He put in a good shift today, but once again just never looks likes grabbing a goal, and indeed does look short of confidence when even a half chance comes his way. If it is a lack of confidence, should he not be playing at a slightly lower standard with the reserves? I know this would leave us with only Hooper as a viable striker in the first XI, but how can RVW possibly get his confidence back if he is not scoring or getting clear cut chances?
No dilemma for me - he was superb, has really added a lot to his game since that first match and that tells me everything I need to know. The goals will come based purely on his technique. If one goes in now, I suspect we will see him get a hatful. Just being started and the cheers he got from the crowd must have been a huge lift
I should be careful - I'm not totally convinced. He still actually has to do something, but today has added huge amounts to my confidence in him.
I think Hughton did the right thing in playing him today, saving Hooper for next week which on paper is/was a better chance of points. Sticking RvW in the reserves is hardly a vote of confidence in him, I think Hughton's doing the right thing in keeping him in the first team, even if more often that not he features from the bench. He might not look like scoring, but he's more likely to score if he's on the pitch than watching from the stands.
I'm not so sure, I reckon I have an equal chance of scoring sitting on my seat in front of my PC here in Thailand (a bit like Elmo)
Well its not like Hooper is banging them in at the moment either. I thought he put in a very good shift today, him and Hooper are different players and that good as it mean we can change our style of play lime today we were trying to thread it through to wolf to get on the end of but we were looking to hooper to hold the ball up using his strength. Wolfy's season hasn't panned out, he looks criminally low on confidence the injury hasn't helped that fact that before these last few games we've been struggling to really create chances hasn't given him much of a change to change his luck. If we keep playing like we are, especially with Howson coming back then there will be more opportunities for him and Hooper to start firing.
Well I thought he was great yesterday, really chased their defence and made things hard for them. Can see he will look to some like a dirty player but actually he just doesn't know when to give up, in a good way. I agree with Rob, I think when they start going in, their will be a flood of them.
Completely agree, I thought he had his best game in the shirt yesterday and although he didn't score he put in a hell of a shift, pulled the defenders all over the place, showed some great movement and had a massive hand in Snoddy's winner. Couldn't believe all the crap he was getting on twitter, well actually I can, too many of our fans are showing their true colours as having absolutely no bloody idea about football. The level of ignorance amongst football fans in general is frightening, and in today's world where every arsehole has the ability to broadcast their opinions to the World Wide Web it's also dangerous.
This^ - up until now, the system and quality of play hasn't actually produced that many chances for him. Now things a looking like they might be clicking - probably because some of our injured players are returning, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he finishes the season in style. From what I have seen of him so far, his work-rate and positioning have all been excellent - a proper team player as well. Perhaps a lack of confidence means that the few chances he has had haven't gone in,but that's hardly surprising given the expectation and what his own ambitions incoming here would have been.
I thought he worked his ass off yesterday and was a constant nuisance to the Spuds defence. He was constantly pulling Vertonghen and Dawson out of position and produced his best game for us in my opinion. Once the goal comes, and it will, his confidence will grow and we will see what made him such an exciting buy for us last summer.
