gunnersaurus
Agreed. I don’t think the fact he hasn’t had much playing time is indicative of how management feels about him. I think the goal is to have him ready to hit the ground running instead of having lots of stops and starts. Arteta and company have shown their willingness to be patient, especially with players coming back from serious injury. ESR’s profile matches what we seem to be working toward and the talent (and demonstrated productivity) is clearly there, so I would be surprised if he’s shipped off or left to rot.
Okay, I’m not a fan of sportswashing, but…
How are folks here rating Lavia? I haven’t seen enough of him, so not sure how polished he looks, how he’d fit into our midfield, and how much of a probable step down this would be from Caicedo.
It’s a bummer he hasn’t worked out, but I wouldn’t slate him. The move to us might have come too early for him. I never really saw the talent – he seems tidy at times but also has a lot of difficulty with positioning and plays timidly – but it was a low-risk gamble and he’s been professional to my knowledge. Things can of course change, but I would be fine with him seeking opportunities elsewhere. Hopefully we can get a fee that’s not too much lower than what we paid!
It might hurt us on the pitch but I think selling him for a reasonable fee this year is the way to go. When he’s on, he moves our team up a level in a way that will be hard to replace. But the mix of his injury record with us, periods where his levels dropped quite noticeably last season, and the legal troubles that will continue to hang over him mean that this might be a good time to cash out on him, especially if we’re trying to overhaul our midfield and if there’s a market for him. We might lose out on the short term (experienced player and his fee probably won’t match his worth) but it could make it a forward-looking move if we get someone young with strong potential.
Chelsea are more ruthless with their personal actions. I can certainly think of more Chelsea players who were deemed surplus to requirements at the time and went on to have good careers elsewhere. Chelsea have also enjoyed many periods of success over the past 20 years, so their players often come with championship experience. Chelsea generally quotes reasonable prices and is willing to move quickly. And, there’s the possibility you can get a better price if they/their family feel settled in London.
Don’t get me wrong, I hesitate when I see those links and am personally lukewarm on Havertz (especially with the fees being thrown around) and Jorginho (had a couple of great games for us but seems like a short-term gamble that will come out to a small loss). But I can see why we’ve targeted their players, more so than other teams. I see Luiz as a success and Willian as an avoidable mistake, so our record is decidedly mixed.
I think focusing on the “reject” label is misguided (with any team). Better fits can unlock talent, which is almost always there. But I definitely understand why people have paused over the specific Chelsea players we’ve been linked with (and followed through on) in recent years.
Linux Mint may look a bit outdated and doesn’t benefit from the Latest and Greatest version of some programs (ala Arch), but it still provides an excellent out of the box experience. It’s been my daily driver for a production environment for years, and I’ve converted older family members to use it as their daily driver without issues. (They prefer it over Windows!)
I did recently encounter a bug where it would fail to install the latest version if Secure Boot was enabled at the time of installation, but that was due to a key signing issue/expiration from upstream (Ubuntu) and the developers have already promised a new approach that would address and future-proof that in the upcoming version. It was my first time in years I hit a stumbling block on installation.
That aside, the onboarding process has only gotten better and is now outstanding. (It has a little Welcome program that walks you through setting up system snapshots, proprietary drivers, and even enable automatic security updates. It’s accessible and actually helpful to newcomers.) The distribution upgrade utility is simple, works well, and does a good job of nudging when it’s time to upgrade (without making you feel forced). It also anchors to Ubuntu LTS releases, which means you actually don’t need to upgrade often if the feature set does the job for you. In terms of usability, I think we hit the Year of the Linux Desktop a while ago (for general productivity users).
In short, I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Mint to someone who is either new or willing to give up some of the bleeding edge opportunities for stability, and I think it has been able to consistently deliver an excellent out of box experience for years now.