Madge said he ran like a footballer! I should have put 'footballer' in inverted comma's. We'll have to see how he goes against Villa and even then he'll surely need at least half a dozen games before we can come to a verdict. If he doesn't score in the first few games you will have an abundance of fans who will be stating the usual Altidore/Proschwitz/Cousin/Simpson/Graham cr@p by saying that he's a "holding forward' (give me a bloody break) a 'target man' (ditto) or that 'he'll come good'. There is an enormous amount of pressure on this bloke and let us not forget that the English Premier League is far removed from the 'Siberian Steppes' like football pitches in Russia. Posters criticize me and take my posts totally out of context when I comment on so-called 'strikers'. Most of my criticism is leveled at those posters who try to tell me that 'cr@p' is cream by telling me that Sagbo and Aluko are 'different' sort of 'strikers'! C'mon, neither are 'strikers' @rseholes and should be charged with trying to impersonate a 'footballer'!
It's a bit daft this thread. If he plays most of the game against Villa then we'll have more of an inkling of his worth to the club. I reckon he'll score against them.
I don't really understand why the hell he was brought on; we had taken an attacking player off and replaced him with a defensive one. Why, when only 0-1 away from home, would you introduce a brand new player with 10mins to go; Ramirez was having some role in midfield which we needed to maintain, so an established squad player would have been a better choice. Then to switch Brady and Quinn in the final throws was just as questionable - was it really necessary? Then a bit of daftness from Hudds and a cracking free-kick.
The first sub was obviously to combat their threat down our left where the introduction of Navas had meant they were 2 on 1 all the time. Robertson also offered something of an out ball on the counter. Ramirez up front on his own wasn't holding onto anything by that point. He'd done his job in helping us get the lead. The obvious replacement would have been Jelavic but presumably he wasn't quite fit enough. Brady seemed to be limping slightly when he went off, and Quinn was another hardworking body to throw on who could also help us keep the ball a bit better when we got it. It all seemed to work pretty well cos they hardly had a shot as the half went on. The free kick we couldn't do a thing about. It happens.
On the BBC commentary at the time, we apparently wanted to bring him on sooner but he'd gone for a dump!
I am fine with the first sub, a defensive player coming on who can also carry the ball, not an issue with that. Bringing N'Doye on was tantamount to going down to ten men; he was a fish out of water and it showed. We were defending a 0-1 lead and we needed all ten guns firing with effect, we decided to go with nine, why? Quinn for Brady might of been necessary, but I couldn't see any limp or loss of play from Brady; it simply seemed disruptive with only a couple of minutes to go. I agree that the free-kick was superb, but it was given for a reason and the reason was a bloody daft action from Hudds that he really should not have done in that critical zone; he's a pro and it created a threat. I can sympathise with Bruce's comments about it but they would have been different comments at the other end. Hudds had no reason for the arm contact and he knows the risks of it and didn't get away with it; another of those daft personal mistakes Bruce talks about. I'm not saying it's the end of the world but it shouldn't be ignored. N'Doye coming on was crass, IMO.
As I said Fez, I assume Jelavic would have been the preferred option. N'doye wasn't amazing but I didn't think he was terrible either. He was more useful than Ramirez in that situation.
Just watched it on Sky and could see the Brady limp, so that one's sorted. Still far from convinced about the need to use N'Doye.
Hernandez was also sat on the bench, Jelavic must have had ten minutes in him and I don't know what you saw to say that N'Doye was more useful in that situation, he didn't get in the game.
9/10 for that prrformance...does he panic whe he gets the ball and is surrounded by opposition players...does he ****!
He was outstanding tonight. If he hadn't signed for us and Hernandez had started tonight, I'm not sure we still win that game. He was the difference.
I have to say that he had some nice touches, twists & turns, a few little tricks, but it's still too early, Hernandez scored on his debut & everyone now thinks he's ****, which he's not, but still needs time. Let's not get carried away on either side of this one.
However in all of the games that he's played for us Hernandez has never looked as complete a forward that N'Doye looked tonight, he was ****ing outstanding, and that game tonight will only serve to put pressure on Abel to prove that he also has what it takes.
I disagree, he clearly showed tonight that he has all of the tools and that he knows how to use them, he also had an immediate instinctive partnership with Jelavic. I only needed to see him tonight to be convinced that he's the real deal, and, if it's true that we only paid £2.2m for him, it must be the deal of the year!
If he keeps us up then it will be a 2.2 million expense for an extra 80 million in revenue for an extra year of staying up. If that isnt the deal of the year its damn well close to it.
