my view.  Forest had not finished higher than 7th in well over ten years, they were going to ride their hot hands if they were smart. 

Yeah, exactly. He came in at the worst time, when he was bought, NF wasn’t meant to be getting promoted, and as a business, they’re not going to offload a valuable player like Laryea to a rival for the trivial reason that “they can’t play him”, so he got burned there. Just really bad luck, but he could absolutely play in the championship. 

[Obinna]

24 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I see what youre saying and agree. 

The counter point would be that Miami is unstoppable right now and laryea would still get minutes. You could argue that miami is an even less typical situation than forest was. So I see the ceiling of the championship being much higher than that of MLS. 

Spence joined spurs on potential and is likely going back to the championship. Hes a quality player no doubt, but hes not a premier league quality player at the moment. tough spot for laryea but theres no spot like that in MLS where laryea gets benched IMO.

That's a fair point.

It's also worth mentioning that Laryea is a known commodity in MLS so given his reputation (and positional versitility) he'd likely get his reps somewhere on the field for Miami. That's not the case in the English Championship, where he doesn't have the resume and body of work. There are no fresh memories of Laryea doing damage and so managers don't have a reference point to say "I need that guy on my squad". The opposite is true in MLS, of course. 

Another point - Miami (or whomever) don't have anywhere close to the same pressure that an English Championship side like Forest would have to "finish the job" and promote to the English Premier League. There are a lot of pointless games in the MLS regular season and so it's much easier to rotate a guy in under those circumstances. Gaining promotion has massive financial implications and for a traditionally big club like Forest there were cultural implications in terms of what promotion would mean for the club. This is another reason why I don't think we can draw conclusions based on his unique situation at Forest that season. 

All of that said though, I do believe the ceiling is higher in the championship. I don't know about much higher, but I do think it's higher. You have freshly relegated clubs that sometimes remain largely intact. They are deeper than any MLS team and there's anywhere from 1 to 3 clubs like that any given season (like Leicester City).

Then, you have the clubs who were relegated the season before (like Watford) that remain somewhat intact, so there is a lot of quality there. And so to bring it back to Kone, this is why I don't read much into his struggles. He did make an upgrade moving from Montreal to Watford and he's a young footballer. Someone in the thread said development isn't always linear and would agree. 

[Bigandy]

19 minutes ago, Obinna said:

 

Another point - Miami (or whomever) don't have anywhere close to the same pressure that an English Championship side like Forest would have to "finish the job" and promote to the English Premier League. There are a lot of pointless games in the MLS regular season and so it's much easier to rotate a guy in under those circumstances. Gaining promotion has massive financial implications and for a traditionally big club like Forest there were cultural implications in terms of what promotion would mean for the club. This is another reason why I don't think we can draw conclusions based on his unique situation at Forest that season. 

 

Great point!!

[costarg]

Coming off at 46' isn't usually a good thing, however, we need to look at the big picture.  Have a look at the minutes he came on at when he started on the bench: 66, 61, 56 & 46.  So it might just be the managers style.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

12 minutes ago, costarg said:

Coming off at 46' isn't usually a good thing, however, we need to look at the big picture.  Have a look at the minutes he came on at when he started on the bench: 66, 61, 56 & 46.  So it might just be the managers style.

The manager's comments about the game would suggest otherwise.

[InglewoodJack]

6 hours ago, costarg said:

Coming off at 46' isn't usually a good thing, however, we need to look at the big picture.  Have a look at the minutes he came on at when he started on the bench: 66, 61, 56 & 46.  So it might just be the managers style.

Well, it’s mostly because their team sucks. But he more or less directly called Kone out after the game. 

[costarg]

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

Well, it’s mostly because their team sucks. But he more or less directly called Kone out after the game. 

I didn't know that.  Well that just sucks.

[saladroit]

16 hours ago, Obinna said:

That's not a typical situtation. The fact Laryea couldn't get into that team means nothing in the debate of "is he good enough for the Championship". You definitely cannot take that single data point to suggest the Championship is a big step up from MLS. 

 

especially since on the flipside you could point to someone like auston trusty who was a decent to good (not great or upper tier) CB on colorado and then immediately became a top championship CB for birmingham city (was BCFC's player of the season) and just got himself a move to sheffield united in the premier league a year later, extrapolating singular moves/career arcs to compare leagues is worthless

Edited August 31, 2023 by saladroit