Naismith needs to improve quicker than you can say Van Wolfswinkel please log in to view this image Striker Steven Naismith Appearances 10 Goals 1 Shots 14 Shots on target 21% Offsides 5 Sunderland, nicknamed the Black Cats but more like Bear Grylls, are increasingly confident that their much-practised survival skills give them a critical edge over their rivals in this season’s relegation fight, although Norwich’s manager, Alex Neil, reckons “that is a lot of rubbish”. And the Scot is right. Because it is not Sunderland’s experience that gives them a better chance of staying up than Newcastle and Norwich; it is their superior firepower, in particular Jermain Defoe. Fabio Borini and Duncan Watmore also have big roles to play but Defoe, with 13 league goals this season, is their sharpest finisher. How Norwich, for whom no one has scored more than five league goals all season, would love someone that prolific. Steven Naismith was signed in January to boost firepower but has only flickered and was ineffective on Saturday. He scored on his debut but not since and, with Timm Klose’s injury meaning Norwich are likely to continue conceding heavily in their last four games, he needs to find form quicker than you can say Ricky van Wolfswinkel. Paul Doyle
Well, he spent most of the season festering on the bench of mid-table Everton, so not many of us could understand the managerial clamour to get him to sign for us. We sure as hell still can't?
I think we need to stop focusing on one player when we lose, it's not as though there isn't plenty of choice for a scape goat. At least Naismith has some premiership pedigree, the only other one in the team with that is Ruddy and perhaps Brady.
Still a tragic waste of nearly 8.5 million squids, though, however you choose to dress it up. For that sort of money, the club is entitled to expect an upgrade on what went before (Wes, Howson, Vadis etc) and there hasn't been one!
I'm not sure that Naismith was purchased as an upgrade for those players. Indeed AN rarely plays any of those players in the same position that Naismith generally plays in. Indeed it's one of the things that troubles me about AN. Of the 3 I think only Howson has the potential to be better than Naismith has been in the past. Hoolahan on a single day could be the best of the lot, but he's far too inconsistent and gives the ball away far too much. Next year 8.5 million or more will be the price championship clubs seeking promotion will be paying for a player of Naismith's quality, which is what we've done only 6 months earlier. Our biggest problem as I see it and have been saying since we got promoted is that we needed to buy 2 PL quality CB's and a striker better than what we currently have. We did neither in the summer, although we eventually bought one CB in January, (however at the time we bought Klose it was by no means certain he was good enough) and if we get relegated not being will to push the boat out financially and persisting with playing players out of position (i.e. Martin, Howson) Klose has made his mark, Naismith hasn't, although he may well do in the future, as he did at Everton in the past. If we wanted a guaranteed better player than Naismith then we should have paid the going rate, which was significantly more than we paid for Naismith. We didn't we took a gamble and paid less, same with Klose, ones paid off on hasn't. Indeed we did exactly then same think with appoint AN and I'm sitting well and truly on the fence with that one.
Maybe give Klose time to recover and solid defence drills . Perhaps practice taking penalties too they say the decisions even out over a season so we are due a few in the last few games. Wes just does that silly Pirlo chip one .
We'll we persevered with Martin at CB for a lot longer. Anyway it's not like we suddenly come on leaps and bounds when he gets taken off. I'm not saying he's playing well, but he is far from the only one who isn't playing well enough. It seems that none of our players are at the top of their game, which makes me wonder if it's just coincidence that every player is not playing to their potential at the same time or if its down to the manger. The only exception is Klose and maybe that's just because he doesn't do Scottish. We need to get real it's not just down to Naismith, there again he does do Scottish.
This is true. In some games, a player will be off-colour, not fully match fit, whatever, and those around will raise their game to compensate. That's what seems to be missing this season, one or two 'flair' players who can make something happen out of nothing in the odd game. Redmond has what it takes - he's either not showing it as the season wears on...or he's on the bench because Jarvis is in ahead of him? I'd like to have seen more of Vadis in a central role but it ain't going to happen. His two or three games pushed on the right were no disaster. Oh well.
Not really as we are still owed three pens (as the one at your place was correctly awarded that doesn't count against the dubious ones) and 3 offside goals. Would make it close!
