Nico Williams is not a replacement for Lewandowski. Those two players have nothing in commong and they play not the same football at all. Lewandowski played with less speed, but he puts more emphasis on positioning and one of his advantages is a strong instinct for game situations that can't easily be anticipated.
Nico Williams far more often plays 1v1 against defenders and he likes to speed up with the ball and dominate on the wing.
This is a problem that many coaches would like to have. Flick has Raphinha and Williams available and if he wants to replace Lewandowski, I think he would rather take Raphinha and let him play in the center of their attack line. Nico Williams won't play in the middle. Maybe Flick will try it out, but I don't think so.
It all depends if Raphina will be able to cope with that task as a number 9 finisher. Raphina and Nico Williams are playing on the same wing which makes Nico and Lewandoski not perfect for replacement. Does it mean that Nico Williams will be a substitute to Raphina or how does Flick intend playing both of them at the same time. However, let's see what happens first, if Bilbao will accept payment in little fractions overtime.Nico Williams far more often plays 1v1 against defenders and he likes to speed up with the ball and dominate on the wing.
This is a problem that many coaches would like to have. Flick has Raphinha and Williams available and if he wants to replace Lewandowski, I think he would rather take Raphinha and let him play in the center of their attack line. Nico Williams won't play in the middle. Maybe Flick will try it out, but I don't think so.
That is the point I was trying to make here, but if I had to make a decision whether Nico Williams or Raphinha is more useful to the team if they played in the middle, in my opinion it would be Raphinha. Again, I know that both Nico Williams and Raphinha prefer to play on the left side, but Flick will have to find a solution and my guess is that he would rather put Raphiniha in the middle sometimes.
I don't think it would be a good idea to give Raphinha less playing time. First he won't accept that for a very long time and second, his performance last season was ballon d'Or level. Nico Williams won't have the same output as Raphinha. The development Raphinha went through is hardly ever seen and he went from talent to world class.
It is a problem that every coach wants to have on the one hand, but on the other hand I am curious how Flick will solve it. He can't play with 4 strikers. Or can he?
