Unless you're Messi, Ronaldo, Bale, Falcao, van Persie, Neymar, Iniesta, Xavi or me Joking aside I absolutely agree, but last season Ade showed no desire until the last 3/4 games to at least try and improve his form which really annoyed me (and I'm sure others). If the Ade of them final few games turned up at the start of the season, I reckon we'd have cemented 4th and possibly even 3rd.
What annoyed me was,he fannied about going to the Cup of Nations,then after it he was swanning around Africa,when he should have been back at Spurs,trying to get his form back
Apart from Berbatov Ade is the best holder of the ball that we have had up front for some years. If he stays and hits a run of form we will all be glad (again) that we have him. Defoe is always underated by us fans if he was playing somewhere else he would be a target buy for us. I think we often undervalue our strikers they all hit barren patches even RVP does and we do see a lot of chances go begging because we create a lot. Getting a top striker on the end of our team would make a big difference, we all know that. Here's hoping Soldado is that man.
I think Ade has a natural languid style, a bit like Berbatov, it's easy to confuse this with a lack of effort. A Fiat 500 always looks busier than a Mercedes Limo.
I think that's what makes it worse though, the fact we create so many chances and yet our strikers can never seem to hit more than 1 goal a game if they do indeed score that is. You'd think from the chances we create even the likes of Heskey could score a few!
They're is losing goal scoring form and then there is: 1 - first touch that goes further than an Aaron Lennon long range shot 2 - the inability to pass successfully to a team mate who is less than 10yds away. These were the 2 MAJOR annoyances i had with Ade for 75% of the time he played last season. A drop in goalscoring form i can forgive. Not being on top of you game is fine. The loss of the most basic footballing skills though? He did cover a lot of ground and appeared to be trying the majority of the time i saw him, i can't fault him on that.
I personally think Berbatov is on a completely different level to Ade though. I've always said and maintain the fact that Berbatov is world class. Ade, on form is a top striker no doubt but I'd never liken to Berbatov to be honest. When Berba wasn't scoring he was the catalyst for many goals in our side, that's why Keano enjoyed his best two seasons with us when paired with him. Berba made everything look easy, Ade just looks uninterested. Berbatov is a Rolls Royce, Ade is a second hand BMW.
Heskey! now you're getting silly but you're right but many of these chances are knife edge. It's a difficult one because the higher quality your players the more variations they can play therefore making unique chances. It's probably easier when you have one trick ponies that the whole team understands, AND KNOWS, how they can score. I mean say like Stoke high ball in big striker jumps, 'Goal' Spurs would expect to beat clubs like that because we have more variation. Do you get my drift?
Perhaps Heskey was a bit OTT! Yeah see what you're saying but with the higher quality of players, shouldn't they be smart enough to know where their team mates will lay on the chances? I don't expect every chance created to be converted but I'd say on average we must make about a good 8-9 chances a game, sometimes a lot more and yet to usually end up with just one goal from a striker (plus the wonder striker from Bale) you'd have to question what's going wrong up front.
Lol - just going back to the hooper chit chat earlier, apparently he's having a medical with Norwich today! What a turn around!
What's going on up front has been THE QUESTION and we have all been asking it for sometime. Now at least Spurs seem more intent on trying to do something about it.
I reckon Hooper will flop in the EPL. *Que this being a jinx for him bagging a hat-trick against us now*.
They should be smart enough and I'm hoping that even without any personal changes everyone should understand the AVB tactics better and they will have more time together to build these understandings. Bale rather dominated things towards the end of the season and we were in danger of the whole team becoming a one trick, perhaps not pony, but a one trick thoroughbred.
