He was superb on Saturday, and is really starting to look like the player we were all hoping would fire us to promotion this season. It's absolutely imperative that we keep hold of him in January, though how easy this will be with plenty of Premiership teams no doubt sniffing about I'm not sure. Palace, Koo Pee Arr, Leicester and Stoke are all openly on the hunt for a new striker, and I imagine Hoops is exactly the kind of striker they'll be looking for so we've got to be strong this window and keep hold of him at all costs. If we don't go up this season then he'll definitely be off in the summer as he's made it clear he wants to be in the Premiership, so let's hope we can keep hold of him for the rest of the season at least and that his goals and performances propel us to promotion.
Agree. He was instrumental in our second half slaughter, but he is our striker, not our creator. Or is he.
At long last there seems to be an understanding between the top two, Jerome and Hooper currently. Starting to link well, play off each other, knowing who needs to drop deep / push wide etc. And the more games they start together, the better this understanding will become. Happy days ahead, hopefully
Agreed - their link play on Saturday was good and they appear to enjoy playing alongside each other. Their big man/ small man link-up reminded me of the great days of John Manning and Hugh Curran - now that is going back a bit !
Not so much "Big Man / Little Man", but one of the best partnerships I've seen at Carrow Road was Boyer / MacDougall
I have always thought that Hooper will be the key. He played well for us last year when he was fit and will do again this year if we can supply him with chances/ if he can make them then we really are onto a winner!
If they can create a Boyer/McDougall synopsis the promotion is almost certainly guarenteed. They were just the best for any team they played together for. Luckily we were the main benefactors.
Agree Munky he is a class above Grabban we need to keep him to stand any chance of getting out of this division
I always thought the forum was quiet after we won. I guess it's no surprise there hasn't been much activity after a 5-0 win. We did have a very good spell early in the season with Hooper not even involved; now that he is involved and creating goals and our players are slowly returning from injury (e.g. Wes and R. Bennett) we could really start to push our way up the table! OTBC
Those were the halcyon days KIO. Boyer was brilliant and so under-estimated. Bournemouth prodiges funnily enough (noting their recent rise to prominence) under the stewardship in those days of a certain Mr. Bond!
Yes hopefully and this weekend is massive in that chase as the wheels are wobbling a little at the Baseball Ground, er Pride Park , er what is it called now?
Boyer was the player most think Wes is, but unfortunately his end product is no-where near as good as Charlie's.
Just checked, 120 games for us and 34 goals, all in the first division. No stats on how many he created for Ted. Plus a lone England cap in 1976 to add to his three under 23 caps. He played three seasons for us so averaged 11 goals per.
Like all strikers, Grabban has been through a lean spell where nothing was going right for him and he basically couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. That well taken goal against Huddersfield will have done his confidence the world of good. When things are not going well for the team the forwards are the first to get heckled even when they are not getting the required service ! I fully expect Grabban to kick on from here, as the saying goes; "you don't become a bad player overnight". As for Lafferty, well it hasn't helped him being played out wide IMHO and Hooper is an excellent all round striker and without going over too much old ground, I blame Hughton's tactics for his poor return last year. Injuries didn't help his cause either did it?
I agree with the comparison between Boyer and Hooper. It's the same awareness of where other players are and unselfish lay-offs and the partnership with Jerome looks really promising. It was also great to see Wes back and playing that inch perfect through pass to set up Grabban's excellent goal.
