Thought this was worth a thread.

Bizarre.

Just bizarre.

Let's keep tabs on Stokecelona and their abounding attacking creativity in this thread.

9 goals in 10 games.

DAT ATTACKING CREATIVITY.

I do find it funny that they are at Stoke tbh but at the same time i think all 4 are vastly overrated, except for Afellay who makes Sturridge look like Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to fitness.

sure, but enter your time machine and don't kill Hitler, but go to 2010 and tell any random football fan that Stoke sport those 4 in their squad in 2015, and they'll feel like in some alternate history novel where everything is wrong because Hitler won, since you didn't kill him.

This looks like a dream attack in pro evo five years ago

Unfair stipulation Hans tbh

these players never deserved more than a mid table PL team at any point of their careers .

talking about former players of my club :

Shaiqir is easily one of most overhyped player ever . lol
I still remind when he was capable of nothing in 90 minutes, yet I read Inter was idiot to sell him ( simply just Inter fans saw him ) and replacing him with Perisic. . who isn't a top player, but at least he's useful.
Seriously  I still don't have realized what are Shaqiri's real qualities
He's lived on hype for that hat trick against Honduras, just NT teams and WC Cup can give us these frauds

Arnautovic is legit , but he is not more than an Everton

That's all hindsight though.

Can I remind you how happy you were to sign Shaqiri, Robes?

Shaqiri was an excellent squad player for us in the 12/13 season, there's no doubt about it. He made a number of great performances.

He was 20 then, so to say it was clear he would never be good enough for anything other than a PL mid table club is about as stupid as those people claiming to have rated player xy since forever.
Which is your favourite thing, farfan, right.

And Arnautovic was on his way to become the Austrian Cristiano ffs.
Bojan, Afellay were great talents too.

You're sinning Farfan.

^ Yes, but not just me , the mass to welcome him at Milano airport is story  . we were teased for this.
yet he it was just ... Shaqiri  . he is been surrounded by excessive hype . yes, he was a good supporting player in Bayern , but it's Bayern .He had amazing player around and Bayern is so organized that even the average or good players can result very improved. Now Coman .. he's definitely talented, but he showed nothing of this in Juve. Now in Bayern he looks 10 times better. or do we want to talk about Mario Gomez ? He looked like even better he was really imo.
Then I don't believe it was a case Bayern sold him to Inter for just 15 mln . 15 mln in this market ....
For me  prime Shaqiri was that admired in Basel .
He looked like a future star and infact the best European teams were on him and Bayern won the race to take him. Noone could expect Salah would 've been the best product soon
Then Shaqiri regressed and probably even this his obsession to be a bodybuilder ( PLS .  ) didn't help him.
He lost agility and he become swollen-headed imo.

Robespierre wrote:
Arnautovic is legit , but he is not more than an Everton

No but I agree with Hans, it's an unexpected and somewhat interesting bunch of attacking players Stoke have acquired. Sure, pretty much all of them have at least at some point been overhyped, but the better way to look at is, imo, that players like these will pretty much guarantee that Stoke don't get relegated and that's already success, imo. Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa are all arguably bigger clubs than Stoke, but are relegation-threatened. So, Stoke have done a good job getting players like these who actually deliver, even if it's not quite as high quality as their prime hype may have suggested.

Shaqiri's physique is not fit for a footballer. It loses him a lot of agility, and doesn't work well fro him.

All these 4 players, with the exception of Arnautovic, are proof that we could never accurately rate young players, as they could fail to develop at all.

Art Morte wrote:

Robespierre wrote:
Arnautovic is legit , but he is not more than an Everton

No but I agree with Hans, it's an unexpected and somewhat interesting bunch of attacking players Stoke have acquired. Sure, pretty much all of them have at least at some point been overhyped, but the better way to look at is, imo, that players like these will pretty much guarantee that Stoke don't get relegated and that's already success, imo. Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa are all arguably bigger clubs than Stoke, but are relegation-threatened. So, Stoke have done a good job getting players like these who actually deliver, even if it's not quite as high quality as their prime hype may have suggested.

What it can also effect is a shift from Pulis-esque wrestling/hoof-ball.

Funnily, Arnautovic is miles better than the hyped up Shaqiri, Afellay and Bojan.

Yeah, I like Arnautovic, he's got end-product. But Bojan is also doing well, I wouldn't say Arnautovic is necessarily better than him. And we should wait longer before writing Shaqiri off as someone who couldn't cut it even at Stoke.

Afellay is the opposite of Arnautovic, no end-product whatsoever.

Afellay isn't fair to compare to the others since he was once a fantastic player and even looked great in some Barcelona games, but his career was completely ruined by injury. He's not the same player he was before.

Shaqiri I always thought was overhyped, but I also feel that any player can probably look good playing as a squad option at Bayern (for the most part). That team is very good and very well coached.

Bojan was looking good last year before getting injured. Still young enough to improve, but he wasn't great at Ajax either so who knows.

Dem Barca wannabes

So...
#1. Are these players really average (or worse)?
#2. Have they regressed (badly) over last few years??
#3. Can they do better under another (better) manager???

iftikhar wrote:So...
#1. Are these players really average (or worse)?
#2. Have they regressed (badly) over last few years??
#3. Can they do better under another (better) manager???

Saw only bojan and shaqiri playing. Definitely have great potential would improve under gud managers

Afellay was great at Schalke. If I remember correct he was their best player that season.

BAYERN_MUNICH wrote:Afellay was great at Schalke. If I remember correct he was their best player that season.

Umm... according to Wiki, he only played 10 Bundesliga games for Schalke. I don't really see how he could've been the player of the season...

Problem with afellay is his hamstrings are basically destroyed. And at his age he really won't bounce back. It sucks how injury can ruin a player but i think he could have handled some of his better and not rushed back into training..

Sucks cause I was a huge fan of his

Oh common now Robes, dont bash Shaquiri cuz Inter made a stupid decision to sell him. He is not world class but after the sale of Kovacic and Hernanes, Shaquiri could have gotten minutes with his versatility. I mean, i prefer Shaquiri in CAM than Brozovic ANY DAY.

Again, Afellay was a beast when he was young and healthy. Injury ruined him. He was very talented and quick.

Arnautovic is the only one improved during the years, he wasn't so good in Werder Bremen , he was definitely more inconsistent. Now he makes always his match , and he can be also effective.
He belongs to this new interesting Austrian generation that dominated its group