[Albion] Matt O Riley [26/08/24 - sings on a 5-year deal]

[dazzer6666]

Agree with this.

Will he be patient though.

Everything I’ve heard from him points to him being a decent, level-headed character - no reason to think not

 

[Jim in the West]

Heard someone say tonight they are being careful with him this season due to the injury taking longer than expected to fully heal.

That rings true - I've been surprised how tentative he sometimes looks - the injury was, of course, pretty horrendous, and I wouldn't blame him if that tackle was constantly at the back of his mind.

 

[Han Solo]

Matt is a good player with some great edge qualities but unfortunately for him, pretty much everything has gone against him:
- Long term injury
- Georginio has reached a higher level quicker than anticipated
- Ayari has turned out to be a good PL player
- Diego Gomez was signed and has shown he will certainly be competitive
- Tactical changes (less number 10s per game)
- Solly is back

O'Riley was not a bad or incorrect signing. He has the qualities to play and do well in the Premier League, but in a team competing for European football I think maybe not.
Think it is unlikely that his spell with us will last past this season. Should be plenty of interest from less good PL clubs and we might go with that.

 

[Silverhatch]

Heard someone say tonight they are being careful with him this season due to the injury taking longer than expected to fully heal.

Is the right approach. He was lucky not to be crippled. When we’re in the CL and defending the FA Cup we’ll need all hands.

 

[HP Seagull]

The question probably is, does he go on loan next season to acclimatise to English football, or do we offload and try and recoup our money? Apart form Gomez looking good, we've got wonderkid Yalcouye coming back next season, as well as possibly Buonanotte with a season's PL experience in him, and Enciso(?). Oh....and Osman, maybe.
Still feel pretty much the same about Wieffer, TBH.

It was noticeable how much calmer and controlled we were for the final few minutes when Weiffer came on.

Long term I think he might be first choice with Baleba, although Gomez will have something to say about that if he continues last night’s form. I might depend on how we want to play, as it can’t always be that frantic.

 

[Zeberdi]

I think Weiffer is useful now and will definitely come good. Useful as a physical replacement for Baleba. Especially if we continue to utilise Jack all over the place.

It's MoR who's the odd one out who doesn't have the physicality to do what Baleba or Weiffer does or the passing levels of Ayari or Gomez.

Hopefully he'll figure out what he's for and can force it, but will have to be satisfied with waiting.

Agree. Weiffer just needs to build up minutes. When new players get injuries so early on in the season, it makes bedding in physically and mentally difficult (and that royal fc*k up by him and several other players when he came off the bench at Wolves didn’t help) but I still think he has oodles of potential to become an important player for us, especially if/when we lose Baleba in the summer.

O’Riley has still to convince me. I don’t think he’s got quite the physical attributes/stamina or aggressive hunger needed at this level although some of that might stem from his nasty ankle injury and like Weiffer just needs minutes. However, he’s testimony to the fact there’s a big jump between the SPL and the EPL - to me, he just doesn’t looked comfortable in his own skin out there - FH wants sprinting, intense football but I’m watching O’Riley thinking he runs like a girl with two flat feet. Maybe he’s impressing in training but I think we’ll either sell him on in the summer or give him a loan - there’s too many central attacking midfielders ahead of him.

 

[PlayMoran]

4-3-3 would suit him better. Both Gomez and him would benefit from that shape.

4-2-3-1 is working though, so that won't change.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It was noticeable how much calmer and controlled we were for the final few minutes when Weiffer came on.

Long term I think he might be first choice with Baleba, although Gomez will have something to say about that if he continues last night’s form. I might depend on how we want to play, as it can’t always be that frantic.

A point of order, I see it as a squad game now, with the bench as important as the starters.
We brought on five yesterday, for tactical reasons primarily:

 

[A1X]

The way I'm choosing to look at O'Riley right now is that we're probably going to lose Baleba in the summer, so we've effectively signed an extra CM so they're ready to take over from him when he goes having had a year to embed themselves in the squad and familiarise themselves with the club, Wieffer the same but he's obviously adapted sooner.

I also think w can't underestimate the impact the injury had or the knock of confidence he would have taken from that.

 

[HP Seagull]

A point of order, I see it as a squad game now, with the bench as important as the starters.
We brought on five yesterday, for tactical reasons primarily:

View attachment 197340

Yes good point. I agree.

 

[dazzer6666]

A point of order, I see it as a squad game now, with the bench as important as the starters.
We brought on five yesterday, for tactical reasons primarily:

View attachment 197340

We were shitting ourselves a bit when Bart went down injured though as we'd already used the 5