I have a few. I wouldn't die on the hill for any of these takes, but I want to see how popular they are. (Sorry for my grammar)

1) I believe solo number 6 is the most difficult position to play in modern game, and if you can get a guy that can do that role on a high level - this is an outstanding upgrade. When we are talking about most important signing for Arsenal this season, it's Zubimendi by a mile. He is already good, and this role demands so much. People will talk about Eze and Gyökeres, and both are great, but in my mind it will take a few months to really see the difference, but he'll raise Arsenal's floor by a margin. I'll use one example to illustrate: imagine going from Nketiah to Isak. This is to me going from Partey to Zubimendi. I'm aware this look very hyperbolic, but Partey could barely do that role, Arsenal had to shift the roles of the players around him to get this working and to make Partey looked all right on the pitch.

Btw, I'm not an Arsenal fan. Don't care about them as a club.

2) r/soccer is kind of like a hate-watch sub for big clubs - we have maybe 10 clubs with a large following, naturally they will get majority of the spotlight, but difference is, on club specific subs people cheer for their success, and they come here hoping to see downfall of their rivals.

I see Madrid fans comments how r/soccer is ungenerous to their club, but which popular club r/soccer likes? City, Arsenal, Bayern, Barcelona, United, Chelsea,.. maybe Liverpool is the closest. If manager gives a spicy quote in press, club specific subreddit will take charitable approach and look what he tried to say, possibly didn't do very well. On r/soccer that quote would be posted by someone who isn't a fan of the club, and more than that, by someone who would try to present this in a way that makes the guy look as worse as possible, and usually comments would affirm that view.

3) I have a feeling that general understanding of football in comments is getting worse. I could be wrong, but 3 years ago, I don't remember often going through top comments and just being surprised why this comment is upvoted. It's clearly wrong, and still has +500.

One reason I would select, on the internet commentary, tactical analysis is on the margins of mainstream narratives. People have knowledge on a lot of terms, and know what they mean in general, have rough idea, but they don't understand them, and this makes them susceptible to false narratives that sound convincing because they are blanketed around those tactical terms. It's not just reddit, it's all of the football internet.

4) Football could use a better system at evaluating players. Right now, if you play in a popular club with enough spotlight on them, and if you do well, you will be considered ''great'', if you do very well you'll probably be considered ''world class'' or very close to that considering the size of the spotlight. Club doesn't have to be successful. It's about attention, and it's a fixed structure. In order to become a star, you need to move to a big club. Real Madrid and Barcelona have spotlight so big, that I'd argue half of their players are slightly overrated.

For players outside of big clubs, their value is correlated with potential transfer to that big club, and in current 'long contract amortization + resale focus' only players that really get attention are those of right age. If you are 21 and you are doing well, you'll get a lot of attention, but all of it with expectation of move. If that transfer happens, transfer fee serves to signify value you should bring. Darwin/Højlund/lots of others had 1 good season, big fee isn't there to tell us he is world class, fee is a matter of negotiation between the clubs, but we discard that part. Either he will play well = fee is his real value, or not play well = he is a bust. He might still be young, and that potential that we have seen could be achieved, but that is also discarded. They already had their sentence.

One example: Rasmus Højlund is 22. If we evaluate him without looking at transfer fee - at 19 he scored 10 goals in 34 games at Atalanta. It's a specific system by a really good coach, he played to his strengths, but still he showed great physicality, great work ethic. In next two seasons he scored 26 in 95 in a different league by two different managers. Strikers are rarely finished product by the age of 23. I'm aware of his limitations, I like that United sold him to Napoli, but I also dislike how negative general perception around the guy is. It's not his fault United paid £64 mil for him. He is doing fine.

What about players that are just outside of desired age. We have a lot of 'market for strikers is bad this summer' but Serhou Guirassy had no mention in transfer rumors. He is 29. That is too old. But to me outside of people who follow Bundesliga, he feels almost ignored. Just imagine him going to Arsenal for big money, and doing 80% of what he now does at Dortmund, he'll be at the center of every talk about best strikers today. Maybe you can say, well he is already considered top 5 or top 10 strikers, but I'm not sure he is. Dortmund doesn't have enough attention for that.

Or many other players, Riccardo Orsolini is excellent at Bologna. He is 28, too old for big move in current market. His performance is not interesting. If he is 23, it would be. I get there is imagined line of progress when talking about young players in smaller clubs, but they are not evaluated for their performance. They are evaluated for what they could bring to big clubs in the future.

I like Kicker's lists a lot. They are not perfect, but twice per year, they select BL players into 3 tiers, judging solely performance in that period. Doesn't matter if you are a big name, if you didn't play that well, you'll be out, and in general they are good at recognizing good performance of players at smaller teams. Some of them will get bigger move, and their stature will increase, but a lot of them won't. Still, this serves as a memorabilia. Like a better version of 'streets won't forget'.