i rated ***an, should of kept him imho but we dont know if injuries have taken there toll,in his prime was better than both Brady n Stewart at this time, good luck to him at Bradford;]
This. I originally said we should have held onto ***an for squad depth, but it appears we don't need it. Not in the wingers department, at least. I still maintain that we should have handed Duke another 1 year deal and maybe even Belaid.
Duke was too inconsistent, check out the howler for goal two in his last game(there is one good save on the clip too), he's shipped 5 goals in his first three games and they are yet to win since he joined. Also worth looking at this clip for Devitt's goal, it's a great piece of skill. [video]http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14924321.stm[/video]
Let's analyse that statement. ***an was either a right winger or a striker. Strikers Pecking Order: Waghorn, Fryatt, McLean, Simpson, Barmby, ***an, Adebola. (I would say that Fryatt/Waghorn are on par) Wingers Pecking Orders: Stewart, Brady, Koren, Garcia, Devitt, probably Pusic. In fact, I'd even put Rosie right wing ahead of ***an. Only Danny Emerton would be behind him for me. And Atkinson.
As for Duke, he was 6'5" and got lobbed on his goal line all the time. Myhill had the same problem for some reason but he made up for it in other areas. Admittedly, I also thought it was wrong to get rid of Duke at first but it seems we've got better 'keepers on smaller wages, so again, good call Nige.
Was that Devitt assisting the second goal, too? Hard to tell. When I mentioned hanging onto Duke I was talking about 3rd choice, although despite that clip he'd still get ahead of Gulacsi at the moment.
Basso looks streets ahead of Duke based on what we have seen so far. I'd imagine that Joe Corrigan knew a bit about keepers having been a fantastic one himself and that is why Duke was shown the door, Shakespeare is a very astute judge of players too so I trust in the management.
I wasn't blaming Duke for all the goals, the play leading up to the first was appalling, they just kept backing off the attacking player, but he should never have let that second in. I'm not saying Duke was rubbish, just that he's not as good as Basso and I don't think it was a mistake to let him go(though I'll reserve judgement on whether Gulasci is a competent No.2, until we've seen a bit more of him).
I would take ***an back in our team. Ino people are saying he was all work and no final product but he would run tirelessly for the team, get in the opposition faces and pressure the opposition into mistakes. Yrs he wasn't the most gifted player ever to grace the kc but he never gave up unlike.most of the players who got us relegated from the pl.
Duke would definitely be my number 2, and pushing Basso for number 1 spot. Basso may slightly edge it for me out of the two but not much between them.
There's a big difference between wearing your heart on your sleeve, caring ****loads about the club and putting in maximum effort every game (i.e. Barmby) and being an irritating little petulant twat niggling at the opposition, whinging at the ref and giving away loads of pointless free-kicks and getting booked unnecessarily (i.e. ***an). Found his level clogging away in league two.
